I just finished reading Joan Reardon’s As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. The book is fascinating on many, many levels—food, politics, women’s issues, the nature of friendship, and how even great people need a helping hand. But I will be going into this in a future post. In fact, I am planning on writing an honest-to-God book review, something I haven’t done for quite a while.
But for this post, I want to delve into clam chowder or clam bisque or whatever you want to call it. I got the idea from one of Avis DeVoto’s letters, dated January 9, 1953. (Please keep in mind that this is way before Julia Child became JULIA CHILD. Mastering the Art of French Cooking would be published in the early 1960s.) DeVoto, an editor as well as a dedicated home cook wrote, “A firm called Snow is canning minced clams and they are absolutely wonderful. (Send you a sample?) Add thin cream, butter, freshly ground black pepper and you have the most wonderful bisque, strong of clams.”
This started me thinking about clam bisque. In fact, this made me want to eat clam bisque. As a Mainer, I know very well that fresh, steamed clams make the best bisque or chowder. But let’s face it, in the everyday scheme of things, we don’t always have the time or the energy to steam and shuck clams and then clean up the mess. So I asked myself, could I make decent clam bisque using canned clams, as Avis DeVoto suggested?
I decided to find out. At first, I was going to do exactly as DeVotto did, using only clams, light cream, butter, and pepper. But I wanted a little more. In my imagination, the bisque had potatoes. It also had more to flavor it than pepper. Perhaps sherry and Worcestershire sauce.
Next came the second challenge. Onions are commonly used in chowder. I love the taste they bring to chowder, but unfortunately onions don’t agree with me unless they are very well cooked. (A terrible handicap for a foodie, and a subject that will be explored in some later post.)
Fortunately, my digestive system can handle garlic. Could garlic be substituted for onion? Would the bisque still be flavorful?
With two challenges in mind—canned clams rather than fresh and garlic rather than onion—I poked around the Internet for a clam bisque recipe, and I found one on Epicurious to use as a guideline. I added this, I took away that, and the results were just what I had hoped for—rich and flavorful. Really, even with the canned clams, this bisque is good enough to serve as a first course to guests or to make as a meal for a light supper.
My husband, Clif, concurred, and we slurped every bit of the chowder. I only made enough for one meal. Without a husband like Clif, this recipe might serve three or four people, depending on serving size. So if you have hearty eaters or are feeding four or more people, this recipe should definitely be doubled. Also, next time, I’m going to try using a can of whole clams along with a can of minced clams, just to see what the texture is like.
With the butter and cream, this is obviously a very rich dish and one I will only make occasionally. But in Maine, March and the beginning of April are dreary beyond words, and sometimes what is needed is a nice, rich bisque to perk things up.
Clam Bisque
2 (6.5 oz) cans of minced clams, juices reserved
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of flour
½ bay leaf
½ teaspoon thyme leaves, chopped (See note below)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 ½ cups of half and half
2 tablespoons of dry sherry, or to taste
Salt, to taste (With the clam juice, little should be needed.)
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
Place the reserved clam juice in a two-cup measuring cup. You want to have 1½ cups of liquid. You won’t have quite enough clam juice, but it will be close. I added a bit of water to the clam juice so that I would have 1 ½ cups of liquid.
In a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter, add the garlic and flour and stir until it’s a little bubbly, a minute or two. Whisk in the clam juice/water mixture, bring to a simmer, and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. The clam juice/water should have the consistency of heavy cream. Add a little water if the mixture is too thick. Add the bay leaf and thyme, then the potatoes. Simmer until tender, about ten or fifteen minutes.
When the potatoes are nearly cooked, place the clams and cream in another saucepan, and bring to a gentle simmer, for about five minutes, until the clams are thoroughly heated.
When the potatoes are tender, add the cream and clams to the soup base. Simmer for 1 or 2 minutes or until the bisque is as hot as you like it. (Don’t bring to a full boil.)
Stir in the sherry, and season to taste with salt, pepper, Tabasco, and Worcestershire sauce.
Need I add that plenty of saltine crackers should be served with the bisque? Not really, but reminders never hurt.
And, as Julia Child would say, bon appétit!
Note about the thyme: I debated as to whether I should use fresh thyme, which is obviously superior to dried thyme. But, oh the price of herbs in those little plastic containers. Then, on top of this, the herbs are not always as fresh as they should be. So I used ¼ teaspoon of dried thyme, and although I thought the bisque was good enough for company, it seemed to me that the dried thyme was the least successful part of this recipe’s adaptation—there was just a touch of bitterness. You might want to spring for fresh thyme. Next time, I am considering trying a bit of dried tarragon, to see if it is more satisfactory than dried thyme.
I’ll keep you posted.
Addendum: The dried tarragon was indeed more satisfactory than the dried thyme, and the whole clams gave the bisque better texture.
There is still snow in the backyard—the front yard is even worse—but today, sunny and windy, it felt as though spring might finally be on its way. It seemed to me that the clothesline was at last getting enough sun, and I took a chance and hung laundry on the line.
the dog, and clipped some prickly canes growing in a straggly bunch at the edge of my lawn.
Notes From the Hinterland 