Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Joys of Old Cookbooks or Cold Clam Bisque

I’m a cookbook junkie. A few years ago, I resolved to cut back on my cookbook habit (primarily because I was running out of book space in my home and not buy any new cookbooks. Well, I’ve been doing a good job at it. However, two weekends ago, I found myself browsing through the bookshop at my local public library. The library sells old books to make room for new ones on their shelves and also donated books. It seems people leave boxes of unwanted books at the doorstep in the middle of the night. The proceeds go to a reading program for children.

A few cookbooks caught my attention. Because they aren’t new books and because they were dirt cheap, I bought them. And felt very guilty afterwards.

I thumbed through one of the books "It’s A Picnic" by Nancy Fair McIntyre published by The Viking Press, copyright 1969. I know what you’re thinking "Eeewwwwww, American food before the California cuisine craze was just a lot of open this can and that can and mix it together." Okay, there are recipes for fried chicken, meatloaf, baked stuffed apples, and stuffed eggs. And some of the recipes do use canned food, but the majority use fresh ingredients and real ingredients (no margarine, artificial sweeteners, etc.)

Also my snobby foodie friend, those recipes are found side-by-side with the likes of tabbouli, vitello tonnato, carnitas, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), and Indonesian Pork sate. These recipes might have been exotic in the late 60’s but are commonplace in glossy food magazines and tv shows today.

I can imagine the "Steak with Tarragon Marinade" and the "Cold Scotch Salmon" served with "Dill Sauce" appearing in the now-defunct Gourmet magazine. And the steak with lime sauce is in the same vein as Jacques Pepin’s Skirt Steak Grandma. Even the "Walnut-Cheese Burger", a combination of ground beef, grated cheddar cheese and chopped walnuts, might appear in food magazines as a "healthier" version using lean beef or turkey and low fat cheese and paired with the "Cold Broccoli Salad".

One of the more interesting descriptions is for the Green Pepper Pot, a casserole of ground beef and rice, which Mrs. McIntyre states "will feed a hungry crew of 6 for under $3. 00". Now that’s a bargain!

Of all the recipes in the book, the one that begged me to try it was the "Cold Clam Bisque" on page 54, Chapter IV "Picnics Afloat". Mrs. McIntyre states some of the recipes in this chapter were given to her by members of the Balboa Yacht Club (http://www.balboayachtclub.com/) in Newport Beach, California. Unfortunately, she did not indicate if the bisque was one of them. But the soup looked easy to make and needed no tweaking to make it low carb.

Here’s the recipe as written in the book. Don’t let the canned clams put you off to it. I made 1/3 of the recipe on the test run and it made a very generous 2 1/2 cups of soup. It is VERY rich soup, so small servings (1/2 cup at the very most) is more than enough. And yes, I’m sure you can use fresh clams that you, yourself, dug out of the sand, shucked, and poached after you milked the cow and separated the cream. ;-)

COLD CLAM BISQUE
Three 7-1/2 ounce cans minced clam
1 ½ teaspoon celery salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon thyme
1 cup finely chopped ice
3 ½ cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons chopped chives
Put minced clams with their liquid in a blender. Ad the celery salt, cayenne, thyme, and 1 cup finely chopped ice. Blend until almost smooth. Remove cover and pour in the heavy cream while blender is going. Blend for another minute. Sprinkle soup with chopped chives before serving.

Cold Clam Bisque-Tweaked Version (not as rich, but still good.)
Three 7-1/2 ounce cans minced clam
1 ½ teaspoon celery salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon thyme
1 cup finely chopped ice
2 cups clam juice or water or a mixture or clam juice and water
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons chopped chives
Put minced clams with their liquid in a blender. Ad the celery salt, cayenne, thyme, and 1 cup finely chopped ice. Blend until almost smooth. Add the clam juice (or water) and blend again. Remove cover and pour in the heavy cream while blender is going. Blend for another minute. Sprinkle soup with chopped chives before serving.

If you want a soup with more clam chowder-like texture, you can substitute chopped clams for the minced clams and mix all the ingredients in a bowl, skipping the blender entirely.

Also you can heat the soup if you would like it hot. Just be careful when you heat it because heavy cream has a tendency to boil over (at least it does for me.)