No. 197

Bisque or Puree of Clams a la Hendrick

Bisque ou Puree de Lucines a la Hendrick

Put sixty medium-sized opened clams into a pan, with their own juice; set it on the fire, and when they are very firm to the touch drain and pound the clams with their equal weight of cooked hominy; after all is well pounded and reduced to a paste, wet it with the clam juice poured off gently from the top, and some water in case the bisque be too thick, then pass it through a sieve or tammy and season with red pepper and very little salt if necessary, warm the bisque without boiling it, and just when ready to serve incorporate therein some fine butter and a little cream, garnish with sippets of bread fried in butter and some small pike quenelles (No. 90).

← No. 196 Bisques Soups & Broths No. 198 Bisque of Crabs →

For the Modern Kitchen

A clam bisque thickened with hominy rather than the usual rice or bread, from the Delmonico's kitchen. The whole dish depends on heat control at the end.

Never let it boilOnce the pounded clam paste is in the pot, and especially after the butter and cream go in, keep it below a simmer. Clam protein tightens and goes grainy at a boil, and the emulsion of butter and cream will break and look curdled.
Sixty clamsMedium hard-shell clams (quahogs or cherrystones) shucked with their liquor, perhaps 2 to 4 lb of shucked meat depending on size. It is a quantity for a large table rather than a household one, and can be scaled down.
"Very firm to the touch"The clams are cooked only until they stiffen in their own juice, a matter of a few minutes over moderate heat. Longer and they turn to rubber, and no amount of pounding will smooth that out.
Pour off the juice gentlyThis is not fussiness. Shucked clams carry sand and shell fragments that settle to the bottom, so decant from the top and leave the last spoonfuls behind, or strain through a coffee filter or damp muslin.
Cooked hominyWhole hominy, meaning dried corn treated with alkali (nixtamalized), then boiled soft. Canned hominy, drained, works and needs no further cooking. Equal weight to the drained clam meat, which produces a very thick paste before you loosen it.
Pounding and the tammyWhere Ranhofer means a mortar and a tammy cloth, use a blender or food processor and then push the puree through a fine chinois or a doubled sieve. Any tougher fragments of hominy that do not break down need to be strained out, or the bisque can feel gritty.
Red pepper, and salt with careRed pepper here is cayenne, used sparingly for warmth rather than heat. Clam juice is already saline, so taste before adding any salt at all.
Sippets and quenellesSippets are small triangles or dice of bread fried in butter, added at the table so they stay crisp. The pike quenelles of No. 90 are poached forcemeat dumplings; the soup is complete without them, and small fish or shrimp quenelles substitute directly.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is full of French technique bent around American ingredients. Bisque in the older French sense meant a soup of pounded shellfish, crayfish above all, thickened with the pounded bodies themselves and often rice; here Ranhofer swaps in cooked hominy, a distinctly American thickener made from alkali-treated corn, and calls the clams lucines after the shellfish genus. Dishes in the book carrying a personal name were generally attached to a patron, a colleague, or an occasion at the restaurant, and in most cases the connection is not recorded beyond the title. What the recipe does show plainly is the house method of the period: pound, sieve through a tammy, finish off the heat with butter and cream, and send it out garnished with fried bread and a few quenelles borrowed from another page of the same book.