Ah, another bowl of Rabrrrrrr's kickbutt clam chowder!

Or "chowdah" as they say it.

No, not Manhattan style. Real chowdah.

Made it Sunday night - it tasted great then, was wonderful last night, and tonight - wow - the tastes have come together into one fine piece of work! I make four or five quarts at a time, and then meals for the rest of the week are eeeeeeeeeeaaaaasy.

Though last night I also pan fried a porterhouse with a shallot/cipprolini sauce. I really lucked out with the steak - that baby was TENDER. I ate it do fast, i thought to myself, "Am I even tasting this? Wait....yes I am..... and it's like heaven!" But it was so tender, I ate right through it. One of the best steaks I've had in a long time.

Mmmmmm. Food.

I could really go for a steak right now. This college food gets old after about the first week and we're 8 weeks into the quarter. I even wrote a paper about how bad the food is here.

Add some garlic breadsticks and a Mountain Dew, and you're talking bout a PAAARRTT-AAAAYYY over heeeaaaah!!!

Too bad I have this stomache contition.:-(

Saltines in chicken soup is okay, but I like Ritz. And I couldn't imagine chowder with Mountain dew. Talk about tastes fighting each other! garlic bread, though - good idea.

I drank tonight with the chowdah a bottle of Anchor Brewing 2002 Christmas Ale - a darkish, deep flavored, earthy kind of beer that goes well with the heaviness of the chowdah.

Sorry to hear about your stomach condition.

After being a New Englander for 20 years, I feel deprived. I cannot get the good ingredients that I used to take for granted, so use chopped Quahogs, or (rarely, when available)Littlenecks. When desperate, I have been know to simply supplement a good canned chowder with a can of whole baby clams, but that gets old quickly.

Wish I had the answer. There's a guy who comes to the Union Square Green market who sells clams, clam dips, clam chowdah, etc. So my clams were already shucked. Clams are getting too expensive to actually buy the ones in teh shell and make soup from them, so I use this guys. One pint of clams for $3!! Bloody cheap, and super tasty and fresh. I think they might be littlenecks, but don't quote me on that. I don't know for sure.

Just realized the containers were still in the recycling bin, so went and looked.

Doxsea Clam Company (or Doxsea Seafood Company).

Snow's! Or at least, that's what my New England mom & grandma always tell me. It's the only kind of canned chowder I've had, so i can't really compare. :P

"The F. H. Snow's Canning Company was founded in 1920, when Captain Fred Snow began selling fresh clams in Pine Point, Maine. No stranger to seafood, Captain Snow capitalized on his family's New England heritage, and more importantly, his family's good taste, and canned the first can of Snow's Clam Chowder, from an old family recipe. Snow's Chowder and Clam Products quickly became the toast of New England"

http://www.castleberrys.com/snows.htm

Meaning no offense to what I'm sure is the goodness of Snow's.

But still, homemade is best.

But when you really want some chowdah on a freezing Massachusetts evening and you don't want to do the work, Snow's is where it's at. They actually own the company your clams came from!

My GF at the time sent me several cans a week of Manhattan Clam Chowder. Kept me alive. Truly!

Don't bother posting your recipe...you chowderheads are all alike....it's a SECRET!!! :evilgrin:

And after Skinner's plea for civility, no less. Oh, the indignity! Oh, the shame! Oh, the politics of personal destruction waged against me!

:ppphhhhhhhhhhhbbbbbbbbbtttttttttttttttttt:

you . . . you . . . you . . . COMMMIE!

Okay, here ya go, cuz you're so awesome. Please note that I don't measure anything, so everything is nebulous.


Fry a couple ounces worth of blanched thick cut bacon in the soup pot.

When cooked and fat has been rendered out, remove bacon and chop it up.

Pour out all but two TBSPs of bacon fat.
Throw a TBSP of butter in the pot.

Put into pot the bacon, plus a few cups of chopped onions, and I like to include some chopped garlic and shallots. I don't know, maybe 5-6 cps worth? Cook the onion mixture for a few minutes until tender and translucent.

Throw in a cup or two of chopped celery, a cup or two of chopped carrots, and two bay leaves. Stir and let these cook for, like, 10 minutes maybe or until they seem sort of, you know, done enough. They don't have to be cooked through to tender, you just want to give them that nice cooked sheen.

Crush up a boatload of crackers - about a half sheath of Ritz crackers. If you have those real sea biscuit things, use those. I actually found some once and used them, and they rock. But I can never find them, so I use Ritz. Pour the crackers into the onion/celery/etc. mixture, and stir up and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add chicken broth.

Bring up the temperature of the soup to boiling.

Toss in enough potatoes to make you think, "That's enough potatoes". I ususally use red potatoes, but used yukon this time. Get yourself a nice tasty potato is all that counts. Dice them up, by the way, into large bite-size chunks. I leave the peels on.

Throw in whatever other vegetables you want: I add corn, peas, and pearl onions. Sometimes green beans. Never okra, and I don't think I'd ever add parsnips, beets, or turnips, either.

Dose liberally with pepper.

Bring to a boil, then let simmer for a couple hours, or whatever time you have. Most important is to make sure the potatoes get cooked.

A few minutes before serving, dump in the clams and their juice. Stir. Then pour in generous helping of cream (I use a mixture of half half&half and heavy cream - one pint of each, and about 3 quarts of broth). Stir it up, heat it up a bit to make sure all is heated through, and then eat it! Serve with crusty, tasty bread, some sandwich meats, some more crackers, butter, and a good beer or wine.

Put pot in fridge when cool. For best results, make one day, serve TWO days later.

(I use frozen clams, though fresh clams in the shells are best, but they are expensive).

I bookmarked it :D

I thought only Skittles could use that language. :-)

Thanks for bookmarking! Sorry there wasn't any more precision in the recipe, btu I think you'll do fine. Hopefully it will help dispell some of the myth and scariness that surrounds cooking.

Assmunch.

:evilgrin: