Tomato Clam Chowder

This dish has all the flavors of red clam sauce, and all the comforts of a tomato soup. For those days when you want to stay away from pasta and clam sauce, or don’t feel like a creamy clam chowder, this is a delicious alternative. Serve it hot, with some grilled crusty bread. Buon Gusto! #LidiasRecipes #LidiasItaly #LidiasKitchen #LidiaBastianich #ItalianFood #LidiasTheArtofPasta #lidiasoliveoil

TOMATO AND CLAM SOUP

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This is a twist on the Italian papal pomodoro, the tomato soup with bread in it. And the twist is that we’ll add clams. In this case, it’s, you know, reusing old breads so ingeniously. Bread that been standing around for 2 three days. You put it in and it cooks into the soup and becomes like a papa. It sort of makes the soup velvety. And it’s a great way of reusing those products. you know, waste not want not what I kind of really feel because, you know, my growing up was really basic in the courtyard with my grandmother and my grandmother made sure that I didn’t waste anything that we didn’t waste anything. We peeled the potatoes. We peeled the squash. We saved all of that. She had a big pot going for the piggies. She would cook that for them and feed them. Even when I ate the bread and all the crumbs, she would collect all of that and she said, “Feed it to the chickens or to the birds. Let somebody eat.” So, we’ll make it sort of an Italian clam chowder with tomatoes. And it’s very easy. So, first let’s begin getting the clams out of the shell. Some olive oil, sliced garlic, the clams right in there, little pepper chino. I like that. And just a little bit of water to get them to open. And we’ll use the water and everything else. And let’s begin the tomato soup. We’ll begin with a little bit of olive oil. Onions right in here. A little bit of salt. A little bit of pepperonino. Okay. The onions are wilted. Let’s put in the tomatoes. The crushed tomatoes. Let me rinse this a little bit. Slash collect everything. Let’s season this with salt and basil and lots of basil. This dish gets lots of basil and a whole basil like that. And then we’ll just pick it out. But in the meantime, it’ll let all its aroma out in the tomato sauce. Cover it and we’ll perk away. And then we’ll add the bread. And then we’ll cook some more. And when that’s just about done, we’ll add the clams. On a beautiful gray and misty morning on Long Island Southshore, my friend David Pastnac took me clamming with his friend Eric Young. Dave is the chef at Esca and an avid fisherman. And so what are we doing here today? You know, I know what I could do with these, but what what are these? These are beautiful. Oh, for fluke bait for the Wow. For the sport fisherman. Yeah. Ah. So, so these Oh, so this is these are sparings, but I fry them. Yeah. And they’re delicious. Oh, you’re going to you’re going to give me some. Okay. Oh, they’re beautiful. Yeah. You You put it on top of spaghetti. Yeah. Dave took me out to learn the hard work of climbing by hand on Long Island’s Southshore. Okay. So, so this is this is the territory for the for the clams, huh? Right. All right. Right. There’s there’s steamers and little necks up here. And these are these are baby muscles just starting to grow. They look like pearls. Right. They’re they’re beautiful. And how long is it going to take for them to grow? These should be about 6 months. 10 8 10 months maybe. Right. And then they’re adult size. These are delicious. Wow. These are all These are wild. Wild. That’s not far. [Music] So, Eric, what are you looking for? Uh, you know, over here, we’re looking for holes in the bottom. The holes where the where the clam the siphon comes up to the surface of the mud and then it’s exposed. So, you know, there’s some clams living in that area and then you dig down. Yeah. So, this this is a good area. This is there’s a lot of holes here. So, we’re going to try it right here. And tell me what what what do I do now? This is just a fork. This is like a what they what a farmer uses to to turn over potatoes. So, okay. And then we uh Go ahead, show me. We dig in, start a hole, and then we see how deep down they are. These are just just growing. These are just getting to be legal size. So, like this. This is See, you can take these. These are steamers. Great. Yeah, that’s legal size. So, you put them right in here, right? Right. Right in a bucket. So, should I start here on this side? Yeah, you can. and you can dig right next to me. Then when you see some that are too small, you just put them back. You don’t you don’t pick them up and you try not to damage them. Oh. So I have this. What do you think? This is too small. Too small. This is about You want to get the bigger ones because the little ones wouldn’t have any meat inside. Yeah. And we leave them back in there. Right. Right. Right. This way they they get a chance to spawn. If you want if you want to get in here. Oh, here’s one. Oh, that’s a little neck. A little neck. Right. A little neck. Right. We got one right there, too. Covered one up, right? Okay. Well, there’s another one. Look at this. Another another little neck. So, this must be the bed with the little necks right here. This one is small. Too small. So, we leave it back in there. But we have a gauge. We have we have a a tool that we used to measure it. So, we would measure it before we before we kept them. You see, they’re all down at the same level. So once you see that they’re down about this level, then you just dig. What do you have in your hands? That’s a nice one. Yeah, these are fresh. Oh, beautiful. This this is finished here. Now when it fills up with water like that, right? You see when the water starts to percolate into the into this hole, then you then you start another hole. You look because you can’t because it it you can’t see them. Yeah. It just falls right into it. Okay. The the tide is coming in faster than we can collect them. Yeah, clamming by hand is tough, dirty work. Dave and Eric take their jobs very seriously. Next time a delicious plate of clams shows up on your table, you’ll know how much effort went into getting it there. [Music] Yes. Yes. Yes. They’re opening. We don’t want to overcook them. And I want to save the juice of the clam as well and use it later. So, but I want to pull the clams out. [Music] That’s good. You could wait a few minutes for them to to chill, but you know, I’m okay. Of course, we wanted to reserve all the liquid. Some cheesecloth, you know, because there’s always a little bit of sand or so. Put a cheesecloth. And then you strain. You know, I grew up by the sea, the Adriatic sea. I was frolicking all summer in the water and loved fishing, but I especially loved digging for clams or muscles that were in the sand. I just had a great time doing it. Let’s check our tomatoes busy bubbling away. It’ll need another 10, 15 minutes of cooking before we add the bread, clean up, and then we’ll come back and finish the soup. So, the soup. Let’s see the tomatoes. Great. Let’s add the bread. This is the leftover bread that you have. Right into the soup. Right in the tomatoes. Just like that. Let’s add some of this juice. I want to keep the clams out for the last minute. So, just part of it. Let me taste. Okay, it tastes good. It needs a little bit of salt, I think. So, this is the time that we’re making all the adjustments. A little bit of the pepperonino. And we’ll let the bread really cook down and disintegrate. and then we’ll finish our soup. Ah, so the bread is breaking down. We’re going to help it a little bit. Let me get the the basil. Okay, I’m getting this basil out because it gave all its best. But we’ll put some more fresh basil in there. Okay, that looks good. Let me just helps That looks really ready to go. And the clams are just about cooked. They don’t need any more cooking. So, I’m going to even shut the fire off. Throw the clams right in with their juice. M. Let me just They cooked a little bit together. A little bit of fresh basil. Now be shredded basil. tomato, basil, clam with a little bit of bread in there. All delicious. this. Oh. Oh. Oh. Would I put just a little drizzle oil? Really good. Now I’m going to take that clam. I’m a child again. Frolicanin and that water with all the aromomas of that adriatic water.