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Recipe

  • 2 ounces salt pork, very finely diced
  • 2 cups diced onion
  • 1 cup diced celery
  • 3 cups diced potato (sugar cube sized)
  • 1 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 4 cups clams and juice
  • 1⁄2 cup salted butter
  • 1⁄2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 1⁄2 quarts half-and-half or light cream

Instructions

  1. Sauté the salt pork until the fat renders out and it is translucent. Use fatty bacon if you can’t find salt port, but most grocery stores have it. Sometimes it is called “cured side meat.” Looks like solid pork fat. Fat from country ham also works well.

  2. Add onions and celery and sauté 5 minutes. Keep a nice high heat and get a little caramelization. Don’t burn.

  3. Pour in the 11⁄2 cups of clam juice, add potatoes, thyme & pepper. (Note: I add a little salt here usually).

  4. Put a lid on it and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Check to make sure they don’t get too soft.

  5. Melt butter in a saucepan and add the flour. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, should bubble. At the same time add the cream to a third saucepan and set on medium/medium high. You want to “scald it” – not boil. Just get it hot so that little bubbles form in the corner and it is very hot. DO NOT BOIL. Just to be clear, DON’T mix with the flour-butter mixture.

  6. Drain the clams (save the rest of the liquid). You may want to rinse the clams if they are sandy. Roughly chop them into the size you like.

  7. Add the clams to the pot, simmer 2 minutes.

  8. Stir the butter/flour mixture into the pot of clams/onions and stir well. It will seize up into a nasty looking paste. If it doesn’t seize up and get thick, then get the mixture hotter. Stir occasionally and keep it sort of bubbling for 5 minutes. Don’t let the bottom burn.

  9. Stir the cream in and mix well with a spoon. Remove from heat and serve. If it appears too thick, add a little clam juice. If you plan to serve the next day, it will thicken a little more once reheated – unless you almost boil it upon reheating. At the boiling point the chowder will get thinner again.

Variations

Add extra black pepper and some Cajun seasoning (a little oregano, cayenne, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder) and sometimes more salt until it tastes better.