In the far southeast of Hyrule, on the coastal beaches, is the small fishing village of Lurelin. They are known across the kingdom for their seafood, and a number of Hyrule’s best seafood dishes hail from this seaside village. One of these dishes is clam chowder. Fresh clams and hearty blueshell snails are simmered in milk and butter along with vegetables. The chowder is thickened with flour ground down from Tabantha wheat. It is a delicious and hearty meal that highlights the shellfish of the Hyrulean waters.
We will be forgoing the snails for this particular recipe as they may be hard to find, depending on whether or not your local grocers stock snails. As hearty blueshell snails are rather large snails, this makes finding appropriate matching snails a bit more difficult. Instead, we will use canned clams and either fresh little neck or top neck clams to make this chowder.
“The nutritional value of hearty blueshell snail combines with butter and milk in a rich soup.”
Ingredients
3 tbsp butter
⅓ cup all purpose flour
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped, rangiri style
1 russet potato, chopped, mentori style
1 sweet potato, chopped, mentori style (or 1 cup kabocha squash, chopped)
2 10 oz cans of clams
2 cups of clam juice
12 little neck or top neck clams, scrubbed and cleaned
3 cups whole milk
1-2 tbsp chives, diced
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Open the cans of clams and pour into a small colander over a bowl to separate the clams from the juice while reserving the juice. You will probably reserve about 1 cup of clam juice. Use bottled clam juice to make up the difference to ensure you have 2 cups of clam juice total. Place the canned clams in a bowl until needed.
In a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Once the butter is melted, add the onions. Sauté the onions for roughly 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the flour and stir until fully incorporated into the butter and onions. Allow the flour to cook for about 2-3 minutes. Stir as needed to prevent the flour from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
After 2-3 minutes add the 2 cups of clam juice to the pot, stir to blend the flour roux into the clam juice. Once fully blended, add the carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes (or kabocha squash) to the pot. Turn the heat down to low (or medium-low), and allow the vegetables to simmer until soft, approximately 15 minutes. Stir regularly as the broth will thicken from the roux while it cooks and you do not want it to stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.
You have two options for cooking the 12 whole, shelled clams.
- You can add them to the broth along with the vegetables and allow them to cook in the broth for 5-7 minutes until the shells pop open and the clams are fully cooked. At this point remove them from the broth and reserve in a bowl.
- If you don’t want the additional clam flavor in your soup broth, you can add the shelled clams to another pot full of 2-3 cups of simmering water. Allow them to cook for 5-7 minutes in this pot until the shells pop open and the clams are fully cooked. Once cooked, remove them from the water and reserve in a bowl.
To serve, ladle the soup into soup bowls, and top with one or two of the whole, shelled clams. Open the clams fully when placing them into the soup. If you are using a deeper soup bowl, the clam may sink. To avoid this, submerge a clam in the soup and then stack an opened clam on top of the other. Garnish the chowder with chopped chives. Enjoy!
Learn more about the Clam Chowder dish from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at Zelda Dungeon.