Clam Bouillon
1 peck of clams (in the shells). 3 cups cold water.
Salt, pepper.
Whipped cream.
PROCESS: Wash and scrub clams with a stiff brush, changing the water until no sand is seen in bottom of vessel. Put in a kettle, add cold water, cover closely and bring water gradually to boiling point, steam until all the shells are opened. Remove clam with shells, strain broth through double cheese-cloth, season and serve hot in hot bouillon cups. Drop a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each service and sprinkle with paprika.
A two-ingredient broth that lives or dies on the clams themselves. Everything here is about buying, purging and not oversalting.
- A peck of clamsA peck is 8 dry quarts -- depending on the clam, somewhere in the region of 8-15 lb in the shell. With the 3 cups of water plus the clams' own liquor you should get enough broth for roughly eight bouillon cups; halve it for four.
- Which clamThe recipe does not say. Small hard-shell clams (littlenecks or cherrystones) or soft-shell steamers would all serve. Littlenecks give the cleanest broth; soft-shells give more of it but tend to be sandier.
- Purge before you scrubScrubbing removes outside sand only. Let the clams sit an hour in cold salted water (about 1/3 cup salt per gallon) so they spit out what is inside, then lift them out rather than pouring, leaving the sand behind.
- Discard the deadBefore cooking, tap any clam with a gaping shell. If it does not close, throw it out. After steaming, discard any that stayed shut.
- Steam brieflyOnce the water boils the shells open in 5 to 10 minutes. Pull the kettle off as soon as they are open; longer only toughens the clams you will want to eat separately.
- Season last, and lightlyClam liquor is already saline. Strain, taste, and expect to add pepper and little or no salt.
- StrainingDouble cheesecloth is right, but a coffee filter or a fine sieve lined with a damp paper towel catches more of the fine silt. Leave the last half-inch in the pot.
- The creamWhipped cream here is unsweetened and softly whipped, floated on the surface as a garnish. Add it at the table so it does not melt into the broth on the way.
- Bouillon cupsA bouillon cup is small, commonly around 6 oz, less than a soup bowl. Warm them first; this quantity of liquid loses heat fast.
Clam broth was one of the standard American first courses of the early 1900s, and it did double duty as invalid food: light, salty, warm, and thought to be restorative for people who could not face solid meals. Bottled clam bouillon was sold commercially in the same years, which tells you how routine the drink had become. Elizabeth O. Hiller built 52 Sunday Dinners around a year of full menus for the family table, and a clear broth in a small cup seems to have been a conventional opener for a company dinner, quick to make and requiring no stock pot. The float of unsweetened whipped cream dusted with paprika is often said to have been a favorite finishing trick of the period, applied to consommes and cream soups alike, and served much the same purpose as a garnish of chives does now.