Winter Seafood Chowder

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My love affair with chowder started as an infant. I couldn’t tell you the first time I tried it—but I guarantee you I liked it. I seek out Chowder on menus, like a bloodhound following the scent of a freshly-escaped convict. Throw some fresh dill into the mix of a carefully-crafted chowder, and you will quietly discover a bowl of New England Seafood Chowder Heaven.

I grew up in Massachusetts, where my family regularly shopped at Costco in bulk. At some point maybe in the late 1990’s, Legal Sea Foods was selling their clam chowder retail in thick, vacuum-sealed bags. You could place the sealed plastic bags in boiling water, heat ‘em up, cut ‘em open, and serve it up. It was revelatory as a restaurant-quality quick dinner, and made for an easy meal with three young kids and two working parents—Legal Sea Foods has a great chowder recipe, as they should—I would eat a bowl of their chowder right now.

I started exploring chowder more deeply after learning how to make a few batches in Culinary School at the Hyde Park campus in NY. I understood how to make chowder before then, but my comfort level with roux (cooked butter and flour) as a thickener was sporty in my early twenties.

During the years since then, I’ve become a bit obsessed with making a perfect chowder at home. My wife and I made a batch last week that knocked our socks off; once in a while—you make the best version of a dish that you’ve ever eaten…for me, when something like this happens, I need to write it down and share it with the world. Please enjoy. And don’t be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t come out perfect. A fine chowder takes practice, akin to making sourdough bread.

The following recipe makes enough chowder for about six hungry people in Winter time when it’s dark and snowing outside and the windows are frosting over.

Ingredients

3 Yukon Gold Potatoes (peeled and cut medium dice)
16 oz clam juice
16 oz seafood stock (or water)
2 tsp Kosher salt
1 Tbsp sunflower seed oil (for cooking clams)
32 oz 2 lbs small, fresh live clams, rinsed under cold water and drained
1 Tbsp sunflower seed oil (for cooking the pork and vegetables)
4 or 6 oz salt pork (pancetta, or smoked bacon, medium dice)
1 white onion (small dice)
2 stalks of celery (small dice)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
8 oz ½ lb sea bass fillets, de-boned and skinned, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 Tbsp fresh dill (stems discarded, remainder finely chopped)
Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper (to taste)
1 Tbsp fresh chives (finely sliced, as garnish)

Instructions

Peel the Yukon Gold potatoes and cut them medium dice.
Place the cut potatoes in a medium-sized soup pot with 16 oz of clam juice and 16 oz of seafood stock, along with two teaspoons of Kosher salt.
Simmer the potatoes over medium heat in the cooking liquid until the potatoes are completely tender, or about 30-35 minutes.
Remove the potatoes from the cooking liquid, and reserve the cooking liquid for use as the base for the chowder.
To prepare your clams, make sure you are working with high-quality, live clams from a vendor that you trust.
*If any clams have broken shells or smell bad, throw them out.
Rinse the clams under cold water to remove any excess sand.
Drain the clams well.
Add one Tablespoon of sunflower oil to a Dutch oven or deep-sided soup cooking pot.
Increase the heat to medium-high, until the oil is hot, but before it is smoking.
Carefully add the rinsed clams, and place a lid on top of the pot.
Increase the heat to high, and shake the pot with the clams gently as they steam for about two minutes.
When the clams have opened, transfer them to a plate and allow them to cool down.
Strain the cooking liquid from the clams into the liquid that you reserved from cooking the potatoes.
*It helps to use a very fine mesh strainer here to remove any sand particles from the clam juice that has been released from the steamed clams. If any clams smell bad, or haven’t opened after being steamed, discard them.
Pick the clam meat from the shells, and set the meat aside. Discard the shells.
Clean out the Dutch oven or soup cooking put, and add one Tablespoon of sunflower seed oil.
Add the diced salt pork, or pancetta, or smoked bacon. You can use a mix of whatever you like here.
Cook the pork for about four minutes.
Add the diced white onion, along with the diced celery.
Stir while cooking for about ten minutes, until the onions and celery are translucent.
In a separate medium-sized sauce pot, melt 4 Tablespoons of butter and add ¼ cup of all-purpose flour.
Stir this butter and flour mixture over medium heat using a rubber spatula, making sure to scrape the sides of the sauce pot as you cook to ensure that the butter and flour mixture arrived at a uniform golden-brown color. This mixture is your roux.
Once the butter and flour mixture is golden-brown in color, slowly whisk in the seafood stock liquid that you used earlier to cook the potatoes.
Continue to slowly whisk in the cooking liquid until you arrive at a thick, chowder-like consistency. Take your time with this process.
Add this thicken chowder liquid mixture to the vegetables and bacon that you cooked earlier.
Add the potatoes, and stir to combine.
Taste the mixture and season with Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper.
Cut the Sea Bass fillets into bite-sized chunks, and add it into the chowder.
When the fish is almost cooked, add in the steamed clams from earlier.
Stir in the freshly chopped dill, and taste.
Add more Kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper, if desired.
Serve hot, garnished with fresh, finely-sliced chives.

Notes

You can use whatever fish you like here. I’ve chosen sea bass because I like the texture and relatively mild flavor.

Some folks only use white pepper for dishes like Chowder—I don’t cook with white pepper, just a personal preference. But feel free to use it!

This chowder tastes great reheated, although the clams get a little tougher compared to when you first make the chowder.