Clambake Class

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ChefSteps

Potato(es)

Onion(s)

Corn

Dungeness crab

Clams

Mussels

Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

Lemons

It takes time to find a spot on the beach, dig a huge hole, start a large bonfire, burn it to coals, and stack food until it steams into deliciousness. If you rush into the clambake without planning ahead, the tides or the rain might claim your dinner before you’ve cracked your first beer.

Check the weather and tides

Clean the clams, de-beard the mussels, and cut other ingredients into relatively uniform sizes to make sure things cook as evenly as possible.

Wash and prep ingredients

You’ll need enough to be able to lay three layers over the five-foot hole you’re about to dig.

Gather kelp or tree fronds

Start by digging a hole that is about two feet deep and four to five feet in diameter. Smaller or bigger is fine, but the depth should always be about two feet, no matter the other dimensions. The goal is to create plenty of room for wood to burn down into a large, smoldering bed of coals that you can cook on top of.

Dig a hole

Gather enough rocks to line the bottom of the pit with about 6 inches of rock. These can be lots of large rocks or tons of smaller river rocks, but bigger ones will breathe better when you get the fire going.

Gather large rocks; line the bottom of the pit with them

The fire needs to be very large in order to make enough hot coals to cook the food. We used about a quarter of a cord of firewood—about 12 bundles of store-bought firewood. Be patient as the fire gets going—you’ll need to store a lot of heat in the rocks below, and that takes time.

Build a huge fire

Once the fire has burned down after a couple of hours, rake the coals to flatten them out, and then add sand and pebbles over them. This is just to ensure the branches don’t burst into flames when you put them on top in the next step.

Rake coals until flat, and cover with thin layer of sand and pebbles

Lay a bed of tree fronds or kelp over the hot rocks and coal; just a layer or two is fine. The hotter the coal bed, the more layers you might want to add to protect all the food.

Cover with kelp or tree fronds

We laid down a few 50-pound wet coffee sacks and placed all the food on top. We did this mostly so that we could lift up all the food at once when it was done, but it’s optional. If you choose to forgo the burlap, just place your food right on top of the first layer of kelp or tree fronds.Add the potatoes on the bottom, as they need to reach about [c 95] to cook. The other ingredients shouldn’t cook at temperatures quite that high, so layer them according to required heat: onions, corn, and sausage on top of the potatoes, then crab, clams, and mussels. Last, sprinkle the entire spread with any regional spice blend you like. We used Lawry’s. If you’re from the East Coast, you’ll probably use Old Bay. Cover the whole spread with another burlap sack (again, optional) and another layer of kelp or tree fronds.

Layer wet burlap sacks (optional), food, more kelp or tree fronds, and another wet sack (optional)

If you prepared properly, the food should not take more than about 30 minutes to an hour to cook, but exact timing will depend on what you are cooking, how much you’re cooking, and how much heat you were able to store initially. Every once in a while, you can drizzle some beer all over the spread to get some extra steam in there. (When Grant’s dad barbecues or grills, he pours Bud all over the hot spots to keep the flames down. We did the same with our clambake, but with Northwest favorite Rainier beer.)

Wait

Take the layers of tree fronds or kelp off the top, and eat directly from the pit itself or pull all the food out and spread it on a big picnic table. To cool it before serving, we recommend pouring more beer over the coals—this will create steam while slowly extinguishing the coals.Serve with your favorite sides and sauces, squeeze tons of lemons over the top, and enjoy!

Uncover, eat, drink, and continue the party!

Let’s face it: clambakes and common sense just don’t mix. Lobsters, clams, potatoes, and corn never cook at the same rate or temperature—so why do we try to roast them together over the same fire in the venerated East Coast summer ritual that is the beachside clambake? Simple: because despite the counterintuitive cooking method, the results tend to be delicious, and—perhaps more important—because it’s fun.Determined to get in on the action, the ChefSteps team trooped down to the foggy beaches of Washington State, on the Hood Canal, with a bounty of ingredients in tow. Though traditional clambakes include East Coasty things like lobstah, Maryland blue crab, and salty Atlantic seaweed, we chose to keep it close to home with native Dungeness crab, local mussels and clams, and fragrant cedar that grows right along the beach.We tackled the uneven cooking problem by placing ingredients that need the most cooking closest to the coals: potatoes first, then onions, sausage, crab, clams, lemons, and mussels. We realized too late that we had placed the corn on top of the clams, a simple sequencing error that left us with uncooked corn perched atop finished shellfish. But we refused to let that stop us: we simply pulled out the ingredients that were done first and left the rest to keep cooking, periodically adding a plume of Rainier beer steam for good measure.By late afternoon, the sun had broken through the clouds and we had a hot bed of coals and a pile of delicious food to show for it. Smoky, salty shellfish, all dressed up with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, mingled beautifully with tender, starchy potatoes and sweet yellow corn. We ate, drank, skipped rocks, and enjoyed the summer sun. Did the day go exactly as planned? Not at all. But the point of a good clambake isn’t perfection. It’s about the delicious challenge of cooking in the most basic way, using simple ingredients from sea and land, without the benefit of fancy equipment, recipes, or a nearby market for sourcing last-minute needs.And while the clambake itself was a challenge, we had a loftier goal in mind: to capture that magical beach feel and bring it back to our urban test kitchen. To re-create all the smells and flavors of the beachside clambake with nothing but household ingredients. (Okay, and a few gathered rocks.) <a href="/activities/home-clambake?context=clambake">Click here to check out the results.</a>WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

Wheelbarrow

Shovels

Axes

12+ Bundles of wood

More gathered wood

100 Local grocery coupon papers

Gasoline

Gas-powered leaf-blower

Rain boots

Blowtorch

Coffee bean sacks

Foraged cedar branches

Pacific Northwest Clambake