Memories of our time in Boston when we enjoyed Clam Chowder and other delicious seafood …reviewed here Legal Seafood
The weather in Sydney and the purchase of a bag of Cloudy Bay Clams from St Peter’s Fish Butchery in Oxford St inspired me to try to recreate it at home. Not all seafood outlets sell clams in Sydney so you might need to shop around to get them. (Subject to lockdown orders of course!)
After trawling the internet for clam chowder recipes, I cobbled together a few ideas into this recipe which turned out to be delicious.
Watch out because it is more filling than you would expect with just clams, scallops and 1 potato. You won’t need much more than a small bowl, a salad and maybe a crispy bread roll. Leftovers the next day were good though! Recipe would be fine for starters for 3-4 people.
You can’t really go wrong with the combo of cream, white wine, butter and seafood!!
Prep Time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients
- 600g clam/Vongole in shells
- 250g scallops chopped into bite size pieces
- 1 leek finely diced (white part only)
- 1 stick celery finely diced
- 1 bacon bone (ask butcher)
- 4 slices bacon, rind removed and finely chopped
- 4-5 cups of water
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1 medium size waxy potato finely diced
- 2-3 sprigs of thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- black pepper
- 2 cups of cream!
- Chopped parsley to garnish
Method
1. Put clams in large pot, add bacon bone, cover with water bring to boiled, then lower heat and put lid on for 10 minutes or so until clams open.
2. Meanwhile dice all ingredients and keep separately aside. the smaller you dice everything the more “delicate” the end product will be!
3. Remove bacon bone. Strain clams from stock through doubled up paper towel, reserving stock for chowder.
4. Allow clams to cool. Reserve Clam stock.
5. Rinse pot, add bacon and fry until fat renders and bacon is crisped but not brown. Add butter, diced leeks and diced celery. Cook slowly for 5 minutes until leek and celery soften, stirring to stop the mixture sticking.
6. Add potatoes, add the bacon bone back in, mix through, then add white wine to deglaze pan and allow to bubble away for 5 minutes until wine is reduced to about half, making sure potatoes don’t stick.
7. Add 2-3 cups of the clam stock to just cover potatoes, also the thyme and bay leaves and cover, simmering for 8-10 minutes until potatoes are cooked and tender. Add additional clam stock if required.
8. Remove clam meat from shells while mixture is simmering, throw away any unopened clams. Finely dice clam meat. Dice scallops if you haven’t done so as yet.
9. Remove bacon bone. Add clam meat and scallops to mixture, add cream and simmer for 5 minutes until mixture is well heated through. Fish out thyme and bay leaves.
10. Garnish with pepper and chopped parsley and serve.
