How to Make Boston's Best Clam Chowder

-Hey everybody, it's Chef Lovely here, and today I have something very special for you. We are going to make Boston's Best Clam Chowder. Here are the ingredients: 6 tablespoons butter, 2 cups chopped onion; 1 cup chopped celery; 2 tablespoons chopped garlic; 1-1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt; 1 teaspoon of black pepper; 1/2 cup of all purpose flour; 2 10-ounce cans whole baby clams that are drained and we're gonna reserve our juice; 4 cups of water; 4 red skin potatoes, un-peeled and diced; 1 pinch of nutmeg; 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire salt; 1/4 teaspoon pepper sauce; 2 cups of heavy cream; 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leave; and 1 tablespoon of fresh chives that are finely chopped. So, like I said, something very special for you today. So, we're gonna get started, and we're gonna heat our large saucepan over here and the medium high heat. So, this dish is very special, very near endear to my heart. I definitely love a creamy rich soup and this is definitely a way to go. So, as this is heating, we're gonna talk about some of our other ingredients. So, first things first, we're gonna melt some butter. So, I'm gonna go ahead and dropped that in. Okay, so our butter has now melted in our pan. So, we're gonna add our onions, our celery, and our garlic, and we're gonna give this a saute for about 5 minutes, you know, we want to them to get nice and soft. We really don't wanna add any color, but we do want them to be nice and tender. So, let's go in with these 3 ingredients here, okay. So, we're gonna saute our vegetables here with our garlic and again, we're not looking to achieve color here, but we do want to get our vegetable nice and soft and translucent. I like how this is looking. Now, what I always say we need to simply season. So, we're gonna go in with little bit of salt and pepper. We are building layers and between each layer, you wanna season so that every layer's taste as absolute best. Okay, so this is looking good. They are nice and soft, looking translucent. We've seasoned it. So, let's move on to our next step. Next step, we're gonna add in our flour. So, I'm just gonna give that a nice shake evenly right on top. And we're gonna cook this for about 2 minutes. Now, what we're doing, we add in our flour, and we're cooking it for 2 minutes. We're cooking out the raw flour taste. We don't want that okay. What we want is for that flour to taste like the butter, the onions, the celery, and the garlic. So, I'm gonna go in here with my spoon. I wanna give that a nice toss, and we're gonna give that a nice toss, and we're gonna keep it moving, okay. We don't wanna add any color. As you know, clam chowder is white. So, we don't want it to achieve brown color. So, for 2 minutes, don't have anything to do, don't pick that phone. I want to stay here and give this a really good stir. So, we're cooking out that raw floury taste. So, few more seconds on this. The next thing we're gonna do, we're gonna add in our water, and we're also gonna add in the reserve juice from our clams that we used. Never throw this away. It's tons of flavors in here, and we want our clam chowder to taste like what? Clams, right? So, let me go ahead and pour this in, and then our water is gonna be next. Okay, there we go. So, I'm gonna go in for another stir, and what we wanna, we wanna make sure that the flour starts to thicken up our soup here, okay? So, make sure you get all those corners, and you're scraping up any of the little that still maybe on the bottom of the pot here, okay, fantastic. So, once you have fully incorporated our vegetables with our flour into the clam juice and water, we're gonna let this simmer for about 15 minutes, and after the 15 minutes has gone by, we're gonna come back. I'm gonna show you how we're gonna finish up this delicious clam chowder. Okay, step 1 of our dish, it's been simmering here for about 15 minutes and as you can see, it's slightly thickened a little bit, that's because of the flour that we have in there and all of these great flavors are coming together and it's looking absolutely gorgeous. So, I'm gonna reduce my heat just a little bit, okay, great. So, now, we can go in with some of our remaining ingredients. We're gonna go in with our potatoes here. Let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and tilt those in. This is gonna add great bite and body to our soup. We're gonna in with that little pinch of nutmeg with cream as always gonna be a very, very good decision, okay. It's just a perfect marriage. They love each other, so it's gonna worth dressing. Now, we're gonna add in that Worcestershire sauce for a nice deep rich flavor, and our pepper sauce. Today, I'm using a little bit of Tabasco. Now, if you wanna add a little more, go ahead, it's only up to you. If you like it hot, I'll say make it hot. Okay, so we're gonna give this a stir, making sure that we're incorporating all those ingredients, and we're gonna let this continue to simmer for an additional 12 to 15 minutes or until our potatoes are nice and tender. So, we're gonna let this finish cooking. When we come back, we're gonna finish this delicious soup. Okay, so I'm stirring my soup here, and I see that my potatoes are nice tender, and it's been on a nice simmer here. So, we can go in with a few more of our ingredients. Now, here comes one of the best parts of this soup, the cream, the heavy cream. This is gonna add richness. This is gonna add body, and it's going to lighten up soup just a little bit. So, here we go, and we're going with that cream. I also have some fresh thyme here. This is a beautiful, beautiful herb to use with this chowder, and then of course, we're gonna add in our clams. Let's go ahead and toss that in. Make sure we put every little piece of clam in there. Fantastic, this is looking amazing, okay. So, I'm gonna give this a really big stir. So, again incorporate all of those ingredients that we just added to our pot here, and it's looks absolutely amazing. I can't wait to try this. So, we're almost done. Now, we're gonna reduce it even lower our heat, so that is on a really low simmer, and we wanna let this continue to cook for about 10 to 12 minutes and then that's it. It's almost time to eat. So, I'm gonna let this cook. I want you to come on back that we can taste together. Okay, so this has been simmering, and it's been about 10 minutes here and I want you to see how beautiful this looks. It's definitely cooked the clams all the way through. Our potatoes are nice and tender and it's thickened up to the texture that we're all very, very familiar with. Okay, so here we go. We're ready to pretty much serve this up. So, my last ingredient here, we have some chives. We're just gonna go ahead and sprinkle all of those and just like that and then get one final stir, and when we're gonna serve this right, right away. I just added in my fresh chives here. I'm gonna give it 1 final stir and then it's time to eat. So, here we go. This is like love in a bowl. I've tell you, you and your friends and family, you're gonna enjoy this clam chowder here. Okay, and there we go. So, this is definitely something that's gonna warm soul. This is one of my favorites, and I want you to make this and enjoy it just as much as I do. So, here is a nice hot bowl of Boston's best clam chowder.