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Clam Broth with Rice
Open twelve large, fresh clams and place in a saucepan with all their liquor, three pints cold water and four branches celery. Place on the fire, season with two saltspoons cayenne pepper, adding a teaspoon butter, and let boil for five minutes, then strain the broth through a cheesecloth into a saucepan. Plunge two ounces raw rice into a pint boiling water with half teaspoon salt and boil for twenty-five minutes. Drain on a sieve, then add the rice to the clam broth and boil for ten minutes. Pour it in six cups and serve.
A clear clam broth thickened only by grains of rice, from an era when shellfish broth was drunk as much for restoration as for pleasure. Nothing here is difficult; the details that matter are the grit, the salt and the cayenne.
- Strain twice for gritThe hinge of the dish. Clam liquor carries sand, and one pass through cheesecloth over a sieve is rarely enough. Let the broth settle a minute before straining and leave the last spoonful behind in the pan.
- The clamsTwelve large clams most likely means hard-shell quahogs or chowder clams rather than small littlenecks. If shucking raw is awkward, steaming them open in the measured water works, since the recipe strains the meat out of the broth anyway. Reserve the meat for something else rather than throwing it out.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of cayenne is half a teaspoon in six cups of broth. That is assertive; a quarter teaspoon suits most palates, and it can be corrected at the end.
- Branches of celeryBranches are stalks, four of them, leaves included. The leaves carry most of the aroma, so do not trim them off.
- Salt last, if at allClam liquor is already saline and reduces slightly during the five-minute boil. Season only after straining, and taste before adding anything.
- Rice timingTwo ounces is a scant third of a cup, cooked separately so its starch does not cloud the broth. The combined thirty-five minutes of cooking is longer than modern rice needs; modern long-grain wants about fifteen minutes in the water, then five in the broth to finish. Aim for tender grains that still hold their shape.
- YieldSix cups, as stated, which is six small first-course servings rather than four bowls of soup. Serve it hot in cups, without garnish; the point is clarity.
Clam broth held an odd double life in American cookery around 1900: it was a restaurant course and also a semi-medicinal drink, served hot at oyster bars and hotel counters and recommended to invalids, on the general belief that shellfish liquor was strengthening. Bottled clam broth was sold commercially in the same years for much the same reason. The insistence on clarity here -- the cheesecloth, and the rice boiled separately in its own water so no loose starch clouds the cup -- is characteristic of that style of cookery. Cayenne is also a period touch; peppery clam and oyster broths were common in American service, the same seasoning logic found in oyster stews and pan roasts of the era.