Thursday, January 9, 2014

Clam Chowder

Oh the weather outside is frightful.... It was downright scary crazy stupid cold here on Monday. Not the coldmaggedon/coldpocalypse the media made it out to be (after all I was over by Tuesday afternoon) but it made for an excellent excuse to whip up a big pot of soup. Instant leftovers to pack for lunch. Cozy comfort food in a thick cream based soup. perfection!

I have 2 clam chowder recipes and a recipe for wild rice & chicken soup. Over the years I've perfected the wild rice  & chicken soup to create a nice thick soup and a consistent outcome for taste. I make clam chowder less often so I do not have that one quite as perfected.

Recurring theme: I improvise, mesh recipes, create awesome meal, forget exactly what I did so I am always trying to recreate it.

Clam chowder is no exception. Note: Most people do not respond well to, "So I don't remember how I did it last time so I'm just going to merge these 3 recipes and hope for the best!" Needless to say it does not instill very much confidence in the diner.

This time:

Melted 1 stick of butter
Added celery, pepper, onion, shallots, carrots
Sauteed for several minutes (until vegetables were softened)
Meanwhile: peeled and cut potatoes and boiled them in the juice from 3 cans of whole baby clams with some dried thyme
After the vegetables had cooked, added 1/2 cup flour to make a roux
When roux was complete, added hot clam/potato juice into the roux (strained out potatoes).
Added additional vegetable & chicken broth (next time seafood stock?)
Added potatoes & clams
mixed well
Added half & half (3 cups)
Salt & pepper to taste

End result: a very thick cream soup. Not overwhelmingly clammy. I may go back to using the minced baby clams as I'm not so keen on the effect of the whole baby clams. I'd give my made up recipe 4/5 forks with room for some improvement/perfecting.

No comments: