Clam Chowder 2 Ways

in this video I'm not going to get into which Regional variation of clam chowder is the real one or the best because in my life there's plenty of room for multiple good tasting clam flavored soups today I'm going to show you two thoroughly tested recipes for the two most popular the creamy and clean New England style and the savory tomato flavored Manhattan now to make the New England style clam chowder I'll start by cutting up my veggies up first is onion I've got a large white onion here and I'm going to give it a small dice for this soup I want all my veggies to be cut small so they don't crowd out the texture of the chopped clams in total a large onion should give me about 250 g next I've got three ribs of celery that I've sliced top to bottom Into Thin strips from there I turned everything 90° and now I'm just chopping those down into small pieces just like I did for the onion three ribs should yield me about 200 g of celery next I'll take a half a bulb of fennel and small dice that as well fennel definitely isn't traditional for chowder and I'm sure some gristly old Boston dude would probably want to beat me up for us it but I'm a fancy Chef boy you guys and I like the subtle sweet ansy flavor in total I'll need 200 g of fennel to finish up the aromatic base of this soup I'll combine the cut vegetables and then Smash in five to six cloves of garlic that'll be roughly 20 G next it's time to cut some potatoes I've got five medium rustles here and I'll peel off their papery skin and then cut them into a medium dice I'm going bigger with the potatoes than I did for the vegetables because small diced potatoes get overcooked and mushy really fast once I've got about 1,200 G of potato potatoes cut down I'll do my last little bit of knife work which is bacon I've got three thick cut slices that I firmed up in the freezer for about 10 minutes to make them easier to cut and to prep them I sliced them into long skinny strips then cut those into a very small dice I want small bacon because I'm going to be pureing a little bit of the soup later on and large chunks of meat aren't blender friendly plus large pieces of bacon get kind of gristly and can get stuck in your teeth next up let's talk clam stuff to determine the best clam for clam chowder I did a taste test in this test I blind tasted all three of the options available to me in the middle of the United States the first option was fresh little neck clams that I steamed gently it's very soft in the middle and very chewy on the outside not my optimal clam a little Sandy too next was canned clams in clam juice pleasantly Briny great firm texture lots of clam flavor and a little bit sweet that's delightful and then lastly Frozen clam meat is that bad oh it's so rubbery and it doesn't taste like anything that is by far the worst so it turns out canned clams are good they have a really nice Briney flavor and honestly a very tender plump texture I was shocked to prepare these canned clams for the soup I need to drain off the juice and reserve the meat in total four cans of clams will give me about 300 G of juice and 325 G of meat but that's not enough juice I also need two bottles of just clam juice that'll give me another 500 G of clam juice making it 800 G of juice in total once I've got my reserved clam meat and my juices it's time to cook this chowder for that I'll grab a large heavy bottom pot and drop it on the stove over medium low heat once that's hot I'll add in a long squiggle of olive oil then in goes my bacon which was about 150 G by the way I'll give that a quick stir and render it down for about 5 to 6 minutes I don't want any Browning or crisping on this bacon this is a delicately flavored chowder and darker flavors would muddy up the waters and cover up the clean ocean flavor that we're striving for by the the way if you're wondering about throwing the bacon into the pan without oil yes you can do that and the bacon would render in its own fat but in that case you'd get more Browning than I want that's why I laid down a base of olive oil from graza the sponsor of this video the oil that I'm using here is graza Sizzle which is a milder tasting olive oil that's made for cooking and compared to some of the more expensive oils that I've cooked with it tastes noticeably more delicious and it costs less what I love about graza oils is that they're never Blended and they're made from a single variety of Olives from one place in Spain plus they already come in this convenient little squeeze bottle it's almost like they made this product with me in mind the other oil that graza makes is called drizzle and that's what I use for finishing my dishes it's spicier it's more vibrant and it is really freaking flavorful I don't cook this one I use it for dipping or putting on top of dishes to finish them off you'll see me use it later in this video as a garnish for the Manhattan chowder so for all you oil boys out there you can get five bucks off right now a set of Sizzle and drizzle with my code Brian ata.com co/ Brian ooh and if you like crunchy salty things I would also recommend adding on a bag of their new chips for five bucks they're fried in olive oil so they're better for you and I literally can't stop beating them now back to the bacon and about 5 to 7 minutes later this bacon has rendered out all of its fat so I'll add in 50 g of butter then all of my aromatics a strong pinch of salt and then I'll stir to combine and sweat these vegetables over medium heat for about 10 minutes again I don't want any caramelization or dark flavor development here so I'm going to keep the these vegetables moving by stirring them frequently and I'm going to keep the heat pretty mellow once the vegetables are softened and most of their water is cooked out I'll add in 100 G of dry white wine and then cook that down until it's evaporated and has cleaned up any veggie bits that might be starting to glaze up the bottom of the pot next in goes my clam juice from the cans then my two additional bottles then I'll add in 700 g of milk two to three bay leaves and then a strong pinch of salt to season the cooking liquid and then lastly 15 G of cornstarch that I've mixed with a little bit of water to make a slurry why am I do doing that well cornstarch helps me avoid broken milk in my chowder let's cut to an earlier batch where the milk is broken or more specifically the casan proteins in the milk have coagulated from being boiled vigorously the result is chalky milk with an unpleasant grainy texture and so after four consecutive grainy batches I finally realized that I needed to add cornstarch before the milk hits its boiling point to hold everything together so I'll stir in this cornstarch slurry then add in all of my diced potatoes stir those in then I'll lower the heat on on the pot from medium high to medium low and then I'll cook this the soup at or just below the boiling temperature of water this more gentle cook also helps keep the milk from splitting from here I'll pop on my lid and simmer until the potatoes are an edible texture about 10 minutes 10 minutes later I'll come back and check the texture of my potatoes note at this point they should not be smashable against the side of the pot I want potatoes that have just a little bit of Bite Not crunchy but definitely not smooshy and after 10 minutes these are right in that sweet spot next I'll Ladle about a quartz worth of this soup into my blender jar and spin it for about a minute and a half I decided to blend this soup to bring a creamy mouth feel without adding cream cream makes things richer and more luxurious but all that extra fat mutes flavor and in my opinion covers up the subtle Briny clam flavor that I'm going for once I've got this soup spun into a creamy velvety puree I'll pour it back into the pot give everything a quick stir to combine then I'll add in all of my drained clam Meats now the last step in any proper soup preparation is to taste for salt level and as I thought this needs a strong grip so I'll add that in give it a quick stir to dissolve the salt then I'll taste it one more time it's creamy and full bodied but not fatty or Gloppy and it tastes like the ocean in a good way the thickness of this chowder in my opinion shouldn't be too thick a proper Clam Shack chowder is thinner and packed full of clam flavor it's not clam gravy like some of the stuff that comes out of the can you guys this is probably the best New England clam chowder that I I've ever eaten the potatoes have a nice creamy bite the clams are tender and the soup itself tastes a lot like clams it's buttery it's a touch site from the aromatics especially that fancy fennel and it's just a lovely thing to eat it makes me want to wear wool and look at a cackling fireplace I hope you make it soon up next is the criminally underrated tomato version of this soup Manhattan style clam chowder to make it I'll dice 250 g of onions and 150 g of carrots the veggies in this soup should be about 50% larger than for the New England because I think this one just hits right when everything is a little bit more chunky behind the carrot in onion I'll dice 500 G of rusted potatoes and 150 g of fennel the potato should be the same size as the New England chowder as in medium of course a tomato soup needs garlic so I'll smash five to six cloves of those through my press and in total we'll need 20 G next I'll grab three slices of bacon just like I did before and cut those down small for the same reason and once I've got my knife work busted out I'll move to the stove and grab a heavy bottom pot and add in a long squiggle of olive oil then in goes my bacon I'll give that a quick stir and render it down for about 5 to 6 minutes again I don't want any color here I'm just looking to cook out the fat next I'll turn the heat up a little bit then add in my onions the fennel the carrots the garlic a strong pinch of salt to draw out the moisture and then 25 G of tomato paste from here I'll stir everything to combine and sweat the veggies for about 5 minutes until they're softened and translucent and the tomato paste is just starting to to turn a rusty red color next I'll add in 100 G of dry white wine to bring some floral acidity and to deglaze the bottom of the pot and I'll just cook that until the wine is reduced and any little brown bits on the pot have been scraped up then I'll add in 800 G of clam juice which as a reminder is roughly four drained cans worth plus two glass bottles behind that in goes all of my prepared tomatoes and then 500 G of medium diced potato hey Bri what are prepared Tomatoes well in this case it's one nice tasting of whole peeled tomatoes that I pulled four of the toms out of I then gave those four tomatoes a medium chop because I want some nice juicy bites of stewed tomato in the background of the soup as for the rest of the can I dropped in my immersion blender and spun it up until it was smooth and once everything's in the pot I'll bring it up to a simmer then turn the heat down to medium low and gently cook the potatoes avoid a hard boil because that'll make the potatoes fall apart and get mushy really quickly 10 minutes later I'll come back and give everything a quick stir to make sure nothing's sticking to the bottom Tomatoes can do that pretty easily next I'll fish out a potato and some veggies and taste for dness soft but not too soft next step in goes 3 25 G of clams 20 G of chopped parsley and then 25 G of fish sauce fish sauce helps season the soup with its saltiness it enhances the Umami flavor of the tomatoes and it just kind of ratchets up the whole Seafood flavor of the soup it's really nice before I serve I'll adjust the seasoning with one last strong pinch of salt and stir that in and there we go you guys this version of chowder is so texturally Dynamic every bite has a variety of fun soft things for you to bite into to serve I'll lle into a bowl then garnish with a dozen or so cranks of black pepper and then lastly I'll hit it with some bright fresh extra virgin olive oil and that is a powerful underrated bowl of chowder it's part chapeno and part ministr it's bright round Hardy chunky robust and just a little bit Smoky I love the way the clams and bacon play off of each other in the context of tomato if you guys want to see another vid for a delicious seafood soup then please check out my video for lobster bisque that's a recipe most people think they can't make it home but you can I'll see you there and let's eat this thing

Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Views: 105,942

Keywords: clam chowder, clam chowder recipe, New England clam chowder, Manhattan clam chowder, best clam chowder recipe, how to make clam chowder, New England chowder recipe, Manhattan chowder recipe, best clams for chowder, best chowder, chowder recipe, Brian lagerstrom, weeds and sardines, clam soup

Id: lECjl1EIEiI

Length: 11min 15sec (675 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2024