Fried Clam Recipe. (hot, outside, weekend)

[tcrackly]

Mainah, are you trying to get me riled up to support your activism? LOL, actually, I can't say I've even tried the Crown Pilot brand crackers. Maybe I'll send a note to Nabisco anyway...just to let them know we're here!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

Mainah, are you trying to get me riled up to support your activism? LOL, actually, I can't say I've even tried the Crown Pilot brand crackers. Maybe I'll send a note to Nabisco anyway...just to let them know we're here!

Nope not trying to rile anyone up! Just letting people know a staple of New England has gone by the wayside. Crown Pilot crackers were not just a cracker to go with certain soups and chowders they are an actual intricate ingredient in a number of traditional recipies. They were thickeners for lobster stew and a base for real Maine Clam cakes. Sure there are alternatives but there is nothing like the original in texture,taste, and tradition.

[msina]

Hard as a rock,....... my Dad used to crumble them in a bowl and pour warm milk on them. He'd add a bit of butter and some pepper as well. Mum would crush them and put the crumbs on a mac and cheese casserole.

[reloop]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Nope not trying to rile anyone up! Just letting people know a staple of New England has gone by the wayside. Crown Pilot crackers were not just a cracker to go with certain soups and chowders they are an actual intricate ingredient in a number of traditional recipies. They were thickeners for lobster stew and a base for real Maine Clam cakes. Sure there are alternatives but there is nothing like the original in texture,taste, and tradition.

I forget: What year was it that they tried to remove them and there was a near riot up here?

[tayjor]

i have your fried clam recipe but how do you shuck the steamers from the shells to deep fry them?????do you steam them first or open them raw ????

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by tayjor

i have your fried clam recipe but how do you shuck the steamers from the shells to deep fry them?????do you steam them first or open them raw ????

Open them raw!!! If you fry previously steamed clams they will be like chewing rubber!!
There are two muscles on the shell near the rear hinge that you sever with a thin/sharp knife, Pull out the clam belly and all gently so as not to seperate the belly from the rest of the clam. Then you must remove the tough outer skin from the head/neck area. Do this by either making a slit in it with your knife and peeling it off or starting the covering at it's end on the long meaty part between the neck and the belly then peel it all the way off. It takes a while to get the hang of shucking but once you get it down you will move along quickly. I usually buy clams all shucked as they cost nearly as much as clams by the pound. Naturally if you are digging them yourself then you have to shuck them too.

[reloop]

Don't forget to rinse the bejeesus out of them - IMHO, grit is not tasty at all.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by reloop

Don't forget to rinse the bejeesus out of them - IMHO, grit is not tasty at all.

Rinse them BEFORE you shuck them. You'll lose 1/2 the flavor if you rinse them after shucking. If you can it's best to put clams dug in sandy areas in an onion bag or 5 gallon pail full of holes and suspend it in the water from a dock for a day before you shuck them. They will lose most of the grit over night.
Better yet buy or dig mud clams. The ones with the dark gray to black shell. White shelled clams were dug in sand and are really gritty. Dark shell mud clams have little to no grit.

[elston]

Maineah....in your recipe you say that it is important to keep the clam "rounded out".....what does that mean? ????? If I do it....I want to do it right.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by elston

Maineah....in your recipe you say that it is important to keep the clam "rounded out".....what does that mean? ????? If I do it....I want to do it right.

When you look at a whole clam laid out belly and all it's more or less shaped like a donut. It makes a circle. When you bread clams it's important to keep them "rounded out" to maintain that donut shape. If you roll them up ,toss them in the breading products in batches, or just bread them carelessly they will cook unevenly, clump and stick together and taste terrible. There are places that don't take the time to bread the clams properly and you can really tell. Breading is time consuming if done properly but really worth the time and effort. When we do our fried clam dinners now at the Amvets it takes three people about three hours to bread five gallons of shucked clams. That's a lot of clams!! Bread them just one or two at a time, make sure they are coated properly and kept as round as possible before frying and you'll go along way in making the best fried clams you have ever eaten. Keep your flour, egg wash, and cracker meal as lump free as possible by sifting the dry products now and then and making new egg wash when it gets too full of flour. This recipe was award winning and was used for many many years to bread thousands of gallons of shucked clams at the Yarmouth Clam Festival. You'll be hard pressed to find a better method. We tried a few other "one step' methods over the years but have always come back to this process. This process works well on fish and scallops too but seems to be a bit heavy for delicate Maine shrimp. We use the one step process for shrimp.