Conference turris::cooks

It sounds like you attended a portugiese clamboil.  In New Bedford and
    other portug. towns you can have a clamboil in any good seafood
    resteraunt...It consists of alarge steaming pot, in which you place
    the potatoes on the bottom [with the skins on], white onions, clams 
    still in their shells, linquica a portug. sausage, or you may replace
    that with hot dogs, corn on the cob.  On top usually goes the lobsters.
    Should you not have a lge. enough pot,  two can be used. The goodness
    comes of the flavours mingling together while the whole combination
    gets steamed.     Go for it!!!!!!
    
                        Gudrun

    Gudrun,
    
    Does everything go into the pot at the same time??? It seems to me that
    the clams and lobsters would take less time to cook than the potatoes,
    onions and linquica...Also,  do you put layers of seaweed in between?
    
    Lorraine
    

    My family has made clam boils for over 30 years now.  Basically, .1 has
    the right idea, but you may want to add more ingredients instead of
    substituting.  The more variety, the better!  (No seaweed ever went in
    ours, although I have seen clam bakes done this way.)
    
    You'll need a VERY large pot.  Clams always go on the bottom in a
    little water.  Better yet, put them in beer!  If you can also get
    quahogs, try half clams/half quahogs.  Chourico, sausage, Italien
    sausage, (*any* kind of sausage) potatoes with skins, onions, corn on
    the cob, hot dogs, eggs, etc...  I think the chourico is what gives it
    that extra special spunk, so be sure and get some.
    
    In regards to serving with lobsters, never tried this, but would imagine
    that it doesn't take as long as the rest of the clam boil.
    
    Serve with melted butter, lemons, some broth from the bottom of the
    pot, and many napkins.  We often have stuffed quahogs or chowder and
    clam cakes, and plenty of beer to accompany this meal!  
    
    Also, see note 130.

    YES... ALL goes into the pot at the same time. The "Clam-boils" I have
    been use to are done as follows....;
    
    	Potatoes on the bottom covered with water (to top of potatoes). The
    onions and spices are put in next so the steam can carry the flavors to
    the top of the pot. Next comes the sausage, clams and lobster (in that 
    order. For best results in a "boil", the clams should be rinsed well to
    remove as much sand as possible.
    
    	Now, as you say, the potatoes take the longest... so they are
    boiled in the water.. As they boil, the steam from the water steams the
    remaining contents of the pot. Steam cooks things slower than the
    actual water... SO, in theory, everything should be done at the same
    time. BUT, even if they are not, the lobster takes the least time, so
    it is on top. The clams take a little more time than the lobster, but
    less time than the sausage... so on and so forth... I think you get the
    picture now. OOPS... I forgot the corn. It goes in somewhere before the
    clams and after the sausage. The pot should be covered for best
    steaming results. If you use hot dogs in place of sausage, be sure they
    are hot dogs with a good skin (skinless hot dogs are not good for
    this).
    
    	As for the types of clams.., the best clams are the kind that
    people in your area of the country are use to eating.! 
    
    Hope this helps..!!

    I have to disagree with the reply in .4   Definately put the clams in
    first in the bottom of the pot because the steam from the clams is
    where the clam boil gets its flavor from.  Boiling potatoes in water
    won't give the same effect at all.  If it did, they'd call it a potato
    boil.  :^)
    
    Re: .5 
    Since you have a relative in Chourico-ville, he'll be able to tell you
    the best places to order from.  I think Amarals in Fall River, MA will
    ship their product throughout the US, although nowadays it may be
    readily available in your area.....

	   Re: all
	   
	   I have a few questions:

	1.  How do you make sure the sausage is thoroughly cooked? 
	    Should it be precooked as a precaution?

	2.  Potatoes take much longer to cook than clams do so
	    how do you prevent the clams from becoming overcooked?

	3.  If the clams go on the bottom, then potatoes next, does
	    the water cover the potatoes at least?

	Thanks!  My fiance is from New Bedford and loves clam boils!
	Now I can make one.  BTW, in Shaws in New Bedford, they sometimes
	sell clam boils with breakfast sausage links and hotdogs in
	a mesh bag.  Put the bag in water and boil away!

	Karen

    Seeing that the great potato controversy has yet to be solved, I'll 
    divert from the subject and add my recipes for plain old steamed clams
    and plain old boiled lobster.
    
    
    Steamed Clams
    
    To your clam pot add water,
    lots of salt,
    a cut up red bell pepper
    a cut up green bell pepper
    2 onions, chopped
    a bay leaf
    1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
    
    bring to a boil and let cook for about 5-10 minutes before
    adding your clams.  The veggies and spices add a nice taste to
    the clams and make a delicious clam broth as well. 
    
    
    BOILED LOBSTER
    --------------
    
    To your lobster water add,
    lots of salt
    2 lemons quartered
    1 tsp whole peppercorns
    
    Boil for 5-10 minutes before adding the little guys.
    

    in the san jose area try race st. fish and poultry, there are several
    of them around (check the phone book, near where you live)  they
    care a very wide variety of seafood.  BTW:  when i was back in MA
    at x-mas time we stayed out on the cape and had a calm boil, and
    i was talking to the the owner of the fish market where we went
    (don't ask me where) and he told me that at certain times of the
    year (winter) it is hard for the stores back there to get the calms,
    so the are shipped in from the west coast, and that we have an easy
    time getting them out here then back there. 
    
    

    The food that takes the longest to cook goes on the bottom, so the
    steam gets there first; or if the potatoes are large cut them in
    half.  No seaweed in-between.
                                    Gudrun

Some elements of religion may creep into this topic. I'll be myself and
stick my two cents in.

There are several Amaral's chourico and linguica makers in Fall River. We
prefer the one on Brownell Street; they do NOT sell in any stores other
than their own, but I think they will ship. I bite the bullet, drive the
220 miles round trip and fill an ice chest with their various sausages.

We use a steamer. I don't know the size of the steamer, but it's two
piece, with a spigot in the bottom section, and is really too big for our
kitchen stove. In the summer time I do it on the gas grill if I'm at
home, and on a Coleman stove if we're away from home. 

I always put at least a half can of beer in with the water in the bottom
section, as well as either a handfull of dill seeds or a bunch of dill
greens. As the steam goes up it cooks everything, and seems to pick up
some flavor as it goes. Hence, the top-most items receive nicely flavored
steam.  Then, the steam condenses on the inside of the lid, and drips &
runs down through all the food again on its way to the bottom section.
The broth that results is like nectar of the gods.  The bottom-most thing
in the steamer is the potatoes (in the skin), because they take the most
cooking time.  The clams take the least cooking time, so we put them on
top of everything else in the steamer. When the clams open their shells,
everything is cooked. Or, you could say, when everything is cooked, the
clams open their shells.

What do I put in the top pot? Potatoes, carrots, natural casing hot dogs,
pork sausage (breakfast links?), linguica, chourico, whole peeled onions,
and scrubbed clams. In that order.

I think we'll do one this week. My mouth is watering.

CORN ON THE COB! How could I forget delicious sweet corn? It goes in the
middle of the pot.

Art

    
    Just a nit but what is being discussed is really called a clam-bake not
    clam-boil.  Granted you may do the cooking in a large pot, but this is an
    adaption of the method of cooking calms, lobsters and corn taught to
    the early New England settlers by the local Indians.
    
    Bob

I was born in Newport, Rhode Island and brought up in Westport,
Massachusetts. We dig our own clams and quahogs and catch our own crabs.
We have clamboils and we have clambakes. 

The respective definitions of clamBAKEs and clamBOILs could be local. (The
identification of quahogs is certainly local to SE Mass. and RI.)

I've had both. I don't _like_ clambakes. There is a difference. I've
never been to a real clambake that didn't employ seaweed as a spacer and
cover over the whole thing. There is a flavor difference that I can only
surmise is influenced by the seaweed. Furthermore, clambakes produce food
that is cooked with more heat than steam (although there is steam
present). Basically, clamboils cook with steam, whether the liquid is in
the bottom half of a steamer or simply in the bottom of a single large
pot. In fact, many people use a canning pot. 

I'm not flaming or dumping, simply relating experience.

Art

If cooking  live lobsters in a clam boil, when should the lobsters be added?
It  seems more inhumane than usual to put the lobsters on top before heating
or  to  put  them  on top after letting all the steam out by lifting the top
from the steamer after it's been boiling for a while.

- Brad

    I remember seeing on one of the TV food shows the chef stroking
    the back of the tail of a lobster. This is suppose to create some
    sort of hynoptic state that makes cooking them less inhumane.  Has anyone
    else heard of this?
    
    Flo
    

    
    re: .16
    
    Flo, I remember seeing that.  I think it may have been Jeff Smith,
    but I'm not sure.  It just reminded me of a Far Side cartoon I 
    remember seeing -
    
    A lobster sitting in one of those carnival type dunking chairs above
    a pot of boiling water whilst the chefs throw balls and try to hit
    the target on the chair ... maybe you just have to see it.
    
    Lar

    Re .16
    
    Yes, you can put the lobster to 'sleep' by rubbing the back of its
    neck.  That's what my husband does to them before putting them in the
    pot.  Basically, you just rest the lobster on the back of his neck so
    the tail goes away from you, and you stroke the back of the neck.  You
    can tell that it's working because the lobster's claws will relax, and
    then you just put him in the pot and cook him.  

    
    Since when did a lobster have a neck?,  BTW why is people feel
    guilty about how they put a lobster into the pot and yet think it is
    quite allright to eat it after its cooked?  We should try to remember
    nothing is born plastic wrapped, it is necessary to kill our food
    before eating it, this includes vegetarian diets also.
    
    Bob

Yay Bob!  You tell 'em.

I always felt that if you want to be real nice to the lobster, eat it with
real butter, not margarine.

That way you show that you care enough to use the very best, and the lobster
gets even by raising your cholesterol level!

    Actually, they don't wake up when you submerge them.  I know that when
    I've cooked the lobster by just putting them in the pot, they move
    around a lot (I can hear them trying to get out), and it seemed kind of
    cruel.  However, when my husband puts them to sleep as described
    previously (which is the only way we do it now), they don't move 
    around or try to get out when we put them in the pot to cook, so I'm
    assuming that they don't wake up.  I'm not sure if it makes a
    difference, but we steam them instead of boiling them.  That way,
    there's not as much hot water in the lobster when they are broken open
    to eat.

Last weekend we were invited to a catered clamboil down in Bristol, RI.
Talk about a feast! But that's gloating... I'm really in here to ask some
questions.

The caterer brought a steamer that you could almost walk in. It was fed
by three 20-lb propane tanks. The food is separated from the water (and
broth) by a stainless steel plate with perforations.

When we sat down at the tables the caterer put plastic buckets of steamed
mussels on the tables; we began eating them, and the caterer offered some
advice. Before doing the broth-butter-mouth bit, look at the mussel to
see if it has "the fuzzy stuff" in it, and if it does, pull it off before
you eat it. Well, about 1 out of every ten I ate had that stuff; it's
sort of like a grassy green seaweed, but it's attached to part of the
mussel.  What is it?

After the third bucket of mussels on our table the caterer brought out
the "real" meal. Each person's portion was bagged in an onion bag sort of
container. Each held clams, hot dogs, sausages, chourico chunks, one
large onion, one large potato, one sweet potato, and a brown paper
bag(!). Inside the brown paper bag was a big chunk of codfish, with a red
pepper spiceyness to it. Delicious. I presume the brown paper bag was to
"contain" the fish. My question is, do they use special bags? Has anyone
in NOTES land ever used this technique?

I ate 'til I hurt. Then he surprised us all and brought out lobsters.  I
hurt more. It hurt so good.

Art

The fuzzy stuff is called a beard.  It's what the mussel uses to attach itself
to rocks or whatever it grows on.  If you buy or pick fresh mussels, you pull
this off as part of the cleaning process.  Sometimes, a little bit is left 
inside.

Regarding the brown paper bags, many people use them for lots of different
aspect of cooking from a wrapper, to draining fried food, to carrying 
sandwiches.  About as many people find this distasteful, since they don't
know where the bag has been, or what toxic chemicals have been used in 
creating it.  I certainly wouldn't use any bag that had been printed, but would
use most others on rare occasions.  I would think a standard lunch bag would
be ok to use for steaming food, but prefer to use cooking parchment for
this purpose.

>Regarding the brown paper bags, many people use them for lots of different
>aspect of cooking from a wrapper, to draining fried food, to carrying 
>sandwiches.  About as many people find this distasteful, since they don't
>know where the bag has been, or what toxic chemicals have been used in 
>creating it.  I certainly wouldn't use any bag that had been printed, but would
>use most others on rare occasions.  I would think a standard lunch bag would
>be ok to use for steaming food, but prefer to use cooking parchment for
>this purpose.

Brown paper bags are stored in warehouses and are treated with toxic
chemicals to prevent damage to the bags from bugs.  They are made from
wood pulp that is also treated with toxic chemicals to prevent bug damage.
It is, therefore, probably not wise to use them for food preparation.

I would suggest you use brown parchment paper for anything for which you 
would use a bag.  It can be folded and formed around food, is a great 
substance on which to drain fried food, etc.  It is probably okay to
carry prepared foods in bags....provided the food is wrapped in something
or in a container....