Chef Johns Clams Casino Dip Food

CHEF JOHN'S CLAMS CASINO DIP

Steps:

• Cook and stir bacon with butter in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Drain bacon fat, set bacon aside, and place skillet back onto medium heat. Add jalapeno, red pepper, diced celery, garlic, and green onions; cook and stir until vegetables start to soften, about 3 minutes.
• Pour in reserved clam juice and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Transfer vegetable mixture to plate to cool.
• Open second can of clams and drain juice, combine with reserved clams, cream cheese, bacon, cooled vegetables, juice from lemon, and freshly ground black pepper and hot sauce to taste. Transfer to serving bowl and garnish with chopped bacon and green onion. Serve with crackers.

CLAMS CASINO DIP/SPREAD

Steps:

• Cut bacon into 1/4-inch pieces and saute in a skillet with the butter over medium heat 'til completely crisp; drain the fat and reserve the bacon to a plate.
• In same pan with about 1 teaspoon of the drippings saute the jalapeno, red bell pepper, celery, garlic and green onion over medium heat until just the veggies just barely start to soften (about 3 minutes); now add the juice from one can of clams and reduce over high heat until almost all the liquid has evaporated, about another three minutes. Remove mixture to a plate and allow to cool to room temperature before adding to the cream cheese.
• In a mixing bowl combine the cream cheese with the cooled mixture, and stir in the remaining ingredients.
• Transfer into your serving dish and garnish top with a tablespoon or so of the crisp bacon and the green onion tops.
• Serve warm or at room temperature with Ritz crackers or a good bread.

CLAMS CASINO

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Cook bacon crisp in a saute pan.
• Saute shallots, garlic, peppers in saute pan with bacon on medium head for 2-3 minutes.
• Add parsley, lemon juice, butter and bread crumbs; combine seasonings.
• Cool bread crumb mixture.
• Open clams (some say to discard tops, we used them to loosen the meat and open the other clams) Loosen meat from lower shell, leave clam in shell.
• Place clams on sheet pan top with 1 TBSP crumb mixture.
• Bake 5-8 minutes.
• Sprinkle rock salt on a servering dish and serve with lemons.