New England Clam Boil

For the uninitiated, a clamboil consists of : Clams - Duh!, Lobster, sometimes fish, red bliss potatoes, onions, spicy sausage, corn on the cob and Old Bay seasoning for me. Traditionally, the new england seasoning is just a lot of black pepper. Oh, and lots of drawn butter to dip the steamer clams and lobster in.

 

I will report back later this evening or tomorrow with pics of assembly and finished product.

We start by soaking the steamer clams in cold water and a good dose of black pepper...this will encourage the clams to spit out any sand they have ingested. These are being soaked just twice, because they are nice clean clams from the looks of them. These soaked for about an hour with one water change.

 

Now if you live in New England, chances are you have a pot designed for just this purpose...a two sectioned steamer with a spigot on the bottom so you can drain off some broth to dip the clams in. You see, sometimes, even after soaking they have some sand in them, so we set up two cups for each place setting...one full of broth and one full of drawn butter. You take the sock off the clam, rinse it in broth, dip in butter and down the hatch.This is what half the pot looks like...this one has about 2 inches of white wine and water in it.

 

 

Once you're satisfied with the cleanliness of the clams, layer them in the top part of the steamer.

 

 

Follow that with red bliss potatoes and quartered vidalia onions

 

 

Follow that with some nice spicy chourico and some butter and sugar corn

 

 

Follow that with our "guests of honor" and a goodly shake of old bay seasoning and we are ready to rumble

 

 

Now out to the deck we go....thought I'd use the little butane burner I picked up at restaurant depot last year. Man do I love that thing! Boiled the water in that large pot in five minutes flat and I was steaming...apparently butane burns at a much higher temp than propane.

 

 

Now, while you're waiting for the seafood...take the time to cover the entire table with old newspaper...the reason for this should be quite apparent...juicy seafoods, and lots of shells to discard.

 

 

Here is my pitiful attempt at demonstraing how to eat a lobster. You see...when it's ready, my hands are going to be cover in butter and clam juice, and I would not pick up that camera on a bet. Plus I'm just waaaaaay too hungry.

 

 

Done and plated!

 

 

Don't you think a steamed clam is one of the homeliest critters the good lord ever thought up? I mean, who was the first genius that took a look at that and said "Wow! how disgusting! I think I'll put it in my mouth and see what it tastes like".

 

 

 

 

They have these little "socks "on the neck that are like shoe leather if you leave them on, so now it's just take the socks off, dip it in the broth, then in the butter and enjoy!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by our clam boil...I hope you enjoyed it half as much as we did