Sunday, November 27, 2011

Quahog Chowder

I had a busy long holiday weekend. Thanksgiving Day was spent with family, 12 hours of non stop shopping on Black Friday, and then another day of Christmas shopping yesterday (Saturday). Today, I relaxed, did some laundry, straightened up a bit, and started going thru what I bought for presents, and then sat and created some gift tags.
When I finished making my wine bottle tags earlier today, I got busy shucking a bag of about 20 cherrystones/quahogs that my son, Steven gave me on Thanksgiving. So, tonight's supper will be homemade quahog chowder. I will share my recipe with you.
quahog chowder cooking in the pot potatoes, onions, quahogs and juice cooking in the pot.

I had a piece of salt pork in the freezer, and I cut a small slab off the frozen piece. I diced the salt pork really fine, and put it to brown in my 6 quart kettle. I then added my diced onions and sautéed them till they were translucent. I then added diced potatoes (5 pounds, peeled and diced). Add only all of the quahog juice and then add clam juice until the potatoes were just covered over. I never use water in my chowders and I don't thicken up my chowder with flour. If you like thicker chowder, let your potatoes cook down more, or you can add instant or mashed potatoes.  The chowder will thicken as it sits. Just before the potatoes are fork tender I will add my chopped quahogs ( I use my food proccesor to chop my quahog). Cook the quahogs until they are tender.  Quahog chowder is a little stronger with a more briny taste than the blander clam chowder.
Final step...add 1/2 & 1/2 cream to the pan, and a little milk. ( how much you use depends on how thick you like your chowder. I usually use about 1/2 a container of cream) If you like you can add a pat of butter. Yummy!!
Do you make chowder, if so how do you make yours?
Just like a lot of soups and stews, chowder always taste better the next day, but who can wait.

If you don't know what quahogs are, then read about quahogs on the following sites...Quahogs , more on quahogs
My son and his friend have shell fish permits, and they go digging for clams and quahogs.So, the shell fish they get are always very fresh and tasty.
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