Scup

I need a couple of decent recipes for clams. Used to be a commercial clam digger, and I still can get 1/2 bushel just about any time I want, however, my stuffed clams suck badly. I have tried dozens of recipes that I have found on the web but none of them appealed to my taste. The frozen stuff clams that you can purchase at Stop and Shop taste pretty good to me. I have no idea what I am doing wrong but I suspect most of the recipes are way too complex for my simple tastes. The other recipe I need is for clam chowder. I sort of like my chowder but all I do is buy a can of Snow's clam chowder and add a bunch of fresh clams to it. Always thought Snows was pretty good but lack the amount of clams I prefer. However, a few months ago, the monastery at Enders Island was serving fish dinners on Fridays. The course included clam chowder and it was the best I have ever tasted. If anyone knows what I am talking about, I would like to prepare something that would just come close to what they serve.

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MailleMarine

Wish I cooked by recipe, I could help you out with the stuffies.

If you like white clam sauce...

Get some saffron and put it in about a cup of white wine.
Start the pasta.
Clean the clams, 20-30 littlenecks leave them whole.
Start some crushed garlic, an onion, and some crushed red peper in a good dose of good olive oil. Add the clams and wine and cover to steam them open in batches if needed. Right as they open remove to a bowl.
Chop the clams up a bit if you want. Add them and thier broth back to the pan. Get it hot and add in about a half stick of butter, Add the almost done pasta in with some of the cooking water, A bunch of chopped parsley and black pepper to finish.

some good chit.

I'll try to remember the stuffies.

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MailleMarine

Now i'm getting hungry...

Basics for my stuffed clams. Might be too much going on here for your taste though.

Food processor – red pepper, green pepper, celery, green onion, regular onion (not too much), crushed red pepper

Squeeze this out but save the juice if you need it later.

Food process clams just a bit, I like big chunks. Mix the meat of the clams (don’t use a lot of the juice here) with the veggies, Add pepper, paprika, garlic salt, whatever ground spicy pepper you like, fresh chopped parsley, onion powder, lemon and or lime juice.

Work in good seasoned bread crumbs (make them yourself they taste much better) then add in a good amount of olive oil.

If it’s really dry add some clam juice and or veggie juice. You can cook one up to give it a taste and see if you need to adjust anything.

Make a ton and freeze them.

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Scup

My wife makes a white clam sauce exactly as you described and it is great meal. I will eat a bowl of it so large that it could probably feed five normal people. Then I have to go to the gym afterwards and work out for two hours to burn it off. The only other two other dishes I like better are: fried New England bay scallops, and pasta topped with tomato sauce cooked with Italian sausage for flavor, and about six ounces of fresh picked blue claw meat placed on top of the sauce. They say you are not suppose to grate cheese on pasta fish dishes, but likely those that say it have never tried Reggiano Parmigiano cheese imported from Italy.
There is nothing that you put into your stuffed clams that I do not like. It really sounds good. I will give it a try very soon. I like the idea of being able to freeze some of it as well, as it then becomes a tasty quick prepared meal. Probably an awful lot of fishermen neglect the abundant amount of clams we have here in Connecticut that are available just the small one time yearly fee. I do not even have to pay that because the town of Stonington allows senior citizens to have a clamming permit for free. With the reduced finfish creel limits, I will likely have plenty of time left after fishing to tong up a bunch of clams before heading in. Thanks for stuffed clams info, will let you know how I make out.

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"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go" by William Feather

tom

Open 15 or 20 hard shells over a bowl saving the meat and the juice put it to the side. Take the shells break them in half and run them under water to clean them up pieces of shell sand what ever. place the half shells on a baking pan if you only make 12 you will want more so make 20! put them aside. Next Finely chop onion,sweet red and sweet green pepper,fresh garlic,and celery Throw that mix into fry pan with slab of butter saute not long just till it starts smell good "makes you hungry" Set that aside Now this is important Take a bowl use Peppridge farms stuffing mix NO Subs here!!!!!!now maybe half a bag maybe a little less into the bowl take a potato masher and bust up the cubes to half there size then add 2 eggs and the onion,peppergarlic mix. melt half a stick butter pour it in! Now take the clam meat and cut 10 of the clams in half and put 1 half clam in each of the half shells that you have on your baking sheet Hit each one with a squirt of lemon. Get some bacon frying on the stove you will need it later Take the rest of the clam meat and chop it up and throw it into the stuffing mix Now no SUBS again Fresh crab Lump or claw is ok mix the stuffing mix up with your hands give it a squirt of lemon and then add the crab then mix it one last time be carfull not to break the crab up into small pieces you want some good size chunks of meat if the mixture is not moist add a little clam juice your going to bake these babys on 425 for 20 to30 min so they need to be moist when you start Now stuff the the half shells with the mix on top of the half clam you put in them earlyer Stuffies mean stuffed so stuff them! Now take the fryed bacon not burnt i hope and break it up and sprinkle over the top of the clams Again hit each one of them with the lemon. Sprinkle them with parm cheese if you like and bake for 20 to 30 min at 425 or you hear them sizzleing loudly when you open the oven door I'm telling you Guys out there these are the best stuffies on the planet! Use only fresh and you will not be dissapointed Enjoy Mr. Vermont

Scup

Mr. Vermont,

Everything in your recipe sounds great. The clams are obtainable where I am right now. I will probability go with Maille's recipe just a soon as I get my rowboat in (probably this week), but will have to wait a bit before the Blue Claw crabs show up. It is not always easy to predict what the Blue Claw Crabs will be doing from season to season. Thanks for going into such detail as I tend to be klutz when it comes preparing food dishes. Your foolproof directions should make it impossible for me to go wrong. I tend to catch quite a large number of clams each season. I used to be commercial, but there was just too much paperwork and legal hoops to jump through so eventually I said the hell with it and just catch for myself and friends. I used to spend more time cleaning the clams than catching them. Now I dump 1/2 bushel of clams into a small plastic imported Chinese Cement Mixer used only for that purpose and use it in the same way a rock hound uses a rock tumbler. The clams come out as white as any you would ever wish to see. The tumbling action not only cleans the clams, but forces them to close up tighter than a drum, hence no sand gets in them either. The only negative thing is you have to cool them down and wait a bit before trying to open them after shaking the hell out of them. Now I have two good recipes, and will soon have the ingredients to implement both. Thanks again guys!

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"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go" by William Feather