If you like Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous, this is the soup for you! None of that pansy chowder with the celery and carrots for me, please! We be men of the seas, avasting unto adventure, smashing our empty bottles of rum on the domes of kraken in between sprees of sodomy and pillaging those geezer-packed cruise ships ... for more rum, of course! Yar.
Preparation: 10 mins.
Cooking: min. 1 hour
Servings: 10 - 12
Est. cost: about $12
Today's Specimen
Ingredients
- 6 slices bacon, sliced (I used uncured applewood-smoked)
- 3 (6½ oz) cans minced clams
- 4 cups potato, diced
- 2 cups onion, diced
- 1¼ cups flour
- about ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 4 cups half-and-half
- 2 cups water
- 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. white pepper
Directions
- On medium heat in a large frying pan or saucepan cook the bacon until it's browned well but not to the point of crispness. Slice or cut with meat shears and set aside, also setting aside the grease to use in the roux.
- Peel and dice the potatoes and steam for about twenty to twenty-five minutes or until they can easily be slid off a knife when pierced but don't slide off of their own accord. Set aside.
- Pour the bacon grease into a metal measuring cup and place on a burner at medium-low heat and slowly melt the unsalted butter in it one half-stick at a time until a cup of melted fat is ready. At the same time, have a large pot (min. 4 qt. capacity) ready on medium heat. When the fat is all melted, pour into the large pot and add the diced onion and cook for about ten minutes, stirring constantly so as not to burn the fat.
- Slowly add the flour a little at a time, stirring constantly with a fork and making sure that there are no lumps. After all is stirred in keep stirring the roux to ensure that its consistency is even and it loses some of its mealy texture (you can tell because it will appear less grainy and more glutinous).
- Pour in the clams with the clam juice and the water, a little at a time, stirring constantly to ensure an even mixture, cooking and stirring for about five minutes afterward.
- Add the bacon and pour in two cups of the half-and-half, a cup at a time, stirring constantly (this time with a paddle or whisk) and making sure the mixture is evenly consistent before adding more half-and-half.
- Add the potatoes and the rest of the half-and-half, stirring gently to ensure an even consistency.
- Add the salt and pepper and once the soup begins to simmer drop the temperature down to low and cover and cook for an additional forty minutes to an hour, stirring every fifteen to twenty minutes. Add the red wine vinegar just before serving, stirring it in thoroughly.
- Pay the above picture no mind; serve this stuff with a garnish of fresh parsley and/or chives, maybe with a side of chowder crackers or small garlic bread chips and some Tabasco hot sauce (the habanero one is excellent — just a few drops!).
Roux-based cream soups and sauces must be stirred and incremented to death to ensure they attain the desired consistency and texture.
Next Time in the Lab
Hot damn, I be a pirate, matey! Yar! Yar yar yar! The only thing I can really think to do to this soup is to add more diced potatoes, really. Well, maybe add a little more bacon and clam, and a cup of water. I'm kind of reluctant to mess with this soup too much, though, because I don't want to turn it into a stew — which is for landlubbers.
- Increase the amount of diced potatoes to six cups.
- Increase the amount of bacon to eight strips.
- Increase the amount of clam to four cans.
- Add a cup of water.
