This is one that I have made a few times on the ice during the all nighters on Moosehead Lake in Maine.
If you are making this on the ice all you need to do is throw the ingredients in the cooking pot (so it doesnt take up room) and then catch some fish
Here is how I would do it normally....
Use a large spaghetti pot (12 QT) to put your stuff in. Put in 5 large potatoes, a package of raw bacon, 1 stick of butter, 1 large red onion, a large can of sweet corn, bottle of Cajun spice, bottle of basil, bottle of red pepper and a handful of salt in a zip lock, a gallon of milk and a 1/2 gallon of water along with 1 can of evaporated milk.
(I always used the lake water since I was cooking and our water was good as this saved lugging more weight out there)
When you are ready with your fish ( I would shoot for 1# of meat or a bit more ) Put your pot on the burner and set the flame to medium.
Chop the bacon up in 1" pieces and put that in right away. As that bacon starts to fry, move to the potatoes.
Peel the potatoes and chunk into pieces about 1.5" square. Take your time and get that size just right because at the end, the potatoe chunks will get smaller and you want some size to them when you are ready to eat.
By now, the bacon should be fried up good and it's time to add the potatoes. Start cutting up the onion and cube that as well but smaller. maybe 1/2" pieces. Add the onion and continue to fry it all. When the onions are about half cooked (starting to look translucent) It is time to add the 1 gallon of milk, The water and the stick of butter and the evaporated milk.
Cut your fish into 1" chucks or a bit larger and add them in at this time.
Bring it all to a near boil and then drop the heat to medium low or low. Do not rapid boil the milk!
Add the spices to taste. I cannot tell you how much to use because it is a very personal thing when working with Cajun spices. I will say that you should be safe starting with a few table spoons of cajun and a table spoon of basil along with a teaspoon of salt.
Keep tasting until you have it close and by close I mean a bit weak. You can always add more
Now add the corn and just stir every 5 minutes or so unless you feel it starting to stick to the bottom of the pot. If it starts sticking then either stir more often or turn the heat down more. Before you eat.... take a good amount of the potatoe (maybe 25%) and try and smash it up good. This will add alot of body to the chowder.
I generally fish out a bowl of potato pieces and mush it up with my spoon then add it back in for ten minutes prior to eating.
Chowder is better the longer you cook it and generally we would have eaten the whole pot over a few hours time , all the while as it continued to cook. Just remember that too much heat is a bad thing
This chowder is good at home too but being a simple concoction... It is going to really shine on the ice
