Name: New England Clam Chowder
Prep time: 35 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1.5 kg hard-shell clams; 250 ml water; 100 ml white wine; 120 g bacon; 30 g butter; 1 pc onion; 2 stalks celery; 40 g plain flour; 500 g floury potatoes; 4 sprigs thyme; 1 pc bay leaf; 250 ml double cream; 250 ml milk; 0.5 tsp white pepper; 0.5 tsp salt; 60 g oyster crackers; 2 tbsp parsley

Ingredients

4servings

Clams
hard-shell clams · in the shell; soak 30 minutes in salted water to purge sand1.5 kg
water · to steam the clams — this is the only water in the dish250 ml
white wine · optional, but it helps the aroma100 ml
Soup
bacon · thick cut, in 1cm pieces; its fat is the base of the roux120 g
butter · to top up if the bacon renders little30 g
onion · finely diced1 pc
celery · finely diced2 stalks
plain flour · for the roux; cream alone will not thicken this40 g
floury potatoes · in 2cm dice; some get mashed for body500 g
thyme · or 1 tsp dried4 sprigs
bay leaf1 pc
double cream · 35% fat or above, added last and never boiled250 ml
milk250 ml
white pepper · white, so a pale soup keeps no black specks0.5 tsp
salt · the clam liquor is already salty — taste at the very end0.5 tsp
To serve
oyster crackers · or sourdough bread60 g
parsley · finely chopped2 tbsp

Steps

Soak the clams 30 minutes in salted water (30g per litre) to purge sand. Scrub the shells against each other, and discard any that stay open when tapped.
⏲ 30 min
Bring the 250ml of water and the wine to a boil in a pot, add the clams and cover. Lift each one out as it opens — usually 3-5 minutes. Wait for them all and the first to open are already rubbery.
⏲ 5 min
What is left in that pot is the entire soup. Strain it through a fine sieve or cloth to leave the sand behind, and set it aside. Pour that clam liquor away and neither water nor stock replaces it. Pick the clams from the shells and chop them coarsely.
⏲ 10 min
In a clean pot, render the bacon over medium-low heat for 8 minutes. Lift the bacon out and keep 3-4 tbsp of the fat (top up with butter if it rendered little).
⏲ 10 min
Cook the onion and celery in that fat for 8 minutes. Take no colour — this is a pale soup, and browning muddies it.
⏲ 8 min
Scatter in the flour and cook 2 minutes into a roux: long enough to lose the raw taste, not long enough to colour. This roux is the thickener — cream alone will not thicken it, and boiled cream splits.
⏲ 3 min
Add the strained clam liquor gradually, working each addition smooth before the next, or it will go lumpy. Add the potatoes, thyme and bay.
⏲ 5 min
Cover and simmer over low heat for 15-18 minutes, until a fork slips easily into the potato.
⏲ 18 min
Crush a few pieces of potato against the pot with the back of a ladle and stir them in; their starch backs up the roux. Fish out the bay leaf and thyme stalks.
⏲ 3 min
Turn the heat right down and pour in the milk and cream. Do not boil it — hold it at a bare tremble for 5 minutes. At a rolling boil the dairy separates into grains and the soup turns rough.
⏲ 5 min
Take it off the heat and stir in the chopped clams and bacon, letting residual heat warm them for 90 seconds. The clams are already cooked; simmering them here turns them to rubber.
⏲ 2 min
Season with white pepper and salt. The clam liquor is salty, so salt last and sparingly. Scatter parsley over and serve with oyster crackers or sourdough.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Manhattan clam chowder takes tomato instead of cream, and is a separate branch. New England's feeling about it runs strong enough that a bill was introduced in the Maine legislature in 1939 to make putting tomatoes in chowder illegal (it did not pass).
Rhode Island style uses neither cream nor tomato — just the clam broth, served clear. It puts the clams themselves furthest forward, which is what you want when they are good.
Served in a sourdough bread bowl is the San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf treatment. The bread drinks the liquid, so make the chowder slightly thicker for it.
Cod instead of clams makes fish chowder, and corn makes corn chowder. The roux and cream structure is unchanged.
Canned clams work. If you use them, never pour off the liquid — that is your clam liquor. The meat goes in only for the last 90 seconds.
The roux-then-cream structure is the same as cream pasta, and crushing some of the potato for body is the trick from mashed potatoes.

Tips

The clam liquor is the stock. It is the thing most often thrown away here, and there is no recovering it. A chowder built on water or chicken stock is a creamy potato soup, not clam chowder (stocks and broth).
Clams are not cooked twice. They were done the moment they opened. Going into the soup is reheating, which is why it happens off the heat. Past 90 seconds they toughen.
Cream will not do the roux's job. Adding more cream to thicken is a common move and leaves the soup thin and merely rich — and it splits when boiled. 40g of flour does the work instead (thickening a sauce).
Cream last, never boiled. Use 35% fat or above and warm it only to a tremble; below 30% splits easily (dairy and heat).
Take no colour on the onion. This is a pale soup and browning muddies it. Unlike most soups, the point of the sweating here is sweetness rather than browning.
Floury potatoes, some of them crushed. Their starch adds body. Waxy potatoes hold their shape better but give the broth nothing.
Use white pepper. It is a colour decision more than a flavour one — black specks scattered through a pale soup look like dirt.
Salt at the very end. The clam liquor and bacon are already salty, and salt added early cannot be taken out.
Better the next day, once the potato has drunk some broth. Reheat gently and never boil, loosening with a little milk if needed. It keeps 3 days refrigerated. Freezing is not recommended: the potato goes grainy and the dairy splits (emulsions and pan sauces).

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Soup →

More from this country

American →