(calm music) - Here in New England, everyone's got their own
version of clam chowder but the best ones come
from the clam shacks and my personal favorite is
from Woodman's up in Essex and today, Christie's gonna show us how to make this at home. - I sure am. - I'm excited for this. - Oh, it's so good and a lot
of New England clam chowders tend to be really rich,
they're thickened with flour or they've got a lot of
salty pork products in them. Woodman's is much more S-tier, simpler, clams, potatoes, onions,
butter, little cream. - And you can really taste the clams. That's why it's my favorite. - And the clams are nice and tender and so that's the real trick and that's what we're
gonna work really hard on to make happen in this version. - Okay. - We're gonna start though with potatoes. - Classic ingredient in clam chowder. It's not a chowder if it
doesn't have potatoes. - Right and these are russet potatoes so what's going to give us a
really potato-y potato flavor. - That's a lot of potatoes. - It's a pound and three quarters. So I'm just gonna cut this
into half inch pieces. Now let's get these potatoes cooking. So I'm putting all my
potatoes in a large saucepan and then I'm going to add cold water to cover the potatoes by an inch. I'll bring this to a boil over high heat but once the potatoes come up to a boil, I'll turn the heat down to medium low and then I'm going to cook them
only until they're al dente and it's only gonna take
about three minutes. The potatoes have been simmering
for about three minutes so I just wanna test these. Remember I said we just want them al dente and they should still
be a little resistant to a paring knife going in there. They're just right. - They're just cooked on the outsides but the inside is still underdone. - Right. Now, I'm going to drain
these in a colander and then I'll transfer them to a bowl where I'll let them cool completely which will take about 30 minutes. - Okay. - Julia, my potatoes have been hanging out for about 30 minutes They're completely cool.
- [Julia] Okay. - So we're ready to move on to clams. Woodman's is located right on the coast. They're a clam shack. - [Julia] Exactly. - They've got access to fresh clams and so do we here in Boston
but not everyone does. We wanted to make sure that this recipe was not only accessible
but also more affordable for anyone who might wanna make it. So I'm starting with two
six and a half ounce cans of chopped clams. - [Julia] Okay. - And I'm going to add both
of them to my cooled potatoes. - [Julia] I've never seen
chowder made like this. - [Christie] We'll add the onions. - What?
- That I meticulously chopped. - It's a cold start chowder. This is incredible, Christie. You're breaking all the rules, I love it. - I love it. Teaspoon of salt and
two teaspoons of pepper. I'm gonna mix this all together. The reason we're doing this
is because most of the time you build flavor in your
chowder on the stove top, right? That's where you let all
the flavors come together but heat is the very thing
that's gonna make these clams feel like little erasers
in your mouth, right? - Yes, I've had that chowder. - So we want to kind of
marry all these flavors, let that infusion happen,
the clams into the potatoes, the onions into the potatoes,
the potatoes into the onions. We wanna let that happen
off the heat first. Now, if you wouldn't mind
holding that zipper lock bag. It's a one gallon. You wanna make sure it's nice and big. - [Julia] Okay. - [Christie] And we're gonna
transfer this into the bag. It's a little juicy. - [Julia] Why the bag? - Because we've got a
lot of strong smelling finely chopped onions and we've got clams and clam juice in here and those are smells
that maybe you don't want infusing your refrigerator's contents. - [Julia] Okay, I got it. So this is for the stink factor? - Yes. Thank you. So we'll just make sure
that this is tightly sealed. Now, this is gonna go and
sit in the refrigerator. We want the flavors to
marry for at least an hour but it can sit in there for up to 24. - Okay. (calm music) - Julia, I have our infusion of potatoes, chopped clams and onions
in a large saucepan. - Good. - But we can't start this chowder without talking about the star which are some whole baby clams. - Oh, nice, in addition
to the chopped clams? - Yes, so I have two 10 ounce
cans of whole baby clams. - Okay. - And I'm going to strain these. So I want one cup of the brine. - Okay. - You should get that from
the two cans but if you don't, you can always just add a little water to make sure you have the right amount. - Okay.
- This is perfect. So I'll add this to
the potato clam mixture along with one and a half
teaspoons of table salt. Now, I'm going to bring
this up to a bare simmer over medium heat. - [Julia] So a bare simmer,
what does that even mean? - A bare simmer is talking
about those little bubbles that you start to get around
the edges of the saucepan. We're starting this out on medium heat. It's gonna take a while
to get those bubbles. - It will. - But you have to give it the time. You can't turn the heat
up to get there faster because the whole thing is this
slow heating of the potatoes to get them cooked to where we want them. Julia, it's been about 10 minutes. - I see bubbles. - You see just little
bubbles around the outside and I've been going in and
stirring this pretty frequently just to get a gauge to make sure you don't have
potatoes sticking on the bottom or scorching or anything. So this is great. I turn the heat down to medium low and we're going to let this go until the potatoes are mostly done. - [Julia] All right.
- Five minutes. It's been about five minutes. So now we can add the clams. - [Julia] Okay. - [Christie] And now I'm also adding two cups of light cream. - [Julia] Light cream. - Light cream, not too rich, not too heavy but it gives it that nice creamy feel and if you can't find light cream, you can always use one and
a half cups of heavy cream and cut it with about
half a cup of whole milk. I'm gonna turn my heat up
ever so slightly to medium and we're gonna let this
cook stirring it occasionally until the potatoes are fully cooked and the chowder is nice
and hot throughout. Just five more minutes. - [Julia] Christie, that
is looking like soup. - The potatoes are tender so I'm gonna take this off the heat but we're not quite finished. We added some cream but we
need a little bit of richness in the form of some nice flavorful butter. So I have two tablespoons
of unsalted butter. - [Julia] Mm. - Adding it off the heat
is also going to allow it to kind of melt into the
chowder without braking. So it's gonna keep that
creamy consistency. This isn't quite as thick as some traditional New
England clam chowders. So an optional ingredient. This is two tablespoons of
instant mashed potato flakes. - That's brilliant 'cause
it'll dissolve into the soup and thicken it without
having a discernible flavor. - Right, oh, well, it tastes like potatoes and we just happen to have
potatoes in this chowder already. Okay, so I think this is good. - [Julia] I love that you have mugs. I love eating chowder out of mugs. I don't know what it is
about chowder and mugs. A mug or a bread bowl. The classic crackers, oyster crackers. - [Christie] Well, you
can't eat it without. - No, you can't. Christie, this soup looks amazing. Oh, Christie, this is delicious. This is really close to Woodman's with the consistency and
that potent clam flavor. I'd be hard-pressed to know that it was canned and not fresh clam. - I agree and I think that if you're buying quality canned clams, you're not gonna notice a difference. - Christie, this is delicious, thank you. - It was my pleasure. - To make this incredible clam chowder, use two types of canned clams, chopped clams and whole baby clams. Undercook the potatoes slightly and let them marinate
with some of the clams and simmer the soup very gently. From Cook's Country, a spectacular recipe for
Woodman's style clam chowder. This is my new recipe. - Mm.
- This is incredible. - Thanks for watching Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen. So what'd you think? - Leave a comment and let us know which recipes
you're excited to make or just say hi. - Now, you can find links to
today's recipes and reviews in the video description. - And don't forget to
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