Time For Clam Chowder

Long ago we lived in Maritime Canada. However, my affair with clams began when I made that fateful first drive up to Boston in the fall of 1967. I had no idea where I was going, but I had a map, a car, enough money for a few nights on the road. I believe I stopped the first night someplace in Conneticutt after driving right through New York on I95 at rush hour. Those were the days, my blue GTO could take me anywhere.

The second night, I stopped just south of Boston and on a lark I tried some fried clams. I was hooked. There were a couple of places in Harvard Square that had great fried clams, but soon I discovered clam chowder. When real whole fried clams were nowhere to be found, there was always a bowl of chowder to sample. Even today, if I am not trying to be good and stay away from rich food, I judge a restaurant by the quality of its clam chowder. It is easy to make thick chowder with no taste or one so rich that you can't taste the clams. Making a great bowl of clam chowder with just the right taste of clams is the sign of a great cook.

Maybe looking for that great bowl of chowder was one of the good reasons to go live in the Maritimes for sixteen years. It is a little ironic that the best clam chowder that I have ever eaten comes from someone who never met a clam until she was over twenty one.

I don't remember when my North Carolina bride made her first pot of clam chowder. Perhaps she was searching for a meal that would bury forever the boiled salt cod fish, potatoes, salt pork and beer that was a maritime favorite. Sometime in the first year in St. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia, Glenda remembers making her first pot of clam chowder. We even tried it with fresh steamed clams but figured out they were better dipped in butter and that the ones in a can did just fine for chowder. Over the years she has refined "the recipe."

Not many cold days go by in the fall before I start feeling like I need some clam chowder. It usually takes hinting for a week or so before we finally hit the grocery store and buy the ingredients.

Now six bowls and a couple of days into the latest batch, I can say it is the best yet. Here is the recipe. It is one of those "cook until done" recipes with lots of room for experimentation.

There are not many exact measurements but with the spirit of adventure you can make this chowder your own.

Cook until perfect five slices of the best bacon that you can find. Drain bacon on paper towel and save for later.

Leave the bacon drippings in the frying pan.

Take one large onion diced, one rib of celery diced and add to frying pan.
Cook until translucent in the bacon drippings.

Peel and cut into 1/2 inch cubes three large potatoes.
Add potatoes, cooked onions and celery to a large pot.
Add water until it is two inches over the vegetables.

Cover, bring to a boil and simmer covered until potatoes are tender.
Add three tablespoons of Minor's Clam Base- available at Amazon.com or http://www.soupbase.com/
Add undrained three large cans (8 oz) of minced clams.
Bring back to a good simmer and let simmer for a few minutes.

Thicken chowder with flour and milk mixed together (approximately 1/2 cup flour mixed with 1 1/2 cups of milk- we use skim milk) Gradually add, while stirring constantly.

Cook until thickened, you might need to add more flour and milk, just experiment until you find how you like it.

Add one pint of half and half (or whatever you have. We have used practically everything from skim milk to thick whipping cream), simmer until hot, DO NOT BOIL after you add the half and half.

Salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle some dill weed on top if you have it.

Serve with bacon crumbles and an optional 1/2 teaspoon of butter in each bowl. For an added treat we serve with slices of a French Batard bread that we used to buy on the market here in Roanoke. The bread is very similar to the bread bowls of San Francisco.  If you are near a Panera, they can sell you some bread bowls.

I mostly bake our own sourdough bread now. We stopped using the clam base several years ago, just too many chemicals. The version my wife makes in 2022 is made in 4.5 quart coquette has been downsized substantially. She cooks the bacon in the coquette and like most great cooks easily adapts her recipe which she hasn't looked at since I made her help me write it down. We would likely try fresh clams again if we lived where they were abundant. Fresh ones on the rocky shores where we lived in Nova Scotia were hard to find.

Eighteen years after we wrote this and nearly fifty years after our life in St. Croix Cove, it would be hard to get enough fresh one for chowder at a reasonable price. They were fifty cents each the last time we bought the fresh ones in the shell while we were living North Carolina shore from 2006 until 2021. However, a dozen of them made a wonderful appetizer, steamed and then dipped in butter.

May the great clam be with you. We have also adapted this recipe to fish chowder- which includes adding scallops and/or shrimp, and whatever fish we can find. If you are interested or have comments you send me a note through this contact form or to david "at" NLR "dot" CC and I will try to find it.

For more articles of interest, drop by my homepage or visit my Crystal Coast Life site.

 

 

Comments

[Erin]

Celery?!

[Leslie MacQueen]

Nicest presentation of a recipe I have ever seen. We live on PEI and have a beach just loaded with clams. You must come up and then possibly revise your recipe to read "fresh clams". Nothing like it.

[ocracokewaves]

Thanks for the compliment. I know better than to come to PEI a second time. I have been told that if you visit the Island twice, you'll never leave.

Actually I know better since I have been a number of times. You live in spot of wonderful natural beauty.

It is just a lot colder than where I am now in Cape Carteret, NC. We also have lots of clams and plenty of oysters. I think most of our blue mussels still come from up your way.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped at one of our beaches today.

http://coastalnc.org/channelatpoint
http://coastalnc.org/beachsoundview

Today we are about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and it should be near 80F or 27C by the middle of next week. Our strawberries have been ripe for a couple of weeks. As I remember yours aren't ripe until close to July so you should come for a visit.

We really should revise the recipe now that we live on the NC Coast. You can check our area on my other site, http://coastalnc.org which has mostly coastal information.

After all this talk about PEI, I'm hungry for one of your wonderful lobsters. One about 2.5 lbs would be just right for dinner.

[Lorraine E.]

As was said above this recipe was a fine presentation worthy of Julia Childs.

I make haddock chowder, just because my husband, of almost 60 years, likes haddock alot.
I Googled how to thicken sauces and it sent me here. I've added it to myt favorites.

[Audra]

Hmm, I've never thought of thickening my clam chowder w/ flour. I either make it thinner or go all out w/ cream. I thicken other sauces w/ flour. I don't know why I never thought of doing it for chowder. I'll definitely be trying this, thanks.
I always add my clams at the end (where you add the 1/2 and 1/2 would be good.) Adding them earlier makes them too chewy. I bet if your wife used fresh clams but did not add them until the end you would change your mind about fresh or canned being all the same. I've become a clam chowder snob since I discovered making mine w/ fresh clams.