A post of adoration for the Maine Steamer Clam
Tonight I was lucky enough to cook a nice lobster and Maine steamer clam dinner for my wife and I, courtesy of my Dad having an order sent down to me from MaineLobsterDirect.com. I got the Fantasy Lobster Dinner with two 2.5lb lobsters, 2lb. of steamers, and some jumbo shrimp cocktail. First, I really have to speak up this company as the food was excellent. It came in a big gold tin can that I cooked the lobsters and steamers in, the shrimp were tasty and the cocktail sauce was as well although it could have used some more horshradish (which was a good thing as I was lacking horshradish on hand to make my own, though I would have definitely added some if I had it on hand), the lobsters were very sweet, and the steamers were delicious.
Tracy and I had actually received the package yesterday, but it didn’t come until 7PM. Luckily as it had not arrived in the day time, I decided to order a pizza as Tracy and I were both starving which wound up arriving before the lobsters did. I had skipped lunch in preparation for the meal both days, so it really had to be kind of an early dinner. The lobsters were both alive and, remarkably, every steamer opened. There was only one that tasted a little off to me which I had to spit out, but this is pretty remarkable given they were shipped by FedEx overnight and probably tossed around quite a bit and were out of water for 2 days.
We slept in, got breakfast a little late, and spent 3 hours from 4-7:30 at my in-laws house opening presents and snacking on some finger food like crackers and dip and a fantastic edible bouquet of fruit that was sent by my Mom to us. As I got home, I decided the plan of action would be to cook the lobsters, and while they were cooking get the shrimp cocktail on a plate and time a bag of frozen vegetables that steam in a bag. This time it was red potato and green beans in rosemary butter sauce.
The meal was fantastic as I already mentioned. I separated the lobsters and steamers because both get cold very fast, and there is no way I could prepare it all, serve, and eat an appetizer and main course at the same time. Since Tracy was hungry it was just easiest to go with the main course first. I thought the chardonnay I had with it was a decent match as well.
Really though, Maine steamer clams, otherwise known as the soft-shell clam, pissneck clams or simply “steamers” if you are from the Northeast (if you order this expecting normal littlenecks that have been steamed or grilled while in New England, you will be in for a surprise) are my absolute favorite food ever.
There are a few foods I really love: a really good pizza (either NJ boardwalk/normal pizzaria style, or wood-fired oven gourmet-like pizza), lobsters, my mother’s chicken français (and her parmesan too for that matter), pho tai, and wild cherry Nerds. But when I say I love steamers, I mean love as in I once ate them 5 nights in a row on a trip to New Jersey a few years ago. I stayed with my favorite aunt for a few nights and each night was a different restaurant that had steamers as an appetizer. Each night I just asked for 2 orders of the appetizer. For years now at our family dinner ( which takes place at a seafood restaurant), I have ordered these an appetizer, and this is not the first time these have been shipped down to me as a present :)
There are very few pages about exactly what you do with these things on the web. A few pages have instructions on how to cook, one great one shows how to eat them kind of, but I don’t think any really pay attention to this fantastic food or try to further it. I would really implore anyone who orders one of these lobster dinners to try the steamers instead of the safe route of mussels, clam chowder, or shrimp. Here is a photo from the cover showing some decent detail of them after they are done cooking:
I cooked the steamers in the same can as I cooked the lobsters in with about an inch of water and some of the chardonnay. I usually have a metal steamer basket to keep the clams out of the water but I couldn’t find it. Either way though, they take roughly 8-10 minutes to cook. Shellfish cooking is tricky. This is something you set a timer for. If they are undercooked, you could be in a lot of pain after eating them, and overcooking even slightly will give you rubbery food. As they are cooking, you should have some drawn butter (or just melted butter if you don’t have flour or are just slacking) being melted on the stove as well. I also setup the area I’ll be eating at since it requires a little bit of a system to eat these.
From left to right, we have the bowl of cooked steamers, an empty bowl for the shells and the skin that covers the tails, broth/cooking liquid from the pot, and some butter. I usually squeeze the lemon right into the butter rather than try to get some on each clam for the sake of simplicity. As we are dealing with dipping wet food in multiple bowls, paper towels or newspapers are a great idea. I setup on my kitchen counter since I was eating alone and it was easiest.
First, peel away one side of the shell, grab the tail near the base where it connects to the clam shell, and try to begin ripping out moving inwards towards the ‘meat’ of the clam. Keep it intact as best as possible, but often this will rip in some way. What is important is the middle fleshy party remains intact until it goes in your mouth. If this bulbous part is punctured, the guts spill out and the steamer is basically wasted. Then, pinch the black skin from the same area on the base of the tail where it was connected to the shell, and pull back to remove. The best way I can describe this is as if you are removing a condom.
The finished product should hopefully look something like this. With this clam, the middle part is actually separated a bit from the siphon ducts which lead to the tail, but still relatively intact including the fleshy bulb part that is hanging on the bottom. The tail starts off as tan like the rest of the clam, and fades to black by the time it gets to the tip.
From here, dip in the broth and swirl around to remove as much dirt as possible. Then, hold it over the broth for a bit to try to get all the broth off. You might also slightly tap it against the side of the broth bowl to get excess liquid off. This is kind of important. Although 1 steamer going from the broth to the butter doesn’t move much water over, often by the time you are halfway through you can easily have diluted the butter to have this murky, gray water mixed in, which just kind of ruins the rest of the meal in my opinion.
Some people grab by the tail and only eat the clammy part, and then throw the tails away. I see this as a waste, though in their defense the tail is very chewy and not very tasty. For me though it provides a nice contrast to the very mushy and tasty part.
The journey for me this time around was arduous. I had been snacking on food at the party, came home, had a huge lobster dinner with shrimp, vegetables, and wine, and now had 2 pounds of steamers ahead of me.
Still, there is no way in hell I am letting any go to waste. Finally, the last one was eaten.
After this, I poured the last glass of wine the bottle had to offer, came here to write this, and will now be promptly passing out in my bed.
