SOUP OF THE MONTH
This is the first of several soup recipes that will be featured each month. This is my favorite New England style clam chowder and the recipe is from The Nantucket Table, by Susan Simon. You can see a review of this book at this link: Cookbook Reviews The recipe is named in honor of Herman Melville's Mrs. Hussey. FYI, "quahogs" is pronounced co-hogs.
Nantucket Clam Chowder After Mrs. Hosea Hussey
| ¼ pound | salt pork or slab bacon, finely diced |
| 1 quart | Quahogs, packed in 1 cup liquid |
| 2 cups | water |
| 1 large | yellow onion,, finely diced |
| ½ cup | common crackers, pounded to crumbs |
| 2½ cups | diced new potatoes |
| 4 cups | milk or half and half |
| 8 teaspoons | unsalted butter |
| salt & freshly ground black pepper |
1. In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan or a stockpot, over medium high heat, sauté the salt pork or bacon until as much fat as possible is rendered and all that remains solid are the cracklings. Remove the cracklings and reserve. Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.
2. Take the quahogs out of their liquid and reserve the liquid. Rinse them in the 2 cups water. Strain the water and reserve. Finely mince the quahogs.
3. Sauté the onion and quahogs together in the pork fat for about 5 minutes. Combine the pounded crackers with the clam mixture. Add the quahog liquid and the reserved rinse water. Add the potatoes and cook until tender, approximately 10 minutes. Add the cracklings. In a saucepan, heat the milk but do not let it boil. Add hot milk to the chowder.
4. Serve chowder hot with a teaspoon of unsalted butter in each bowl and salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Yield: 8 servings
Copyright © 2000 Ann Hall Every
