Manhattan Clam Chowder

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This recipe, developed at the Culinary Institute of America, caused me to change my mind about Manhattan clam chowder. I had, for years, scoffed at those who would order it as a soup of preference. I considered it to be nothing more than a vegetable soup into which a bunch of clams had been thrown. I needed to use the last of the canned clams with which I had been working and this recipe read well. I could find no reason not to make it, so I was off to the vegetable bin and chopping block and within an hour had a table ready meal. I was really surprised by how much I like this chowder. That just goes to show it doesn't pay to be a food snob. It would have been a shame not to have tried this. It will never replace its New England cousin but it is good enough to make into my rotation and it adds a bit of food lore to my collection as well. Did you know that legislators in Maine once tried to ban the use of tomatoes in chowder? While I suspect it must have been a slow legislative year, they swear its true. Come to think of it, I've never had Manhattan chowder in New England. Huh! While the CIA recipe, of course, used fresh clams, my exercise for these past few weeks has been to find ways to use the variety that comes in restaurant-sized cans. Two 51-ounce cans can be purchased at warehouse stores for around $12. That's enough clams to make four or five meals for an averaged sized family and that's a bargain by any standards. Here's the recipe.


Manhattan Clam Chowder...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, courtesy of the CIA

Ingredients:
2 slices bacon, minced
2-1/2 cups diced leeks (white and light green parts)
1-1/4 cups diced onion
1/3 cup diced carrot
1/3 cup diced celery
1 cup diced red bell pepper (seeds and ribs removed)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 canned plum tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 cups diced yellow or white potatoes (peeled)
3 cups bottled clam juice
1 cup tomato juice
1 bay leaf
Pinch dried thyme
3/4 cup canned clam meat + juice from cans (about 3/4 cup) or 3 dozen chowder clams, shucked, juices reserved
Salt as needed
Freshly ground black pepper as needed
Tabasco sauce as needed

Directions:
1) Cook bacon in a soup pot over medium heat until crisp and browned, about 10 minutes.
2) Add leeks, onion, carrot, celery, pepper, and garlic. Cover pot and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.
3) Add tomatoes, potatoes, clam juice, tomato juice, bay leaf, and thyme. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add clams with their juices and simmer until the clams are cooked, about 5 to 10 minutes more.
4) Using a shallow, flat spoon, remove any fat from surface of chowder and discard. Remove bay leaf and season to taste with salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Serve in heated bowls. Yield: 8 servings.

You might also enjoy these recipes:
Beggar's Chowder - One Perfect Bite
East Hampton Clam Chowda - Family Spice
Slow Cooker Corn Chowder - Creatively Domestic
Oyster Stew - Seriously Soupy
Hearty Cheddar Chowder - The Daily Dish
Potato Chowder - Sweet Basil Kitchen
Fish Chowder - A Thought for Food
New England Clam Chowder - One Perfect Bite
Fresh Corn Chowder - Barbara Bakes
Salmon Chowder - One Perfect Bite

Light and Chunky Clam Dip

From the Kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Dips and spreads were all the rage in the 60's and the 70's. Cookbooks had whole sections devoted to them and during the holiday season you'd be hard pressed to find a magazine that didn't feature them. The dips were not gourmet affairs and nearly all of them had a base of sour cream and mayonnaise. They were calorie laden and as bad for you as they were delicious. As times and tastes changed, the rich and creamy dips seemed to disappear, replaced, instead, with ubiquitous bowls of salsa or more exotic fare from the Mediterranean or Middle East. If, however, you looked really carefully, you'd find at least some of the golden oldies tucked safely in the fridge away from prying eyes. They hadn't gone away, they had been lightened. I'm not at all sure that's a good thing. As I look at the chemical feast that are food is becoming, I sometimes question the approach we are taking to eat in a more healthy way. That, however, is a topic for another day. Now, before I drift too far afield, I want to share this recipe with those of you who still enjoy the classic dips. It come from from America's Test Kitchen and it is awfully nice. Here's the recipe.

Light and Chunky Clam Dip...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, courtesy of Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients:
4 strips bacon (about 4 ounces), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3/4 cup light sour cream
3/4 cup light mayonnaise
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 (6-1/2-oz. each) cans minced clams, drained
2 medium scallions, sliced thin
Pinch cayenne pepper

Directions:
1) Fry bacon in small skillet over medium heat until crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels.
2) Whisk sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce together in a medium bowl. Stir in minced clams, scallions, and bacon. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Cover and chill for at least an hour. Refrigerated dip can be kept for up to 2 days. Yield: 2 cups.



You might also enjoy these recipes:
Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip - Easy Appetizers
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus - Eat Real
Chile con Queso - Drick's Ranbling Cafe
Peperonata - Sweet Bites
Bulghur and Walnut Kibbeh - Anja's Food 4 Thought
Easy Appetizer: White Bean Dip - Spoonful
Roasted Olive and Grape Crostini - The Daily Dish
Dips and Spreads - The Spicy Skillet
Zucchini, Mint and Yogurt Spread - The Kitchen
Red Pepper Cannellini Dip - Have Fork Will Eat
Grilled Eggplant Spread with Fresh Herbs - Open Salon

Clam Chowder

From the kichen of One Perfect Bite...In a perfect world garlic would be peeled and minced as needed, chicken stock would bubble gently on the stove, and kitchen shortcuts would be unheard of. I've been blessed with a near perfect life but it's spent in an imperfect world, so shortcuts abound in my kitchen. I not proud of them, mind you, but they are a real part of my life and there are nights that dinner would never make it to the table without them. I share them when I think they might be helpful, but for the most part they are my secrets and I reveal them in the same way you peel an onion, a layer at a time. Having said that, I suspect it won't surprise you to learn that I smile when the pros talk about shucking oysters or picking crab. I think it's important to know how to do those things, but, in the great scheme of things, I don't think it's necessary to actually do them. My bad attitude extends to clams as well. For years, I refused to make chowders with anything other than fresh clams and I'd pay premium prices to have them opened and chopped. My fishmonger loved to see me and my wallet coming. I still prefer to use fresh clams, but several years ago the warehouse stores started carrying restaurant-size cans of chopped clams and I have had them in my pantry ever since. They really are an acceptable alternative to fresh clams in dips, spreads, fritters and chowders. One of the problems that empty nesters encounter is the quantity of food that is produced when standard recipes are followed. Chowder is no exception. Several years ago Cook's Illustrated developed a chowder that used canned clams and was scaled to feed two people. It's a treasure of a recipe and if you enjoy chowder I hope you'll give it a try. A careful reading of the recipe will show it can easily be scaled up or down. I've made it for eight and I've made it for one. It works every time. There are a few things I want to share with you. I use 1/3 cup of drained, chopped clams for each can the recipe calls for. I use 1/4 cup finely chopped onion for each person I'll be feeding. One of the current oddities in recipe development is the push to list ingredients for some by weight rather than measure, while still calling for ballpark-general measures like half an onion or juice of a lime in others. What size onion? What size lime? I digress. This is a really nice recipe and those of you who try it will love it. The chowder is best made with heavy cream but it is workable with light cream or half-and-half. Here's the recipe.

Clam Chowder for Two...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, courtesy of Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients:
2 (6.5-ounce) cans minced clams
1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice
Water , if necessary
2 slices thick-cut bacon (about 2 ounces), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 onion , chopped fine
1 clove minced garlic
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
2 large red potatoes (about 3/4 pound), scrubbed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 - 3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley leaves

Instructions:
1) Drain clams, reserving juices. Add bottled clam juice to reserved clam juice to measure 2-1/2 cups (if short, add enough water to make up difference).
2) Cook bacon in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat until beginning to crisp, about 5 minutes. Stir in onion and cook until onion has softened and bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes.
3) Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and coat vegetables, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in clam broth. Stir in potatoes, bay leaf, and thyme. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
4) Stir in clams, cream, and parsley. Return to a simmer briefly, then remove from heat. Discard bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Yield: 2 servings.

You might also enjoy these recipes:
Ginger and Clam Soup - RasaMalaysia
Linguine and Clams and Garlic White Wine Sauce - The Red Spoon
Cuban Clam Fritters with Cilantro Mayonnaise - Lazaro Cooks
Steamed Clams in a Beer, Lemon and Garlic Sauce - Boston Whine and Dine
Spicy Asian-Style Noodles with Clams - Very Culinary
Clams and Mussels in Tomato Broth - Magiandobene

New England Clam Chowder for Harried, Landlocked Cooks

When my parents moved from the east coast to the south side of Chicago, a recipe for clam chowder came with them. There was, however, a problem; fresh clams were not available in our landlocked neighborhood. My mother - God bless her - considered the midwest to be an outpost in the Sahara. Like it or not, she had to rely on canned clams and broth and she was able, after fits and starts, to make a PDG chowder. Over the years my recipe for clam chowder has changed from the one made by my mother. I've had help from the New York Times, Cook's Illustrated, Fine Cooking and an old Julia Child recipe for fish chowder. There's a bit of them all in today's recipe which uses canned clams. Why canned clams? They are readily available, inexpensive and easy to work with. They make it possible for a busy cook to produce a chowder in about 30 minutes and sometimes that's important. I can't tell you how important that's been at certain junctures in my life. This recipe also allows the use of canned clam broth. I must be honest here. We have shrimp several times a month. Rather than discard the shells I freeze them until I have enough of them to make a lovely fish broth that I can store in 1 cup containers. I use homemade broth whenever I can and while it produces an extraordinary depth of flavor, bottled clam broth will also produce a lovely chowder. I'm including a recipe for quick shrimp broth as well as my recipe for chowder. Both are easy to do. I hope you'll give them a try.

New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 ounces (about 4 slices) thick cut bacon, cut in 1/4-inch dice
2 cups diced yellow onion
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups shrimp stock
.........or........
2 (8-oz.) bottles clam broth + 1 cup water
4 (6.5-oz.) cans drained chopped clams, juices reserved
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut in 3/4-inch dice
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1) Heat vegetable oil in a soup kettle over medium heat. Add bacon and saute until crisp and brown, about 5 minutes. Add onions and saute until softened, about 5 minutes longer. Sprinkle with flour and stir until lightly colored. Slowly stir in broth, reserved clam broth and water if using. Add potatoes, bay leaf and thyme; simmer until potatoes are fork tender, about 10 minutes.
2) Add clams, cream, and parsley. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and serve. Yield: 4-6 servings.

Shrimp Broth

Ingredients:
Shells from 3 pounds shrimp
5 cups water
6 black peppercorns
1/4 cup coarsely chopped onions
2 ribs celery coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf

Directions:
1) Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes and strain.
2) Freeze in labeled 1 cup containers. Yield: 4 cups.

I'm submitting this recipe to Regional Recipes, a food blogging event created by Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok, in which a different culture and cuisine is explored each month. JS and TS of Eating Club Vancouver are hosting this month's event which spotlights America.