You Can't Go Wrong With Bacon

Last night I got a wild hair and decided to make the New England Clam Chowder with Leeks and Bacon recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Soup cookbook I previously mentioned. I've made a few recipes from it, but I've never messed with shell fish before other than shrimp.

The ingredients are pretty basic (like most New England food) so I gathered leeks, red potatoes, bacon and light cream from the supermarket. The first one I went to, that is. Two grocery stores later (the last being the fancy Harris Teeter on Duke Street) I found 3 dozen fresh clams. I went with the littleneck clams since they were cheaper and if I screwed up the recipe, I would waste less money.

I followed the directions (I always do the first time), and found the soup to be tasty. A few problems - other than the leeks and bacon, there were spices and boiled red potatoes. Yuck. Potatoes are my least favorite starch and this includes (french) fried potates. (And in my experience, just about anything fried tastes good. Case in point: Fried pickles. Delicious.) Depsite watching the simmering broth like a hawk, I think I broke the cream because I had to simmer to potatoes for 15 minutes in it. The soup still tasted good, but the consistency was a little off.


I rooted around Williams-Sonoma's website and found another recipe that calls for adding the cream at the end and simmering for 2 minutes (enough to heat it up), and adds celery, onions, Worchestershire sauce, and pancetta. Next time I'm in the mood for clam chowder, I'm going with this recipe instead.

On the up side, I still have tasty soup for the rest of the week. I experienced steaming fresh clams for the first time, and they tasted so good (I snacked on one before adding to the soup), I'm encouraged to cook more fresh shell fish and maybe try a Linguine with White Clam Sauce.

Bon appetit!