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Clam Fritters
1 1/2 cups flour 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/8 teaspoon paprika 1/2 cup milk or clam juice 2 eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons grated onion 1 teaspoon shortening 10 clams Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and paprika; add liquid, well-beaten eggs, onion, and melted shortening; rinse clams, put through meat chopper and add to batter. Fry on hot greased griddle, taking one spoonful batter for each fritter, or fry in deep hot fat.
A straightforward drop batter that depends almost entirely on the clams for flavor, so buy them well. The recipe is from a baking powder company's promotional book, which explains the branded leavening and the slightly generous dose of it.
- "10 clams""10 clams" most likely means shucked hard clams (quahogs or large cherrystones), which would give roughly a cup of chopped meat. Two 6.5 oz cans of chopped clams, drained, is a reasonable substitute, though the drained liquor may fall short of the half cup of clam juice called for — make up the difference with bottled juice or milk.
- Royal Baking PowderAny double-acting baking powder works at the same 2 teaspoons. The original was a cream-of-tartar type; modern SAS-phosphate powders give a slightly later, stronger lift, which suits a fritter.
- Meat chopperThe hand-cranked grinder produced a coarse mince, not a puree. A few pulses in a food processor gets there; run it too long and the clams turn to paste and the fritters go gummy.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "deep hot fat." In modern terms aim for 365-375F: cooler and the batter drinks oil, hotter and the outside colors before the center sets. Figure roughly 3 minutes, turning once.
- Griddle versionThe griddle method is essentially a savory pancake and cooks in 2 to 3 minutes a side over medium heat. It is the lighter of the two and the better use of the recipe if the clams are good.
- ShorteningOne teaspoon of melted shortening is all the fat in the batter; melted butter or a neutral oil serves the same purpose. Let it cool slightly before adding so it does not cook the eggs.
- SaltA half teaspoon assumes fresh clams. Canned clams and bottled clam juice are already salty, so taste the batter before frying and hold back.
- YieldAbout 16 to 18 fritters by the spoonful, serving four as a first course or three as a light supper. They do not hold; serve them within a few minutes of frying, with lemon or a tartar sauce.
The New Royal Cook Book was one of a long series of pamphlets issued by the Royal Baking Powder Company, which built a national business in the second half of the nineteenth century on cream-of-tartar leavening and spent freely on cookbooks that named the brand in every recipe. Clam fritters themselves are older than the pamphlet: fried clam batters are a fixture of the New England and Long Island shore, where hard clams were cheap, abundant, and dug by anyone with a rake. What the baking powder era changed was the texture. Fritter batters had leaned on beaten eggs, or on a yeast sponge left to rise, and were correspondingly dense or slow; two teaspoons of powder made a puffed fritter possible on fifteen minutes' notice, which is precisely the argument the company was paid to make.