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Rhode Island Chowder
1 quart clams 1 cup stewed and strained tomatoes 3 inch cube fat salt pork 1 sliced onion 1/4 teaspoon soda 1/2 cup cold water 1 cup scalded milk 4 cups potatoes cut in 3/4 inch cubes 1 cup scalded cream 2 tablespoons butter 2 cups boiling water 8 common crackers Salt and pepper Cook pork with onion and cold water ten minutes; drain, and reserve liquor. Wash clams and reserve liquor. Parboil potatoes five minutes, and drain. To potatoes add reserved liquors, hard part of clams finely chopped, and boiling water. When potatoes are nearly done, add tomatoes, soda, soft part of clams, milk, cream, and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Split crackers, soak in cold milk to moisten, and reheat in chowder.
A tomato-and-milk clam chowder of the sort New England cooks argued about for a century. The soda is not seasoning: it is there to keep the milk from curdling against the acid of the tomato, and the order of additions at the end matters more than anything else in the recipe.
- Add the dairy last and off the boilOnce tomatoes, milk and cream go in, keep the pot below a simmer. Even with the soda, a hard boil will curdle it and separate the cream.
- The clamsA quart of shucked clams with their liquor is roughly 2 lb. The weight of whole clams needed to yield that varies a great deal with the kind and size of clam, so buy by shucked measure where you can. Strain the liquor through a cloth to catch grit.
- Hard part, soft partThe tough muscle and neck are chopped and cooked with the potatoes; the soft bellies go in at the very end and need only two or three minutes. Clams cooked longer than that turn to rubber.
- Fat salt porkA 3-inch cube is a substantial piece, on the order of three-quarters of a pound. Modern salt pork is often much saltier than the old barrel product, so hold back on added salt until the end. Unsmoked pork belly or thick bacon will do, though bacon brings smoke the original does not have.
- Blanching the porkSimmering the pork and onion in cold water ten minutes draws out salt and gives a savoury liquor rather than crisp scraps. If you would rather render the pork and fry the onion in the fat, you will get a heavier, sweeter chowder; the reserved water is then replaced with an equal amount of the clam broth.
- Common crackersNew England common crackers are a dry, thick, barely salted round, still made in New England and available by mail order. Split, soaked briefly in cold milk and reheated in the pot, they thicken the chowder. Unsalted water biscuits or plain oyster crackers are the nearest substitute; saltines dissolve to paste.
- The sodaA quarter teaspoon of baking soda in this volume is a trace and will not be tasted. Do not increase it, or the chowder takes on a soapy, metallic edge.
- YieldThe quantities as listed come to something over 3 quarts, serving six to eight as a main course with bread.