New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients

30-40 Fresh Clams (The More, The Better)

2-3 Cups Reserved Clam Juice

3 Slices Bacon, Diced (Uncooked)

½ Onion (Red and/or Yellow)

3-4 Tbsp Flour

2 Potatoes

1½ Cups Milk

2 Tbsp Butter

1 Tsp Oregano

1 Tsp Dill (Finely Chopped, More For Garnish)

1 Tsp Parsley

3 Bay Leaves

Salt & Pepper to Taste (~½ - 1 Tsp Each)

This menu idea started in San Francisco (far from New England, of course) where Anastasia tried her first American clam chowder in 2008.  More recently, she and I had some San Francisco-style chowder on Pier 39.  It was served in sourdough bread bowls and tasted amazing.  And now, during our current trip to Block Island, I finally had the chance to show Ana the “art” of digging for clams.

We went to the one of the two best places I know to find clams…near Cormorant Cove on the road that runs to the Coast Guard Station.  It was Ana’s first attempt at clamming, and because she didn’t yet have a license…I did most of the digging.  She did try her hand at digging for a few moments, but luckily got tired of the physical labor just minutes before the shellfish warden paid us a visit and asked to see my license.  What lucky timing.

Ana spent most of the rest of the time splashing around in the sandy-muck, outlining areas that she insisted would be good for finding clams.  She said she “felt” them…and I imagined she was using her feet much in the way that robins and other birds use their fee to “feel” the worms in the ground.  Strangely, she was often right.  Of course, the entire flat was a clamming bed, and she could have told me to dig anywhere, and we would have found at least a few clams.

A storm was coming…and we fully intended to only find about 20 clams.  Besides, Ana gets cold easily and I knew we wouldn’t be out for long.  We got our small number of clams and left just in time…a heavy downpour started about ten minutes after we left.

The Clams

Of course, the best way to make clam chowder is to find (or buy) fresh clams still in their shells.  If you can do this…steam them in a pot with a little water to provide the initial steam.  Once they’ve all opened (5-10 minutes), save the clam juice, remove the clam meat from their shells, and set aside for later.  Also throw away any clams that don’t naturally open on their own after they’ve been cooked.  They could be unhealthy to eat…and is one clam really worth the risk?

If you can’t get fresh clams, a 16oz can should be enough…but feel free to indulge.

The Potatoes

For our small batch of chowder, we used two potatoes, which had been cut into cubes about ½” on a side.  In a small pot, boil the diced potatoes with the bay leaves in the clam juice you’ve just saved.  Depending on how many clams you used and how much water you initially added, you may need to use water to adjust the total volume of clam juice.  We boiled the potatoes in about 1 cup clam juice and 1 cup water (2 cups of “clam juice” total).

Cook the potatoes about halfway.  You don’t want them to be completely cooked, because you run the risk of them turning to mush later.

The Bacon, Spices, Onion, and Roux

While the potatoes are-a-cookin’, add the butter, bacon, onion, oregano, and parsley in a frying pan.  Your goal here is similarly to not fully cook the onions, and so, you should aim for a soft, but not browned, onion.

When you’ve deemed your onions cooked, add the flower – slowly – while stirring the fry mixture.  The 3-4 Tbsp estimate is just that…a guess.  When I cook, my goal is to add enough flour to soak up the oils/fats that are in the pan.  In this case, you need enough to make a roux from the butter and bacon fat you have in the frying pan.

And I don’t know what my sister, the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduate would say, but if you’ve never made a roux, I’ve found it best when the final mixture is still oily, but thick enough that as the flour fries, the bubbles are firm enough to pop and then remain for a few seconds afterwards.  Another indicator to me is that I’ve added enough flour so as to eliminate all standing oils, which have been entirely incorporated into the roux.

By the way…I should have mentioned earlier…if you’ve never made a roux, it’s a toasted flour mixture with oil/fat that adds flavor (toasted flour flavor) and thickens your cooking.  The darker you toast the flour, the more flavorful the roux.

Putting-it-Together

Decant the clam juice from the potatoes…

OK…sorry…that’s a term I use frequently in lab and I figured I’d use it here…basically…pour off the clam juice leaving the bay leaves and potatoes behind.

…and add the juice to the roux-onion mixture.  Mix well and then add the mixture to a pot.  This could be the same pot as the one you cooked the potatoes, but again…you’re trying to control how much you cook the potatoes…so set them aside for a few more minutes.

Add to your chowder the milk, salt/pepper, and dill.  Heat to a low simmer and then add your potatoes back in.  Cook for a little while…then add your clams (chopped) in.  The chowder is ready when the potatoes are cooked to taste.

Bread Bowls

If we experiment with other types of bread bowls in the future, a link will appear right below this sentence.

For now, I needed to make a quick bread bowl and so bought frozen white bread dough from the store, thawed one, split it in half, formed each piece into a ball, added some oregano, salt, and parsley as seasoning, and let the dough rise for an hour before baking at 350 degrees until fully baked.  Nothing special. When done, the top crust was cut out and the fluffy bread inside was pushed down to make the bowl more waterproof.

Separately, I tried the following recipe, though didn’t get the chance to use it as a bread bowl.  Anastasia and I did, however, get the chance to try this bread the next night with pulled pork barbecue, which incidentally will be a future blog post...so stay tuned.

1 Loaf White Bread Dough, Thawed

¼ Red Onion, Finely Diced

2 Tbsp Chopped, Fresh Dill

1 Tsp Garlic Powder

3 Tbsp Grated Parmesan Cheese

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Mix all these ingredients, knead the dough a bit, and then form into balls.  Let rise for about two hours (or as desired) and then bake until fully cooked.

Other Ideas

Use more bacon!

Add red pepper flakes to the clam chowder for a little extra kick.  But don’t add too much because you don’t want the heat of the pepper to overcome all the other flavors…especially the bacon.

Enjoy!

JK