Said Chowder

Herewith, the recipe for the chowder I made from ingredients left over from Pam's excellent clams-and-linguine dish the night before. Somehow the 2 pounds of clams recommended at Kylers ended up being more than 3, which was more than plenty for the excellent pasta Pam prepared.

We had plenty of broth (wine, EVOO, onion, garlic) and plenty of clams remaining. So I consulted the basic chowder recipe on AllRecipes. We decided not to purchase bacon for this, but did begin by sauteing a small, finely-chopped onion in a bit of bacon fat reserved from recent cooking. Although there were already onions in the broth Pam had prepared, this allowed for some newly caramelized flavor to begin the dish.

Once the onion was slightly browned, I added Pam's broth, instead of the water called for here, and some diced red-skin potatoes. While this was cooking, I removed the clams from their shells and trimmed them. When the potatoes were tender, I added about a pint of half-and-half, the clams, and the butter.

As this was gently heating, I whisked a tablespoon of flour into a small dish of water, and added it for thickening. Clam chowder comes in two kinds -- Manhattan (red) and New England (white). And the New England kind comes in two sub-kinds -- authentic (thin) and delicious (thick). I actually enjoy the authentic stuff when expertly made, but for my own purposes, the thick stuff was perfect. I did not, however, overdo it -- this was still a chowder, not a solid object!

Final verdict: this turned out quite well -- wine, bacon, butter and cream each playing a key role, I suppose, and we will be back to Kylers for more clams soon.