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Soft-Clam Chowder
Chop a quart of soft clams, peel and slice 6 potatoes thin, tie up in a cheesecloth bag 6 whole allspice and 6 cloves. Put 1/4 of a pound of minced salt pork into a pot and fry crisp, then remove the pork and fry a small sliced onion in the pot to a light brown. Add the potatoes and a can of tomatoes, the spice bag, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a quart of cold water. Cook four hours. After cooking three and a half hours add the clams and 4 pilot biscuits that have previously been soaked in milk. Serve very hot. Scallops can be used instead of clams, and treated in the same way they make a delicious chowder. More cayenne should be used than in the clam chowder.
A tomato-based chowder of the Manhattan school, written when soup was expected to sit on the back of the stove all morning. Almost everything here works except the schedule.
- The four hoursA quart of water, thin-sliced potatoes and canned tomatoes need about 25 to 30 minutes, not four hours. The long cooking in the original is a coal-range habit; on a modern burner it will reduce the potatoes to paste and cook the tomato flat. Simmer until the potatoes yield to a fork, then proceed.
- The clams are the hingeSoft clams go in at the very end and want two to three minutes, just long enough to firm and heat through. The half hour implied here turns them to rubber. Add them with the heat low, off the boil, and serve straight away.
- Soft clams, and their gritThese are steamers or longnecks (Mya arenaria), sold in the shell and full of sand. Purge them in cold salted water for an hour, steam open, and strain the liquor through cloth before using it as part of the quart of liquid. Peel the tough black sheath off each neck. A quart of shucked clam meats is roughly what you get from 4 to 5 lb in the shell.
- Pilot biscuitsHard ship's biscuit, known in New England as pilot crackers; Nabisco's Crown Pilot, long the best known, has been discontinued. Unsalted saltines or plain water crackers stand in. Soaked in milk they dissolve into the broth and, with the potatoes, are what thickens the chowder.
- A can of tomatoesPeriod can sizes varied and were generally larger than a modern one; canned tomatoes were commonly sold in No. 2 (about 20 oz) and No. 3 (about 32 oz) cans. A modern 14.5 oz can keeps the tomato in proportion here; a 28 oz can will make this a tomato soup with clams in it.
- Salt porkQuarter pound of fatty salt pork, diced small, rendered until the bits are crisp. If it is very salty, blanch it briefly first, and hold back any added salt until the clam liquor is in. Return the crisped pork at the end rather than letting it soften in the pot.
- The spice bagSix allspice berries and six cloves tied in cheesecloth is a firm hand for a quart of chowder. Taste at 15 minutes and pull the bag when the spice is noticeable but not dominant; clove in particular keeps climbing.
- ScallopsThe variation is sound and even quicker. Bay or sliced sea scallops need barely two minutes in the hot broth, and they bring no cooking liquor of their own, so use bottled clam juice or a light fish stock in place of some of the water.
- YieldServes four generously as a main course, six as a first course.