New England Clam Chowder is a long time favorite for seafood lovers, and I’ve taken every opportunity to sample a bowl when available. Most of what I’ve had is just OK, but lacking. Too thick, no flavor, and worst of all, few clams. I happened to make acquaintance with a chef, let’s call him Bob, who hailed from Boston. Bringing his secret family recipe for New England Clam Chowder to the table inspired the below recipe. After begging on my knees, to no avail, for said recipe, I decided to strike out on my own.
After a bit of research, I settled on one from the Dean and Deluca cookbook.
 With some tweaking, I came up with this recipe. A whole bunch of flavor, not too thick, and clams in every bite. If you like New England Clam Chowder, this is sure to please. You also might want to consider it’s close cousin Manhattan Clam Chowder. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.
A quick note on clams.
We use Cherrystone clams for this recipe, but you can substitute others such as longneck. By weight, cherrystones run 4 to 6 to a pound, so in total you’ll need 4 to 5 pounds. You might want to err toward the 5 pounds as some of the may not open ( the sign of a dead clam). If they all open, so much the better. More clams for you.
New England Clam Chowder
Equipment
Ingredients
- 24 ea Cherrystone Clams Boiled, reserving broth
- 1/2 pint milk
- 1/2 pint heavy cream
- 2 ea Large Potatoes Peeled and diced
- 1/8 lb bacon Cut into 1/4
- 1 ea Medium Onion Finely chopped
- 2 ea Celery Stalk Diced
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 Salt To taste
- 1 Pepper To taste
- 1 can chopped clams 6.5 oz.
Instructions
- Wash the clams in cold water in a colander and transfer to a 5 qt. dutch oven. Cover with enough cold water to 2" above the clams. Cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat.
- Remove the open clams to a bowel and let the unopened ones cook for a few more minutes. If they haven't, discard them.
- Reserve 3 cups of the clam broth from the chowder. The rest can be frozen for further use at a later date. Pour the milk and the cream into a saucepan, and bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer for 30 minutes until reduced.
- While the milk and cream are reducing, peel and dice the potatoes and place into a large pan. Cover with water and bring to a boil until just fork tender. Drain and set aside.
- Place Bacon into the Dutch Oven, heat to medium and let bacon cook until it crisps. Remove bacon from pan, set aside, and pour off excess fat leaving about a tablespoon and a half of the rendered fat.
- Add onions and celery and cook at medium until soft. Add bacon back in and stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes stirring to keep the mixture from sticking. Add reserved calm broth, bring to a boil and stir well.
- Add potatoes and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add reduced cream / milk to pot and let simmer. Cut clams into quarters.
- Add cut clams, canned clams, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for a few minutes more and serve. We served this in mini cast iron cauldrons in keeping with the cast iron theme, plus it keeps the soup hot while finishing the plate. Enjoy!