Absolute Beginner's Guide to Clamming & How to make New England Clam Chowder

Being from the East Coast, we prefer our chowder a certain way so we wanted to share with you our New England clam chowder recipe! Hopefully you can go clamming and make this too!

Ingredients: 4 strips bacon, 1 8 oz bottle of clam juice, 2 cups of homemade clam broth, 1 celery stalk chopped, 5 red potatoes chopped, 1 onion chopped, 1/3 cup flour, 1 cup whole milk,
flour slurry (mix 1/2 cup half and half and 1/3 cup flour), clams (however many you want)

Directions:

Clam Broth:
1. Fill a pot with the clams and enough water to cover them, then an additional 1 inch of water above it.
2. Bring to a boil and cook covered for about 4 minutes.
3. Adjust heat to low and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
4. Remove clams as they start to open. When cool enough to handle, remove clams from their shell.
5. Strain broth to get rid of extra particles/shell pieces.

Chowder
1. Cook bacon until crispy and remove from pan, leaving some bacon fat left (you can keep rendered bacon fat in a glass jar and use it for later cooking). Chop/crumble bacon to desired size
2. Cook onion and celery until tender.
3. Add potatoes and both the homemade clam broth and bar harbor clam juice (called juice, but is broth).
4. Heat on high until boiling. Once boiling, lower heat to low-low medium and cook uncovered until potatoes are tender.
5. Add in milk, clams, and half of the bacon and cook for 3-5 minutes.
6. Add flour slurry slowly while whisking and cook until thickened. (The slurry is what will make the chowder thicker)
7.Pour into bowl and top with bacon.
8. Enjoy!

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