As you know, Mateo, I'm a Midwesterner at heart. I come from a mix of farm people and Eastern European tradition. I still cheer for my perennially unsuccessful Cleveland sports teams, and associate Belichick with his Browns failure more than his Patriots success. Kyle thinks it's funny the way I pronounce the "i" in "tired" and "fire," yet I remain proud of and strongly connected to my roots.
That said, I've been living in New England for almost a decade now (summer of 2014 will be my ten-year anniversary). And while I don't see myself ever buying a Welker jersey or dropping the "r" in "tired" or "fire," I have embraced the region as my home. Stands to reason that if I'm in for the long haul, I should learn how to make the namesake dish of the area - New England clam chowder. I've eaten several, but never made it from scratch. Here was my attempt:
Ingredients:
5 lbs littleneck clams, scrubbed clean
1 medium red onion, diced
2 cups each chopped celery and chopped onion
8 small-to-medium red potatoes, diced
6 strips bacon
1-2 cups heavy cream
3 bay leaves
2 big sprigs fresh thyme
Salt, pepper, and chopped fresh parsley to taste/garnish
First, I put the cleaned clams in a pot with a tight-fitting lid and poured in about 2.5 cups of water.
I put them on a medium-high heat and let them steam for a few minutes, removing cooked clams once they've opened and allowing the rest to stay on a little longer. I apparently got a good batch (from Costco), because they all opened:
I was left with a little over four cups of liquid in the pan, which I poured multiple times through a fine-mesh strainer to get out any sand and grit. I was left with a lovely, clammy but not overpowering broth to use later on. As for the clams themselves, I removed them from their shells, cut each one in half, and set them aside.
Next, I cut the bacon and prepped the vegetables.
After heating a stock pot on medium heat, I rendered and crisped the bacon. I took the bacon out, but left the fat in the pot, kept the heat on medium, and added the carrots, celery and onions with a pinch of salt and pepper. I wasn't looking to brown the veggies, but just to soften and flavor them.
After 7 or 8 minutes, I added the clam stock, the potatoes, bay leaves, and thyme. There wasn't quite enough liquid to cover the ingredients, so I added between one and two cups of water, and pulled a classic Matt move: BTB-RTS.
I let the whole thing simmer for about twenty minutes until the potatoes were cooked but not mushy. I removed the pot from the heat, added the cream and the chopped clams, and fished out the bay leaves and thyme stems. After letting the mixture rest for a few minutes, I skimmed off the fat that had risen to the surface, just to clean it up a bit.
Then I enjoyed a nice big bowl of it with chopped parsley and some fresh ground pepper:
The review: pretty darn delicious! A good blend of flavors, in my opinion, with the clams, bacon, and vegetables/herbs each getting a chance to show through.
Critiques/things to improve: It might be a little vegetable-heavy for some purists around here. I know there are some recipes that are little more than clams, potatoes, and cream. Also, I prefer my chowder on the thicker side. While the flavors were solid here, I think next time I'll either add a little flour before adding the broth, or else I'll give the potatoes more time to simmer and release their starches into the soup.
Nonetheless, it was pretty good eating...hopefully good enough to make my adoptive home proud. If not, I'll have it down by my ten-year anniversary.
It looked and felt very much like a beef tenderloin (familiar turf for me), including the silverskin that needed to be trimmed. I tasted a piece of the raw meat, and it was amazingly tender and mild...I would eagerly prepare it as an early-course tartare. It promised good results on the horizon, but still with the ever-present threat of overcooking. I decided to cut the loin into individual steaks...and since it's so lean, I wrapped each piece with fatty prosciutto, securing it with butcher's twine. Check out the deep, beautiful color on this:
Finally, as the oven reached 400 degrees and my pan sat on medium-high heat on the stove, I gave both sides of the venison a dose of salt, pepper, and chopped fresh thyme:
Then, after a couple tablespoons of oil got very hot in the pan, I added the venison and seared it for just a couple minutes per side. It browned quickly, and then I tried to crisp up the prosciutto-covered sides of the steaks with a nifty little balancing act. Then, they went into the 400-degree oven for about 5 or 6 minutes, until I was able to read an internal temperature of 125. Here's a shot of one after it came out of the oven, as it rested, waiting...
My nerves were finally at ease when I cut into the first piece - success! A beautiful medium-rare! I plated my lovely venison on a simple bed of arugula...I thought the herbal-peppery notes would be lively next to a potentially heavy meat. Then, I had a pomegranate-shallot-thyme glaze left over from my pairings party duck dish, so I dotted that around the plate, and later added some onto the venison itself. Game meat often loves fruit, so why not, right?
I was - and am - so happy with this dish. There's that common idea that animals in the wild have a strong and unpleasant gaminess to them, and that was definitely not the case here. The flavor was on par with beef, but with just a little more intensity - a little more of a mineral quality, but a desirable one. Thank you, noble deer. Thank you, Shannon and Joe.
