Manhattan Clam Chowder

 

We're finishing off our first blogger recipe round up today by featuring a dish we found on Serious Eats by writer Nick Kindelsperger of Paupered Chef. After some flavorful pork and fennel meatballs from Kitchen Daily, and a spicy delicious jambalaya from BrownEyedBaker, this was a great way to finish off the week.

Mmm... love soup!

Manhattan Clam Chowder is one of YiRan's favorite soups, but we've never made it before in our kitchen because we didn't know how. This is why the food blogger community is so great: with one search we had tons of recipes to choose from. The list of ingredients that Serious Eats recommended seemed to be closest to what we were imagining, so we decided to give it a try and see what happened.

Making the Dish
What You'll Need

4 slices bacon
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
2 medium carrots
2 dried bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
6 Yukon Gold potatoes
4 cups clam juice
2 cans chopped clams
1 28oz can whole tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
dash salt and pepper











This was actually very easy to prepare, so that's great since we're all about simple, easy to make, delicious recipes here on this blog. Start off by chopping everything up, and once you do that, the rest of the recipe is just about throwing things into the pot and letting it cook. So, get started by dicing up your bacon, onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes.

Browning the bacon in the pot. There is really nothing better than cooking bacon. 

In a large pot, throw in your diced bacon over medium heat and cook it until it renders its fat and starts to get nice and crisp. Once it's crisped up, take out the bacon and let it sit on a paper towel.

Try not to eat it all before you need to use it in the soup!

Add a touch of olive oil to the fat in the pan, and add in your garlic, carrots, and onion, as well as your bay leaves, oregano, and red pepper flakes, and cook till tender.

Sautéing our garlic, onions, and carrots with our herbs and bay leaves. 

Once the veggies have cooked down (about 10 - 12 minutes), add in your potatoes and enough clam juice to cover them, and bring the whole mixture to a boil.

Mixing our potatoes in with the clam juice. 

Cook these for about 10 minutes until the potatoes are soft, and mash up some of the potatoes with a spoon when they're done. This will help make the soup a little thicker in the end.

Is the soup done yet?!

After the potatoes have cooked, add in your tomatoes. To do this, take a can of whole tomatoes and chop them up coarsely.

Chopping up the whole tomatoes. 

Take the whole mix, including the juice, and pour it in. Let it simmer uncovered for about 5 - 7 minutes to let it thicken. While it's simmering, take the clams out of the can and chop them up. Throw them into the mix, and cook for a minute more to warm them up.

Chopping up some clams. 

At this point, you're done (told you it was simple!). Add in your chopped fresh parsley, crispy bacon, and stir it all around. Ladle it into a big bowl to serve.

Bacon, parsley, and clam added to the chowder. 

The Result

This chowder is really good! It's exactly what a Manhattan Clam Chowder is supposed to be. It's slightly thick, tomatoey, clammy, has a little spice, and is really hearty and flavorful.

This is great when it's cold outside, or when you want a little bit of comfort food. It will leave you feeling warm and full inside, and happy outside!

This one is really so easy you've just gotta give it a try. If you do, let us know in the comments! Also, we really want to try out some more soups, so tell us your favorite and where we can find a recipe for it!