Best Clam Chowder recipe

I am making clam chowder for a crowd at our tailgate this weekend. I am looking for a recipe that can be made the day before and I am using canned clams. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

WORLD'S BEST CLAM CHOWDER

Posted by Olga at recipegoldmine.com 8/18/02 7:17:54 pm

2 (6 1/2 ounce cans) clams
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery
3 cup diced potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups half-and-half cream
2 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vinegar

Drain juice from clams and pour over potatoes. Add enough water to cover. Cook for about 10 minutes then add sugar, vinegar, and salt. Cook until potatoes are tender.

Melt butter, sauté celery and onions; then add flour and blend. Add half and half and milk stirring constantly. Add potatoes (do not drain) and mix thoroughly. Add clams. Garnish with crisp bacon.

I'm going to post this recipe even tho it uses fresh clams and maybe this quantity won't scare you since it's for a tailgate party (us restaurant folks don't know how to cook in small quantities unfortunately)

4 onions, diced
2 lb. butter
5 C flour
4 cans clam juice (this probably equals 1.5 gallons)
4 qt. HEAVY cream
1 gal. chopped clams, drained
1 t white pepper
5 bay leaves
1 t thyme leaves
6 Idaho potatoes diced, cooked and drained

Sweat onions in the butter. Add the flour to make roux. Add the clam juice and whisk until it comes to a boil and thickens. Add the pepper, bay leaves and thyme. Add the heavy cream and whisk until it too comes to a boil. Turn off the heat, stir in the clams and the potatoes. Further cooking of the clams at this point will make them rubbery. (I won the ChowdahFest in Boston one year with this recipe) It reheats very nicely although we rarely had to.......it was always sold out by the end of the evening.

Little smaller but also good:

Fry 1/2 lb salt pork in 1/4 inch cubes (also known as fatback in these parts) or not heavily smoked bacon slab bacon cut in cubes. Drain cubes when crisp and leave about 2 T drippings in pan.

Add 2 large diced onions to drippings and cook slowly till golden and limp.

Cube at appx 1/2 inch peeled white potatos (don't use red skinned waxy ones as the starch helps thicken the broth). Add these potato cubes to the pot with a big (28 oz or so) can of clams in their own juice (I get small Manila clams from Costco in large cans). Add some water and simmer for appx 1/2 hour while stirring every so often.

Test the potatos for tenderness and then add 1 pint 1/2 and 1/2. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

My favorite clam chowder came from the work cafeteria believe it or not. I asked for the receipe a couple times but was denied. It was very thick, not soupy at all. I have tried to repoduce the thickness by using either lots of flour or corn starch and have even tried adding instant mashed potato flakes.

Nothing works right, either taste floury or ???

Any suggestions?

Mike

I used the Boston Oyster House recipe. It uses a roux that is cooked until slightly discolored, it worked amazingly well. You can find it on the Food TV website.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeSh

My favorite clam chowder came from the work cafeteria believe it or not. I asked for the receipe a couple times but was denied. It was very thick, not soupy at all. I have tried to repoduce the thickness by using either lots of flour or corn starch and have even tried adding instant mashed potato flakes.

Nothing works right, either taste floury or ???

Any suggestions?

Mike

If you cook the flour with the butter, making a roux, and cook it long enough, it should not still taste floury. Cornstarch will just give you the viscosity of Chinese soups like hot and sour. You could also try cooking Idaho (baking) potatoes in the soup, then removing them and mashing them and returning them to the chowder. And use cream, not milk. Hope it helps.

I tried the Worlds Best clam chowder receipe posted above yesterday and it came out really well. Thanks for the post.

If you are truly looking for the world's best clam chowder, look no further. Salud.

dad's clam chowder (Rhode Island style)
30 big quohogs
1/2 # salt pork
8 potatoes
2 big onions

open clams and save juice. drain clams over soup pot. chop clams coarsely. dice onions and potatoes. cover potatoes to 1 inch of water. slice salt pork thin and render in fry pan. discard. add clams and onions and cook. bring clam juice to boil in pot and skim. add clams, onions, potatoes,water and 3 bay leaves. bring to boil. reduce to simmer and cook just 15 min. (to cook potatoes) important: allow to cool completely. remove bay leaf, adjust seasoning and reheat for best flavor.

This may be heresy, and if there's something wrong with it I'd like to be told! But I often use frozen hash browns when diced potatoes are called for. I haven't found anything wrong with it, but I'm not a cook--I just cook.

Are quahogs the best? What other clams work well? I'm on the West coast.

Elise---out there on the Left Coast i made a great "chowda" with razor clams-but i would imagine Pismo's would be fine---the trick is FRESH----fresher the clam,the "brighter" the flavor.

Thanks Tiki!

Confession- I'm an east coaster who has been a self-inflicted emigree to the Pacific these two decades! And most of the west coast clams you meet in even the best urban markets are small, heavy shelled and thin on flavour compared to such paragons as eastern bar clams, quahaugs and soft shell clams. There is a delicious west coast clam which generally gets chopped up and canned and so rarely is sold in the shell - the butter clam (genus Spisula). BC Ferries uses it in their chowders which would be good except they overdo the vegetable quantities and the salt. Another great clam (on both coasts) is the razor clam. Hard to get but very worth seeking.

quote:

Originally posted by EliseT

Are quahogs the best? What other clams work well? I'm on the West coast.

OMG CANNED CLAMS AND CLAM JUICE....
first BOIL 3 lbs of soft shelled clams in a QT OF CHICKEN BROTH
drain them saving the broth
EAT UM UP with butter mmmmmmmmmmmmm save the butter..take a nap
Now boil 6-8-10( it's bistro chowda nevah the same ayup) scrubbed quahogs or a dozen cherry stones if your local supplier doesn't have um
drain and save the broth
while the clams are cooling cut up potatoes in cubes as many as is to your liking. I use 4 or 5 baking spuds
Now transfer the broth into your chowdah pot taking care to leave the sand out
begin boiling the taters in the broth


finely chop a large onion the finer the better. Now fry that slowly with either 3 peices of bacon diced small or about the same amount of salt pork diced small. you want to fry this till the onions are clarified and the grease has been absorbed and the onions are carmelizing just a bit...now dump it all into your stock/potatoes mix

now that your clams have cooled dice um up and chuck um in the pot

now add maybe 1/4-1/2 cup white wine and a clove of garlic or two diced super small me gran pappy just rolled over in his Nahant grave at the thought of wine and garlic in his chowder

Once the potatoes are cooked I would add a couple shakes of flour to assist with the thickening...not too much you aren't making gravy
now I would add either 20-30 Oz of milk or lt cream...depending on how guilty I want my treat..remember that butter you dipped those steamers into well dump it in up to a sticks worth. Bring it right to the point of simmering again and now add fresh pepper to taste and you are a New Englander and may need an angioplasty in a day or two

quote:

Originally posted by EliseT

Are quahogs the best? What other clams work well? I'm on the West coast.

Don't forget the cockles and blue clams which are abundant and work well in chowders.