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Creamed Clam Bouillon
Wash and scrub thoroughly one dozen clams. Put in saucepan with one-half cup of cold water, and place over fire until the shells open. Strain juice through cheese cloth. Chop clams fine and place over fire with juice. Simmer gently for ten minutes; cool for five minutes. Whip until frothy the white of one egg; add crushed shells and stir into clams; boil up and strain. Measure and allow an equal quantity of milk. Heat the milk in double boiler, and for each cupful allow one level tablespoonful of butter and half tablespoonful of flour. Rub butter and flour to a paste, add to milk and stir until smooth and thick. Cover and cook for five minutes; add clam broth, heat and season to taste with cayenne. For each cupful of bouillon have ready one-quarter of a cupful of thick whipped cream. Take broth from fire, add cream, and serve at once.
A clarified clam broth thickened with a milk-and-butter roux and finished with whipped cream. The clarification step is the part most cooks will not have met before, and it decides whether the result is clear amber or cloudy grey.
- The hinge: clarify off a gentle heatEgg white and crushed shells trap fine sediment as they coagulate; a rolling boil breaks the raft up and pushes the particles back into the broth. Bring it just to the point of foaming, then draw it off and strain through a double layer of cheesecloth without pressing.
- Clams to use"Clams" here most likely means hard-shell East Coast quahogs -- littlenecks or cherrystones -- though the recipe does not specify. A dozen littlenecks plus the half cup of water should give something on the order of a cup of liquor, so expect a modest quantity of finished soup.
- Grit is the real enemyScrubbing alone will not remove sand from inside the shell. Soak the clams in cold salted water for 20-30 minutes first, lift them out rather than pouring, and discard any that stay shut after the others have opened.
- The ten-minute simmerLong cooking would ruin clams meant to be eaten, but here the chopped meat is strained out and discarded — it is being used purely to extract flavour into the liquor. Nothing is lost by following the original time.
- Salt last, or not at allClam liquor is already saline and reduces further as it simmers. Season only after the milk and broth are combined; cayenne, as written, is the only seasoning the recipe asks for and a pinch goes a long way in a cup of soup.
- Milk and rouxRubbing butter and flour cold into a paste is a beurre manié — stir it into hot milk in small pieces. A double boiler keeps the milk from scorching; a heavy saucepan over low heat works if you stir constantly.
- Adding the brothWarm the clam broth before it meets the thickened milk and combine off direct heat. Salty, acidic shellfish liquor stirred into hot milk can curdle it if either is at a hard boil.
- The creamWhipped cream here is unsweetened; the recipe asks for it "thick", so beat it firm enough to hold its shape. Add it after the pan leaves the stove and serve immediately, or it deflates.
- YieldAbout two cups of finished bouillon, or four small cups as a first course. It does not reheat well once the cream is in.
Bouillon in a book of this vintage means a clear, sippable broth, often served in two-handled cups at the start of a meal or handed round at receptions and card parties, where it was drunk rather than spooned. The egg-white-and-shell clarification is borrowed straight from the classical consomme kitchen, applied to a thoroughly American ingredient: hard-shell clams were cheap, abundant along the whole Atlantic seaboard, and by 1900 bottled clam juice and canned clam bouillon were sold commercially as an invalid food and a fashionable restorative. Calling for the broth to be clarified and then immediately clouded with milk and cream is a very turn-of-the-century compromise — the technique of the French kitchen in service of the richer, dairy-heavy taste of the American table, closer in spirit to New England chowder than to consomme.