Clam Chowder

(Edited to note: The 49ers totally lost. I don't blame the soup.)

I owe San Francisco.

I owe it for one of my all-time favorite movies, San Francisco, and for how Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy still make me cry every time. I owe it for Damien Rice at the Fillmore on my 21^st birthday. I owe it for perfect weather this Christmas with my sweet family.

But really, I owe San Francisco for giving me truly formative time with my mom and extra years with my dad. 

My dad had a kidney transplant in San Francisco a few decades ago, which put mom and me in the city with him pretty regularly. I think being a little kid whose dad had always been sick but never complained about it, I didn't really understand that this should probably have been a scary thing to me. Instead, I got to enjoy regular road trips with my parents, and take in a whole mess o' culture. Growing up in a small town in central California (as some Facebook map recently noted, we were in the “mostly something for driving through” section), San Francisco was my gateway drug to the rest of the world, more so than any book I could read.

Mom took me to see the works of the old masters at the de Young and the Legion of Honor, and delighted every sense at the Exploratorium (which she must have been bored of at some point, I made her go so many times). We went to the Asian Art Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden and Little Tokyo, where she indulged my love of ramen and all things Sanrio. SFMOMA blew my little mind, and I still have the flattened and imprinted penny I made at the Cable Car Museum. One of my favorite days involved a trip to Fort Point, where mom let me get a little Union soldier cap that bent my already wild imagination in the direction of the Civil War for months. And of course we never once went to Alcatraz, because we were certainly not tourists (gasp!).

Besides all the Quality Time and learning that was going on, there was one other thing to look forward to on all those trips (budding addiction to museum gift shops notwithstanding). Mom and I would go to the Boudin Bakery and have clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. It was something I thought about when we weren't there, one of my first food loves, and for me it's inextricable with any thought of San Francisco.

I haven’t had clam chowder in years, because there’s too much culinary touring to do in SF these days (I mean, that lemon meringue cake at Tartine? Burma Superstar? Rosamunde? Suppenkuche? MISSION CHINESE?!?).  My taste buds may have been a bit less developed back then, but no matter how many great meals I’ll have there over the course of my life, nothing will say San Francisco like clam chowder and sourdough. And no matter how many attempts I could make at clam chowder, none will ever taste as good as it felt to be sitting at the Boudin Bakery with my mom.

So here’s me, sending whatever good juju I have to San Francisco, a city that’s given me so much and deserves a hell of a lot of wins. CLEAR EYES FULL HEARTS CAN’T LOSE, Niners. (Ed.: Guess they had blurry eyes, and their hearts would have been fuller if they had eaten some soup.)

Okay, enough of that. Sportball!

 The game looked just as bad from up there.

I kind of Frankensteined about five recipes (including Cooks Illustrated, Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home, and various Internet stuff) to get to this thing I did. I promise it was delicious (and super decadent) even though I used 1/3 the cream that four of said recipes called for, and used 2% milk rather than whole. 

Even though I used 1/3 the cream, Cookie Monster would definitely say this is a sometimes food, and my answer to anyone who thinks I could possibly lose weight during Soupruary.

It's so necessary to eat this with the sourest sourdough you can find--it really cuts through the creaminess. It's some kind of magic trick with your brain, where eating bread actually makes something taste healthier.

I won't describe the soup too much, because you know what clam chowder tastes like. Imagine standard clam chowder, make it thicker and better and I think you're pretty much there.

Side note: be glad I didn’t go with some of my 4am Souper Bowl brainstorming ideas, like buffalo-blue soup or nacho soup (related note: be glad you never have to talk to me at 4am).

BTW, remind me that I'm terrified of cooking clams and I don't ever want to do it again. Like, ever.  I really don't want to get into my specific heebie-jeebies, but I will say there's a reason I've only butchered a whole chicken once (and that reason is I'm a gigantic pansy, and I accept myself for it).  

Clam Chowder

Probably serves 8

GET THIS STUFF

2 T olive oil

2 leeks, white and light green parts coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)

1 large white onion, diced (about 2 cups)

5 cloves of garlic, minced or put through a garlic press

3 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced

1 clove of garlic, smashed

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

10 whole black peppercorns

1 bay leaf

4 T unsalted butter, divided (2 & 2) 

1/4 c flour

3 c 2% milk

1 c heavy cream

4 shallots, finely chopped

1/2 c dry white wine

A buncha clams (I used 20 littleneck clams and 6 big ol' cherryneck clams)

Some chives, snipped with scissors, as garnish

DO THIS WITH IT

Heat olive oil in a heavy pot over low heat and add leeks, onion, and minced garlic. 

Add some salt and stir to coat, then cover directly on top of the vegetables (I used my super useful silicone lily pad for this, but foil or parchment with a few little holes poked in it will work just fine). 

Cook over low heat for about 35 minutes, or until they're all kind of melted together.

  

Meanwhile, make a sachet out of the smashed clove of garlic, the peppercorns, the bay leaf and two of the thyme sprigs (if you don't have cheesecloth, just go ahead and stick this stuff in a pan--you can fish it out and you'll be fine).

Put the diced potatoes in a pan with the sachet (or loose stuff) and cover with cold water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are just cooked.

Drain the potatoes and spread them out to cool--you want these to stop cooking so they don't turn to mush.

 

Okay, the creepy part: Cook the clams.

Melt the other 2 T of butter in a big saute pan over medium-high heat.

Add shallots and the other 2 sprigs of thyme and stir for about 2 minutes.

Add wine and let the alcohol cook off for another 2 minutes or so.

Add clams and cover to steam. They're done when they open just a bit, like a centimeter.

Remove them from the pan and let them cool a bit. 

Strain the juice in the bottom of the pan through a fine mesh strainer and reserve for later.

Pop open your clams, remove the meat and coarsely chop. 

Put your chopped clams with the potatoes--you'll add them at the same time.

When the leeks/onions/garlic are done, turn heat up to medium and add 2 T of butter.

Next, add the flour and stir constantly for about 2 minutes.

Slowly add milk and cream, stirring constantly.

Let chowder simmer for 10 minutes or so, then add reserved clam broth (being careful to avoid any sediment that may have settled to the bottom).

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add potatoes and clams and stir to combine.

At this point I added 1 cup of water, just to make it a tiny bit less thick (it was still super thick). This didn't really dilute the flavor at all, so if you want to add water, go ahead.

Garnish with chives and enjoy WITH SOURDOUGH.