Vegetable Clam Soup Recipes

French Clam Soup

Mince two dozen hard shell clams very fine. Fry ½ a minced onion in an ounce of butter; add to it a pint of hot water, a pinch of mace, four cloves, one all spice and six whole pepper corns. Boil fifteen minutes and strain into a saucepan; add the chopped clams and a pint of clam-juice or hot water; simmer slowly two hours; strain and rub the pulp through a sieve into the liquid. Return it to the saucepan and keep it lukewarm. Boil three ½-pints of milk in a saucepan (previously wet with cold water, which prevents burning) and whisk it into the soup. Dissolve a teaspoonful of flour in cold milk, add it to the soup, taste for seasoning; heat it mildly to near the boiling point; pour into a tureen previously heated with hot water, and serve with or without pieces of fried bread, called croutons (see crouton recipe) in kitchen French.

Ordinary Clam Soup

25 clams chopped fine. Put over the stove the liquor that was drained from them, and a cup of water; add the chopped clams and boil ½ an hour; then season to taste with pepper and salt and a piece of butter as large as an egg; boil up again and add one quart of milk boiling hot, stir in a tablespoon of flour made to a cream with a small amount of cold milk, or two crackers rolled fine. Some like a small amount of mace and lemon juice in the seasoning of their clam soup.