A slow cooker clam chowder recipe, slightly modified from this one, and annotated.
Ingredients:
4 slices bacon
2 medium white onions
4 cloves garlic
1/3 cup flour
3 6.5 ounce cans chopped clams
2.5 cups white wine for cooking
3 medium-large white potatoes
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
3 cups half and half
1 cup cream
1. Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks (half inch to one inch cubes). Set aside.
2. Chop onions. Cut bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Mince the garlic or squeeze it through a garlic press. Open the cans of clams, drain clam juice into a measuring cup, set clams aside (refrigerate).
3. In a wok or large skillet fry the bacon until it greases the pan. Add onion, sautee until onion is soft. Add garlic, sautee until the garlic smells nice.
4. Reduce heat to medium or so and slowly stir in the flour. Fry until everything is coated.
5. Pour in clam juice and wine. Stir until everything is blended.
6. Pour all this into the slow cooker. Add the potatoes, chicken bouillon, marjoram, celery seed, and pepper. Stir.
7. Cook on low for 7 hours.
8. Add clams, half and half, and cream.
9. Cook on high for another 30 minutes.
Most slow cooker clam chowder recipes I've seen call for cream of mushroom soup. The Boston snob in me is shocked. This tastes more like what we remember. The wine especially adds a wonderful tang to the taste. This went perfectly with oyster crackers (natch) and a crusty sourdough bread.
Notes: Of course fresh clams would probably taste better than canned; in that case you'd want to buy bottled clam juice to use, and I unfortunately don't know how much because I forgot to notice how much juice was in 3 cans of clams. Also, a fourth can of clams wouldn't go amiss. As for the wine, the cooking wine we used had salt added; if you're using a normal white wine (i.e., made for drinking) you'll want to add salt to the recipe to compensate. Finally, next time we might try reducing the liquid to make the broth just a little thicker - but what to cut back on? Clam juice? Wine? Half and half?
We're making this today (for Mother's Day, yay!) I poured the clam juice into a measuring cup and 3 cans of clams made maybe 1 cup, 1 1/3 cups of juice. We'll tell you how it turns out.
ReplyDeleteYum. We approve of this recipe. And this is one of the many dishes that makes me appreciate the non-pickiness of my kids. "What's a clam?" "It looks like chicken but it grows in the ocean. You'll like it." "Okay." :)
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