anyakrauscooks: The Dirty D: Chowder Round 2 (Manhattan Clam Chowder Recipe)

So last time we made New England clam chowder. Oh yummy joys! Now I'll show you how to make Manhattan clam chowder. Like I said before, Manhattan clam chowder is more like a stew. There are more potatoes, clams, and vegetables in there. It's tomato based and has no cream. So if cream and butter scare you--go for the Manhattan.

Note: for both chowders you can substitute the bacon with turkey bacon if you don't eat red meat (like you mom). Just skip the blanching and add a little bit of oil to help the turkey bacon cook.

Manhattan clam chowder

Ingredients:

1/4 C bacon, medium dice (1/2" pieces)
3/4 C onion, medium dice
heaping 1/2 C celery, medium dice
A little less than 1/4 C leeks, medium dice
A little less than 1/4 C green bell pepper, medium dice
1/4 t minced garlic
1 T flour
Sachet

Use cheesecloth, about 4ply, make sure to rinse it out! Inside put 1 bay leaf (crumpled up is easier), a pinch of dried thyme, a pinch of cracked black pepper, and one chopped parsley stem (you can use a pinch of dried parsley too). Tie it up with twine really tight.

3/4 C diced tomato
1 1/2 t tomato paste
6 1/2 C clam juice
3/4 C potato (waxy, not a mealy potato), peeled and medium dice
2 C clams
1/2 t worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

The cream snuck in this shot! (far left corner). Ignore the cream.

Bowchickawowow check those clams!

The star of our chowder.

Now let's begin! Manhattan chowda!

**Scraping down the sides of the pot is okay for this chowder, we want that color! So scrape away!**

First, we're gonna cook that bacon. No need to blanch it. We want all those crusty bits on the bottom of our pan for color and flavor.

When the bacon is "breakfast brown," take it out and reserve it. We're gonna use that fat to carmelizeeee.

Add the onion, celery and bell pepper into the bacon fat. We're going to caramelize them. You want a really good caramelization. All that color = FLAVOR.

I didn't caramelize mine enough, so keep cookin' if yours looks like this. Just make sure to remove any little burnt pieces along the way.

Add the garlic. Then the leeks.

You don't want the leeks to get any color. Move on to the next step once they're cooked, slightly translucent and soft.

Dump in yo flour. We're making a golden roux (so we want color this time! A nice golden brown!) Don't be fooled by the brown color from the veggies. The flour needs to turn golden.

Once the roux is golden brown (not like the picture above!), like a big clumpy floury brownish ball, add the tomato paste. Add the tomato paste onto the vegetable-flour mixture, not directly to the bottom of the pot, tomato burns SUPER easily so be careful! Taking it off of direct heat when adding tomato is good to do, too.

Now cook this until it's dried out. It shouldn't be juicy or wet at all--we're cooking it until its "au sec." If you don't cook the tomato paste out enough you could end up with a soup the color of canned pumpkin pie filling, YUM. When it's dry, add the diced tomato.

Cook that out too, it'll take a few minutes, wanna have a dry mixture in there!

Now for the fun part.

CLAM JUICE! (smells delicious!)

So you wanna add the clam juice slooooowly. Using a ladle will help with that. Add one ladle-full, mix it in until it's lump-free (except for the vegetables of course), then add another ladle-full. Do this until all of the clam juice is added in.