Clam Chowder 24, Seahawks 21
This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook by preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks' opponent.
Seahawks vs Clam Chowder Preview.
You wanna know who buys a ton of seafood at the Market? Tourists. When we went to buy our clams Sunday morning, we were surrounded by landlocked visitors all with same question, "But if I buy this, won’t it go bad, in like, an hour?"
Well, that’s where you are wrong, oh visitor to our fair shores. The fisherman behind the rubber aprons explained how their seafood could be shipped anywhere, no problem. There was even a sign stating that fish could be delivered to the airport.
So you can imagine our amusement when we were handed our two-and-a-half pounds of clams with a warning, "Make sure you refrigerate these within two hours."
We sped home and per the recipe immediately covered our clams in cold water and a quart cup of salt.
We were a bit nervous, as we just assumed that this would bring the little guys back to life. So we grabbed our claimin’ hammer, loaded our gun, and waited for half an hour. Nothing.
Relieved, we moved everything over to the stove to steam the shells open. It is supposed to take ten to fifteen minutes, at which point the previously sealed shells would spring open and present their bad-smelling meat within. Any shell that remains closed after this time was the sign of a bad clam, and should be thrown out immediately.
We steamed for about twenty minutes, sorry, we got distracted by the cat getting distracted by the newly erected Christmas tree.
At this point the shells were wide open, and clam meat just slipped right out. Very easy.
We put diced ham, celery, onions, and thyme into a pot and cooked all of them for about five minutes. Then we added our clam-soaking water along with some diced red potatoes. After everything was brought to a boil, we added some heavy whipping cream, and finally the diced clams.
The recipe said to let the chowder simmer for five minutes; however, it looked a bit too liquidy. We're not sure what made us an expert on chowder, having never had it ourselves, but we decided we knew what we were doing, and the simmering on low for five minutes went to simmering on high for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.
We used manila clams; they are all over the Market like cobblestones. From what we read, steamers make for a sweeter chowder, but the localized manila clams make for a fresher meal.
Not that it mattered to us. We’d like to say that we tried some of our creation; however, we opted for some leftover Thai food instead. Our guests proved stronger than us, so we got our ladle on and served the chowder with parsley and crackers.
NEXT WEEK: Seahawks @ Ceviche, 10 a.m.
