No. 994

Clams, Philadelphia Style

Lucines Orangees a la Philadelphie

Procure two dozen medium sized clams; poach them in their own juice with as much water, and as soon as they are firm to the touch, drain them off. Fry two finely cut-up shallots in butter without letting them attain color, add the clams, and heat them with a little sherry and brandy, seasoning with mignonette and a very little salt; just when prepared to serve thicken the gravy with cream, egg-yolks and a small quantity of butter. Serve the clams in a vegetable or deep dish, and lay on top and around some small round three-quarters of an inch rice croquettes.

← No. 993 Varenikis—Polish Side Dish Clams No. 995 Clams a la Poulette →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who already knows how to open clams and make a liaison, so the instructions are terse. The two places this dish can go wrong are overcooked clams and a broken sauce.

The hinge: the egg-yolk liaisonOnce the cream and yolks go in, the sauce must not reach a simmer or it will scramble and separate. Pull the pan off the heat, temper the yolks with a ladle of the hot cooking liquid, return everything to very low heat and stir until it coats a spoon.
"Poach until firm to the touch"Read this as the shortest possible cooking. Shucked clams are done in roughly a minute in barely trembling liquid; anything approaching a boil turns them to rubber, and they get a second brief heating later in the sherry and brandy.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked peppercorns, traditionally white pepper or a white-and-black mix, not the shallot-vinegar sauce that goes by the same name on a raw bar today. Crack it fresh rather than using ground pepper.
"Lucines orangées"A French menu name for a thick-shelled bivalve of the venus/lucine group. Ranhofer's own English title says only "Clams," and the text asks for "two dozen medium sized clams"; cherrystones are a reasonable modern equivalent, or littlenecks if you want them smaller and sweeter.
The clam liquorThe clams are poached in their own juice plus an equal quantity of water. Straining that liquid through a cloth to catch grit is a sensible precaution, though the recipe does not ask for it; note that the original calls for only "a very little salt," the liquor being already saline.
ShallotsSweat them in butter over low heat until translucent, not browned. Ranhofer is explicit about the colour, and browned shallot flavour would swamp the clams.
The rice croquettesPlain croquettes of rice cooked in stock or milk, bound and cooled, rolled into balls three-quarters of an inch across, breaded and fried. They are a garnish and a starch; small deep-fried rice balls or even crisp toast points serve the same purpose.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; two dozen clams in a rich sauce would probably serve about four as a first course, or two as a main dish with the croquettes.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The double titling here is characteristic of the book: an elaborate French menu name, Lucines orangées à la Philadelphie, sits over a dish of plain American clams, because Delmonico's dining room ran on French nomenclature. The treatment itself is classic French technique applied to a local shellfish, a sauce poulette in all but name, and the following entry in the book is in fact a Clams à la Poulette. Why it should be "Philadelphia style" is not explained in the text; nineteenth-century American menus attached city names to dishes loosely.