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Showing posts with label jan slezak photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jan slezak photography. Show all posts

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Wicked Good Clam Chowdah

At the ripe old age of 83 (he just turned so today), my Dad still goes digging for clams in the summer at our cozy cottage in Friendship, Maine--he disappears for hours at a time--to bring back the most delicious mollusks from Muscongus Bay which we steam and dip in butter, or marinate with gin, clam juice, and apple cider vinegar for soused clams (an excellent garnish for an extra dry martini!) or make into a chowder. When Baby and I were home over Christmas, Dad sent us back to New York with the best gift of all--juicy clams he had dug up, vacuum-sealed and frozen from this past summer's haul. Although I started with a delicious recipe from my father, I feel I complicated it a bit, haphazardly trying to make my first clam chowder, but as we are to take recipes and adapt them into something of our own, passing them down along the way, I think the extra time and labor ended up creating another wonderful Down Maine dish that I'd be proud to serve in Friendship.

Happy Birthday! My dear old Dad!


Wicked Good Clam Chowdah
Serves 4
Ingredients
3 slices Oscar Mayer thick cut bacon, or the like
2 tb each chopped shallot, garlic, red onion
3 tb European butter; 1 tb when sauteeing shallot, garlic and red onion, 2 tb later to whip into reduced lobster stock
1 can drained, diced Del Monte fresh cut whole new potatoes
1 cup clam liquor (take care not to put any sand into your chowder!) or bottled clam juice
1 tb or so, fresh thyme leaves removed from stem (to avoid a woody flavor)
2 cups chopped clams
1-2 cups lobster stock for simmering the clams and potatoes; 3 more cups lobster stock, reduced to 1 cup to stir into the broth later
3 cups 2% reduced fat milk, instead of cream
Black pepper and white pepper to taste


Method
Cook bacon in a skillet until crispy and remove, saving the fat (chop bacon when manageable). Add shallots, garlic, and red onion into this, with a tablespoon of butter and sautee for about 5 minutes.
Add clam liquor, potatoes and thyme with 1-2 cups lobster stock and simmer at low heat while rapidly reducing 3 cups lobster stock over medium-high heat in a separate pan. When this latter 3 cups of lobster stock has reduced to 2 cups, whip 2 tb butter into it with a wire whisk and continue to simmer down to 1 cup.
Add reduced stock into broth mixture with chopped clams, crispy bacon and let it all get to know each other until simmering nicely. Pour in cold milk and bring to heat but do not boil. I did mean to use fat free evaporated skim milk, an even better substitute for cream, but thankfully I looked at the bottom of the can first and saw that it had expired last year! Anyway, the 2% milk on its own will work just fine.
Throw in some freshly ground black pepper and some white pepper to finish it off and let your chowder sit off heat for at least an hour before reheating and serving. May be refrigerated up to 2 days.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Recipes Of Our Mothers - Jane Ann Sherwood's Macaroni & Cheese

Our mothers are our hearts. They carried us, gave birth to us for goodness sake, and in our lives, do the best they know how, influencing us more than we can ever know. I hope the moments collected here will encourage and linger about you, in tribute to the most remarkable women, as we celebrate the recipes of our mothers.

My mother just recently ushered in her 75th year. When I was a baby, and we were all considerably younger, she wasn’t simply a stay-at-home Mom, she was a part of a growing force back in the late 60’s and early 70’s: the work-at-home Mom. She would occasionally have my beloved Nana next door look after me when the need arose but otherwise, she and my father made a wonderful childhood for me and my older brothers, while together my parents continued to make a living for all of us.

In time, I did return the favor when it came to care-giving. I was only about 4 or 5 years old when my Mom fell and broke her ankle on the ice in the driveway and was laid up for weeks. I didn’t leave her side for a minute. Mostly I remember that I read her stories as she reclined in the living room, but when she’d nap some afternoons, curious, flibbertigibbety child that I was, I’d seize the opportunity, and fly to the bedroom upstairs to get into her shoes and perfume, the latter of which would wake her as the eau de Jean Nate After-Bath Splash wafted down the stair case. “Peter!” I’d hear her cry, unexpectedly roused. “What on earth are you doing up there?” I didn't know how to answer. I was just a kid for goodness sake.

Aw, Mom, I love you. And I love your Macaroni & Cheese.

Macaroni & Cheese

Serves four

1 box elbow macaroni
1/2 stick butter
4 tb flour
2 cups milk
Italian bread crumbs
Sharp cheddar, sliced not too thick

Preheat broiler and start boiling a pot of water. Melt butter in a sauce pan, add flour slowly and then incorporate milk, all the while stirring to make the roux. Cook macaroni at the same time (about 8 minutes or so after water boils). Drain macaroni and quickly mix together with the roux, while both are still hot. In a lightly buttered oven-safe casserole or souffle dish, layer half of the macaroni with a layer of cheese on top, then add the rest of the macaroni with more cheese on top of that. Sprinkle with Italian bread crumbs. Put in the oven under the broiler until bubbly. It's so much quicker that way, as everything is already cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste, if you wish, and enjoy!