Rhode Island Clam Chowder
A thin, clear clam chowder of clam juice, bacon, potatoes and onion, simmered for 35 minutes with no cream and no flour.
Make Ahead and Storage
Keeps for 3 days in the fridge. Freeze for 2 months, though the potatoes soften.
Making Rhode Island Clam Chowder
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Cook the bacon in a large pot over a medium heat for 6 minutes until crisp. Lift it out and leave 2 tablespoons of fat in the pot.
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Soften the onion in the fat for 5 minutes, then add the potatoes, clam juice, water and bay leaf.
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Simmer for 20 minutes until the potatoes are just tender.
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Stir in the clams and bacon and cook for 2 minutes. Remove the bay leaf, season with pepper and add the parsley.
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A Few Pointers
- Keep the clams out until the end so they stay tender.
- Taste before adding salt; the clam juice and bacon are already salty.
- Dice the potatoes small so they cook through in the time.
Behind the Recipe
On the first cold day of the year, this is the chowder to make when something lighter than the creamy kind is wanted. Rhode Island clam chowder is clear: a broth of clam juice, bacon fat, onion and potato, with the clams added at the end. Clear broth is the point.
Start with the bacon, rendering the fat slowly until crisp, and soften the onion in the fat. Add the potatoes, the clam juice and water, and simmer until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart. Put the clams in for the last two minutes only. Longer, and they go tough and rubbery.
There is no flour and no cream, so the soup is thin, and what carries the flavour is the clam juice and the bacon. Taste before salting, because the juice and bacon are salty already. Finish with parsley and plenty of black pepper, and serve with oyster crackers or crusty bread. Taste before salting.
Serving Ideas
Oyster crackers · Crusty bread · Clam cakes · Lemon wedges
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Artisan Sourdough Bread, Buttermilk Biscuits, New York Bagels.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published .
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