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Clams Cooked with Cream
Chop fifty small clams not too fine and season them with pepper and salt. Put into a stewpan butter the size of an egg, and when it bubbles sprinkle in a teaspoon of flour, which cook a few moments; stir gradually into it the clam liquor, then the clams, which stew about two or three minutes; then add a cup of boiling cream and serve immediately.
The clams may or may not be breaded.
A fast creamed shellfish dish that lives or dies on timing: the clams are in the pan for two or three minutes and no longer. Everything else is a thin butter-and-flour base loosened with the clams' own liquor.
- Fifty small clamsSmall suggests littlenecks or similar hard-shell clams; fifty should give something in the region of 2 cups of chopped meat and a cup or so of liquor, though the recipe gives no yield. Shucked clams sold by the pint work equally well; buy about a pint of meats plus their juice. It would serve about four as a first course, two or three over toast as a supper.
- Butter the size of an eggA standard nineteenth-century measure for about 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. With a single teaspoon of flour this makes a very loose sauce, which is the intent.
- Strain the liquorClam liquor almost always carries sand. Let it settle and pour it off, or strain through a coffee filter or doubled cheesecloth before it goes into the roux.
- The hinge: two or three minutesChopped clams are effectively cooked the moment they turn opaque. Held longer over heat they tighten into rubber and shed water, thinning the sauce. Take the pan off the heat while they still look barely done.
- Boiling creamHeat the cream separately and add it hot so the clams are not chilled back down and reheated. Bring it just to a boil rather than reducing it, and pour it in off the heat if your pan is heavy and still fiercely hot.
- Salt with careClam liquor is already salty. Season the finished dish rather than the raw clams, whatever the original says.
- "Breaded or not"The recipe does not explain what it means; most likely the clams are dredged in fine crumbs before cooking. The plain version is the simpler option and the one to default to.
- ServingToast points, split hot biscuits or boiled rice all suit it; serve immediately, as the recipe insists, because the sauce breaks and the clams stiffen on standing.
Creamed clams belong to the American coastal repertoire that ran alongside the better-known chowders, and this version is built like a fricassee: a small butter roux, the shellfish liquor as the body of the sauce, and cream added at the last second. The recipe counts clams by the piece rather than by weight and never explains how to open one.