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Steamed Clams
Clams for steaming should be bought in the shell and always be alive. Wash clams thoroughly, scrubbing with a brush, changing the water several times. Put into a large kettle, allowing one-half cup hot water to four quarts clams ; cover closely, and steam until shells partially open, care being taken that they are not overdone. Serve with individual dishes of melted butter. Some prefer a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar added to the butter. If a small quantity of boiling water is put into the dishes, the melted butter will float on top and remain hot much longer.
The method needs almost no updating; the only real risks are dead clams and overcooking. A few points on quantities, timing and the broth the original throws away.
- The hinge: pull them the moment they gapeSteamed clams toughen quickly once done. Soft-shell clams take roughly 5 to 8 minutes over high heat; check at 4 and lift out each one as it opens rather than waiting for the last stragglers.
- "Always be alive"Hard-shell clams should be tightly closed or should close when tapped; discard any that stay open or have cracked shells. Soft-shell steamers cannot fully close — their necks protrude — so judge them by whether the neck twitches when touched and by smell, which should be clean and briny.
- Four quarts of clamsVolume in the shell, not weight. Four quarts of steamers is roughly 4 to 6 lb, enough for two as a hearty main course or four as a starter. Half a cup of water for that quantity is plausible: the clams supply their own liquor and are steamed, not boiled.
- GritScrubbing cleans the outside only. Soft-shell clams hold sand internally and benefit from 20 to 30 minutes in cold salted water (about 1/3 cup salt per gallon) before cooking; lift them out rather than pouring, so the settled grit stays behind.
- Save the brothThe liquor left in the kettle is worth keeping, and this recipe does not mention it. Strain it through a fine sieve or cloth and serve it in cups alongside the butter, for dipping the clams to rinse off any last sand.
- The hot-water trick worksMelted butter over a spoonful of boiling water in each dish does keep it warm and liquid. The butter floats, so it is barely diluted; the few drops of lemon juice or vinegar the recipe mentions are a matter of taste.
- Kettle sizeA "large kettle" is best read as a wide pot with a tight lid, with the clams not piled deep. Piled higher, the bottom layer overcooks before steam reaches the top.
The soft-shell clam, Mya arenaria, was dug from tidal flats along the Massachusetts and Maine coast and sold cheaply by the peck. Steamed clams with drawn butter belong to the same New England shore tradition as the clambake, in which clams were layered with seaweed over hot stones; the kettle version is simply the indoor form of it. The instruction to buy them alive in the shell would have been a genuine caution in the 1890s, when refrigeration was limited. The floating-butter tip is characteristic of a practical streak: a small physical observation that happens to be perfectly sound.