Monday, February 1, 2016

Clam Chowder

The Best Clam Chowder Recipe Ever

The Farmer stumbled apon a recipe for "Real New England Clam Chowder"
The author has a beautiful post but The Farmer still wants to showcase his own work.

Food Basics has frozen cooked clam meat available.
It isn't in liquid, just frozen meat.
It actualy tastes nice and is tender as well.
This is half of a $10 bag


The Farmers Wife chopped up 4 cups of celery with clean leaves included


The Farmer is the go to guy when onions need chopping
Two large  cooking onions did the trick.


Potato is one of the main ingredients.
These are local white purchased at Gallaghers Farmers Market this fall


Pupo's Food Market is The Farmers go to place for meats


This was such a nice salted pork belly.
Nice ratio of fat to meat.


The fire alarm had to be relocated for a while during the rendering process.
This took a while and a few adjustments to the flame to sizzle without smoking.


The Celery and onion deglazed the pot nicely


After two Litres of milk were brought up to simmer the potatoes were added.


The Farmers Wife stirred for the first twenty minutes keeping a very light simmer.
Just tiny bubbles around the edge.
The Farmer stirred for what felt to him an eternity but was probably twenty minutes as well.


The fat was starting to rise and pool on top when the potatoes were cooked.


As instructed in the recipe The Farmer strained out all the solids.


This is a beautiful picture of the liquid before blending.
Pictures of the blending process were never taken due to a tragic event.
Lets just say The Farmer has learned to never plug in a full blender without 
checking first to ensure the switch is turned to the off position.


Once the mess was cleaned up and the pureed liquids were reunited with the solids
A quart of cream was added and the mix was brought up to serving temperature.


Very Homogeneous indeed.
The blending brought the fats back into the sauce nicely.


Through the process time was taken to drain the water used to thaw the clams.
They were chopped into thirds smaller ones in half.
All the drippings were caught and transferred to the pot.
Now that everything is done cooking in go the clams.
The Farmer and The Farmers Family like a bit of zip so 
a few dashes of Tabasco sauce  was added.
Salt and pepper as well

This was a lot of work but well worth the effort.
This is the best chowder The Farmer has ever had.
Next time he may even seek out some fresh clams.
There isn't much claming going on in the great lakes region though.


The farmers Wife found a surprise in one of the potatoes.
It wasn't a likeness of The Virgin Mary.
Not even an angel but it does appear to have wings.


Happy Cooking !