I’ve started to realize I love clams as much as I love lobster and crab. I have good childhood memories of eating out with my Dad and if it was on the menu, he always ordered the clam chowder, even today. He’s a food critic though, so I’m going to put our recipe to the true test over the holidays when I’m with them in Chicago to let him weigh in. I’m that confident though that this is the best clam chowder recipe out there.
What makes this unique that it combines healthy with indulgent. As my friends at Gooseneck Vineyards advised when I was developing this recipe, which is based off of their famous chowder, it’s only chowder if you have cream. So I finish the chowder with cream, but have a combination of oat milk, 2% milk, clam juice and a white wine based clam broth that makes the soup both rich yet light. To ramp up the flavor, my base of soup has a lot of shallots, leek, celery and green onion, and to thicken the soup, I add in potatoes and mash roasted garlic into a gluten-free flour roux made with olive oil. I puree all of these ingredients before adding in the clams so by the time the clams hit the soup, it’s already rich and deceivingly creamy, with only ½ cup of cream. Also good clam chowder requires a lot of clams, so I supplement the fresh clams with a good preserved brand from Whole Foods. There’s something about the crisp fall air that makes us crave soup. We were inspired by the classic chowder recipe of Gooseneck Vineyards’ founder, and by ingredients we had lying around the house that we needed to use. The result is the best clam chowder you’ll ever make.
