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Clam Soup (Twenty-five large clams)
Twenty-five large clams chopped fine; stew one hour in their own liquor and two quarts of water; strain and put over the fire; as soon as it boils add one pint of milk, thicken with a piece of butter the size of an egg, mixed well with flour; beat three eggs light and pour into the tureen, then stir hot soup in very carefully. -Mrs. Shephard.
A plain nineteenth-century clam soup finished with an egg liaison rather than a roux-heavy chowder base. Two things need attention: the hour-long stew and the raw eggs in the tureen.
- The hinge: do not boil the clams for an hourClam muscle tightens and turns to rubber within a few minutes of heat. The long stew here is really about extracting flavour into the broth; modern practice is to steam the clams open, remove and chop the meat, simmer the strained liquor and water for flavour, and return the clam meat only at the very end to warm through.
- Twenty-five large clamsProbably hard-shell chowder clams (quahogs) rather than small littlenecks or steamers, though the recipe says only 'large.' Twenty-five would give roughly 2 to 3 cups of chopped meat plus their liquor. A modern cook can substitute a comparable weight of shucked clams, or canned chopped clams with their juice.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. Worked together with flour it becomes a kneaded butter (beurre manie), whisked into the hot soup in small pieces; 2 to 4 tablespoons of flour will thicken this quantity of liquid.
- The egg liaisonThree beaten eggs in the tureen, with hot soup stirred in gradually, thickens and enriches the soup without curdling. It will not reliably reach a temperature that pasteurises the egg, so use pasteurised eggs if serving anyone who should avoid lightly cooked egg. Once the eggs go in, the soup must not return to a boil or it will scramble.
- Strain thoroughlyClam liquor carries sand. Let it settle, then pour off through a fine sieve or a doubled cloth, leaving the grit behind. The recipe's instruction to strain is the difference between good soup and gritty soup.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified; the clam liquor is already salty. Taste after the milk goes in; white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg or a little mace are period-appropriate additions.
- YieldTwo quarts of water plus the liquor and a pint of milk makes about three quarts, six to eight servings as a first course.
Clam soup of this kind sits between older English fish soups and what became New England clam chowder. The egg finish is the older technique: thickening with beaten egg stirred into the tureen, rather than with a flour roux or salt pork and potatoes, is found in eighteenth-century and early American cookery. Quahogs were cheap and abundant along the northeastern coast. The attribution to Mrs. Shephard is typical of these compilations, which were assembled from contributed household receipts, each cook's name standing as the guarantee of the dish.