Scalloped Clams
There will be needed thirty-six opened, soft clams, and twelve large ones in the shell. Have the latter opened carefully, so as not to injure the shells, which are to be used in scalloping the clams. Clean the shells well with a brush and water. Lay two clams in each half shell, dust with white pepper and one-half teaspoon of minced celery, and add four very small dice of fat bacon; cover with a very thin layer of cracker dust, put a piece of butter on top and bake in the oven until brown.
Clams and oysters are incorporated in fritters, croquettes, patties, cutlets (see entrées, fritters, etc.), and are also served à la Newburg. See Chapter on Chafing-dish Recipes.
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A straightforward baked clam on the half shell, complicated only by the bookkeeping of two kinds of clam. Read the arithmetic before you shop.
- The clam countTwelve large hard-shell clams give twenty-four half shells; two clams in each means forty-eight clams in total, which is the thirty-six shucked soft clams plus the twelve large ones chopped or left whole. Buy the big ones for their shells as much as their meat.
- Soft clams"Soft clams" are steamers (Mya arenaria), sold shucked at good fish counters or available frozen. The dark siphon skin should be peeled off and the gritty bellies rinsed, or the dish will be sandy. Hard-shell clams of any size will substitute.
- Cracker dustFinely rolled plain soda or water crackers, closer to a coarse flour than a crumb. Unsalted saltines pounded in a bag are the nearest thing; panko is too open and stays pale.
- Oven heatThe book gives no temperature, only "bake in the oven until brown." A hot oven, around 425F, suits the dish. These are shallow, thin things and want browning, not cooking through; the clams are essentially done the moment they are warm.
- TimingTen to twelve minutes is enough for the bacon to render and the crumbs to colour. Clams held longer than that tighten into rubber, which is the usual fault with this style of dish.
- Fat baconPeriod bacon was generally fatter and saltier than most supermarket rashers. Cut the dice from the fatty end of a slab or from salt pork; the four very small dice per shell amount to very little fat, and it is there to baste the crumbs.
- SaltNo salt is called for, and none is needed. Between the clam liquor, the bacon and the crackers the seasoning takes care of itself; taste before adding any.
- ShellsScrub with a stiff brush, then boil the empty shells a few minutes to sterilise and loosen anything left inside. Steady them on a bed of coarse salt or crumpled foil in the pan so the butter does not run out.
- YieldTwenty-four filled shells, which serves six as a first course or four as a light main with bread.
Scalloping in nineteenth-century American cookery meant baking something in a shell or shallow dish under crumbs and butter, and the shell was originally literal, whether a scallop's or, along the Atlantic coast, a clam's. Butterick's readers on the eastern seaboard had both soft-shell clams, the steamers dug from tidal flats and chiefly associated with New England and the mid-Atlantic, and hard-shell quahogs, whose thick rounded valves survive scrubbing and repeated oven use in a way a steamer's brittle shell does not, which is exactly why the recipe buys twelve large clams chiefly for their crockery. The formula is a near relation of the baked stuffed clam that later hardened into the restaurant "clams casino," generally traced to Rhode Island in the early twentieth century and likewise built on bacon, breadcrumbs and a half shell. That the entry ends by cross-referencing fritters, croquettes, patties and a chafing-dish Newburg is characteristic of the Butterick book, which was published by a pattern company and organised like a catalogue: one shellfish, many treatments, all of them findable elsewhere in the volume.