Plumluvfoods on WICC ep 54 Clam Shacks!

The New England Clam SHack is a staple of the summer and on this episode we explore some of the best!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Can you never stallming a world of sound, Chef pull
on the mic, making hotspound the Jeff Jeff Brown a
shotguns my son Chef dead in the background, making newp
be Found song, Girls of Peace Must Do Any Night

(00:25):
and ny Conversation Song, The Delights from Boll Made Dishes,
Street Bookstal Size, These She Spring Made My jem Guys,
so it soon and podcast Forever set Jeff bed Gota

(00:46):
be you Oday? Any conversation So the fast say sound.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
And on the knee, Chef feron in the list.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
And the rest. Oh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, what's hating? Men?
Welcome to Plumb Love Foods Live right here a wy
S see the Voice of Connecticut. We are your number
one source for everything food content in our state. Now listen,
this is the radio show that we're working hard to
win all the awards that we haven't won it yet.
We're the show it's working hard to get the word

(01:20):
out there to everybody about the wonderful food in our
state right here, using the platform of wy SEC. And
I'm not doing it alone, No, no, no, I'm doing
it with my good brother and chef friend and uh
work workmate, workmates. We'll go to work mate one and only.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Chef Jeffy.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
J Yeah, Chef Jeffie's in the house. Workmate. Your workmate
is good, right, good old workmate, Jeffy My my first mate.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Are we pirates?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Listen? I'm whatever mate to the left or right of you,
third mate, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Welcome to Plumb Love Foods Live Slightly Behind. Yeah, it's
a wonderful Saturday afternoon edition of the program. I hope
you guys are all doing fantastic and enjoying this wonderful
summer because it's been quite warm. It's not gonna get
nice again. There's no more rain. It's a lot of
Sun's been beautiful, you know. I remember working in NPR
then when always say a little one don't do the weather.
But I feel like the weather is a great tone

(02:16):
setter for how the show should start, particularly when you're
talking certain subjects. Definitely, definitely, when you're talking certain subjects
like our subject today, we don't really want to talk
about when there's four feet of snow on the ground. Why, Yeah,
it's not. It's not really the thing to do when
they're still in the ground. It's it. I mean, well,
maybe part of it. But we could talk about that too.
But I mean we're talking about road trips, talking about

(02:37):
we're talking about summer riding in a car. Yeah, yeah,
taking the drive to go find something delicious. Friends with
rhiny riiny air, riiny salty air, and you're hungry, hungry.
Now sun's out, it's beaten on you, and you're like, what,
what could go and get a dip in it? A
little dipping sows, A little dipping sows a little tatar.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
You know, you get some other friends.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
We're talking all about clam shacks and seafood shacks here
in our state, which are there are tons of them.
There's a long history, you know, a lot of history too.
We were digging into this looking at some of the
some of the classic places across our state, and we're
going to go through some of those later on the
show too and talk about them. Plus we'll have some
recipes later on for how we handle this sort of
thing in case you want to do it at home,

(03:20):
and we're going to talk about the history. There's a
lot of This show is an action packed program.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
All the clam shacks.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Clam shacks, I mean, who thought we'd do.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
A whole two hour program on clamshocks.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I know, you know what's crazy. They also call them
lobster shacks, and I was like, oh, that's that's fancy
lobster shacks. Like I was looking for the clam strips
and here we go with the lobster shack. I was.
I do know that part of Norwalk was were Cops Island.
You know Cops Island they do oysters and stuff. Yeah,
but in a company of course, Cops Island and oysters.
They used to be a heavily fished lobster area and

(03:51):
it was almost overfished, destroying the whole lobster population. So
they had to like tone it way way back. And
now you can actually get cannet, get lobsters out of
the water there, which are technically main blisters, which is
you know, people her main lobster. I think it's from
a place it's more of a breed. Yeah, it is
a breed of lobster, It's right. And I think that's
as it's important to talk about, is what you just
brushed on something that's that's great, and that's that the

(04:13):
history of seafood and the shoreline goes back as long
as there's been a shoreline and humanity next to it.
You know, people think we would go to the ocean
to find things like you know, I mean food, to
find shelter, to find currency, like all.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Kinds of things came from the ocean.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, exactly. So like where you know us as Americans learned,
it was from the Native Americans when we landed here
in Connecticut on the shorelines. That's how that's that's that's
where we first learned, like, oh, here's clams. Check out
these oysters, and then we went from there. I think
that's what they said, Hey, check out these oysters. Yeah,
they were like, hey check this out, would you guys

(04:50):
bring I.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Have always thought about this though.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Who was the first person that opened up an oyster
or a clam and said, you know what, I'm going
to eat that? Oh? Totally.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
It kind of looks gross, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, there's a lot of foods that grow and ore
intro Like, I mean, just think about how you had
to I mean, I don't know, we'll go way off
subject here, but like butchering animals, I mean, like, who's
gonna eat Like you're like, oh, yeah, let's just do
this and eat it. I guess that feels though to me,
like you, I don't know, I guess that feels like
the the id inside of our body, you know, when
you get really down to like the brain, like, Okay,
we eat flesh, we.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Eat that sounds it say like that, we eat meat,
we eat protein.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I'm just gonna argue with that. You like the first
person who took a lobsterot and said, hmm, that looks delicious. Yeah. Well,
the weird thing is like, if you look at a
lobster and you think that's delicious, how come you don't
eat cockroaches because in the same like like genus or something,
aren't they Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think it was on
fear Factor. They figured that out, like someone, uh, they
were putting giant, hissing cockroaches in people's mouths, and you know,

(05:42):
they didn't think to ask if they were allergic to shellfish,
and some girl got like super sick that I didn't
know that. Yeah, that happened on fear Factor. That's I
heard it on a podcast. Wow.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah, because they're kind of in the same family.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, that's how I learned it. Anyway, I'm sure people
knew about that before then.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
That is a crazy factor.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It broke it. But yeah, I mean for all your
breaking food allergy news to check out with the old
Fear Factor episodes. Absolutely Joe Rogan's hero I didn't know
that that's how that's hilarious. But that makes total sense too, Yeah,
total sense. But yeah, I know the history of clam shacks,
all but down our clam lobster shacks, all those things
all but down our seaboard here of the state. Are many, many, many,

(06:21):
but there are some great award winning ones too. You know,
you gotta talk abbots, you gotta talk to stuff. I mean,
we can go through all that stuff what we're talking
about later on, but like some great places. Jeff, are
you a clam fan, like a fried clam? Oh my gosh, yes,
Ever since I was a little kid, I've a I
love shellfish in all its forms, whether it's fried, whether
it's steamed, whether it's grilled, whether someone serves it raw,

(06:44):
just a bunch of lemon on it. I'm in on
all of it. Yeah, I love that stuff, man, And
I also like to have them raw, like out in
the halfshell, you know, like clams and oysters in a halfshell.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Don't don't get me started.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
One of my favorite things. A little lemon, little cocktail,
saw its. Give me all the minionettes, give me all
that stuff. Oh, I love it. I love it. And
you know, one thing that people don't really realize and
I think is really important to brush on too, is calamari.
Like fresh squid when it's local and really fresh and
hasn't been frozen, and it's been sliced up and lightly
dredged and then fried perfectly quickly in a hot oil

(07:15):
that's clean, and it comes out and it's crispy and
soft inside. Oh my goodness, I'm I'm like literally salvating
right now. I'm not ready to go hit some clam shacks. Well,
here's the thing, like people, I don't know if it's
the thing that we talk about enough. Like squid is
definitely something that you can fish here in New England,
and there's people who go fishing for squid all the time,
and you can use all kinds that we don't want
to get the high they fish, but like you know,

(07:37):
it's literally caught with a like a fishing pole, absolutely,
and there's tons of it. Yeah, and there's tons of
awesome shell fish. There's not just like like little necks
and cherry stones like regular round clams. There's also steamers
with the you know, the little the little clam with
a little end on the end. You got to pull
off the little skin and then eat it. And then
there's the like the razor clam. They're all over out

(07:58):
here and those are amazing, saying I love a razor clam.
I don't know about you.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
And don't forget like things like scallops. There's massive scalops
in our area. I mean, you know, stoning and scalps
are delicious. You know, they're just it's good stuff. Man.
So you like base gallops, little ones, Oh, they're like
when they're base scallop season. To me is might be
like the greatest time. It's like they're like little tiny

(08:23):
sweet like you don't I don't even have to cook them.
You just eat them raw. They're so good. They're just
when you get them really fresh. Yeah, I eat them wrong. Oh,
you know. Being a private chef out here in the
Montalk area, I have a great scallop fisherman that I
named Mike that I get scalps from. He calls me
when he comes in. He's you know, he's got a
five gallon bag up before me and you know me
for like thirty dollars. It's ridiculous. How cheap was Oh yeah,

(08:44):
it's crazy. But it's ruined to.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Me for scalps, like they have to be fresh or
I just don't want them.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Oh I bet yeah, because you know, you have to
be really careful because a lot of places that they
don't you know, they might be frozen and then had
followed them out and put them out. You know, you
never know. You have to really know the person you're
buying your seafood from. I think, I think that's super important. Yeah,
I'm a big proponent of non not freezing your seafood
or proteins in general. But like I think a lot
of you know, grocery stores will sell frozen stuff, and

(09:10):
you know, it's probably fine, to be honest with you,
they get it, they flash freeze at whatever. But when
you go to your seafood manger in your grocery store,
ask them what's fresh, ask them what's frozen, so you
know the difference. And if they ever tell you any
of the shellfish is frozen.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
You do not want to eat that. That is not
something you want to buy.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
I remember working in a restaurant years ago in Florida,
and we were in Florida and they still bought frozen muscles.
I'll never have the life of them understand that frozen
muscles freaked me out. But I mean things like frozen
shrimp are hard to kind of get around, don't you think, Yeah,
a frozen shrimp one thing. I'm talking shellfish like clams.
Oh yeah, that does doesn't make sense to me at all, Like,

(09:44):
like you know, to buy like a froze unless you
can't get fresh seafood near you. Like I guess if
you're like in a very landlock, like what if you're
in Kansas.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Then you shouldn't get seafood at all.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Right, then you just don't ever eat it. You shouldn't
eat it.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
No, that's serious. You just shouldn't need it.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
If you can't get to an ocean in like a
day or like a half a day or something like that,
then you probably shouldn't neat seafood, you know. I mean
something like that. I just maybe have lake fish. There's
great lakefish you can have. You know, that's true, there
is a good lakefish. But I mean, I don't know.
People will never know the joy of an Oyster Rockefeller.
If you live in the middle Midwest, you're right. They're

(10:22):
not about to traveler take vacations, are going where else.
So you're probably right. Oh man, See that was that
was a slick way to tell me. I'm not as
far as you. That's not what I'm saying. I just listen,
you right, the landlocked thing you should. I just think
if you're in a landlocked place, seafood should not be
on your on your radar, you know, I mean unless
you done the menu for vacation. Yeah. I think if

(10:43):
you can get to the ocean in the day, then
that's fine, that makes sense, right. But like if you're
in Kansas and you came to Connecticut, this is a
spot for seafood. I mean, you're one hundred percent right
about that. There's some great stuff around here. And Jeff,
you'll come down to the beginnings of time with the stuff.
I mean, how long have we considered whereas Connecticut been
a place for I mean almost almost like a culinary destination,

(11:04):
at least from a culinary standpoint. I mean, we have
the Hamburger, we have pizza, and of course seafood. And
you know, when it comes down to New England particularly
you think about shellfish and scallops and lobster that Connecticut's
kind of become known for. It. Absolutely, Connecticut's been, I
mean since the twentieth century. In the nineteen twenties, like
Connecticut has become pretty famous for a place called Harry

(11:26):
Perry's Milford Fish Shot and they're actually credited or they
claim to have created the hot buttered lobster roles. So
you know, shots at Connecticut right there. I mean, come on,
that's making all these things happen. I mean, we've got pizza,
we've got hamburgers, we've got lobster rolls. Come on, We're
doing all kinds of things over here to sign of
the state, aren't we? All the food? It's such a
small state, but it's amazing how much food comes from here.

(11:47):
It's really crazy. Here's the thing, Like, I mean, we're
not joking, of course, the facts are there, but it's
one of those things that when you start learning more
and more about the history and the food history of
our state, there's just so many things, food wise from
a culinary standpoint, that came from our small state. And
I'm just I'm just watching your face. It's it's making
you upset kind of. I mean, no, of course not.

(12:07):
I mean we're not joking, but you know, still like
the seafood shack as we know it started around the twenties.
It was like it was like fish shops at first,
places probably were fishermen drop their fish and sold it
and that kind of they started frying fish at those places,
and then that took off from there and people were like, whoa,
all I need is a fryer and some fresh fish.
I got a boat, I got a pot. Let's make

(12:28):
this work place up. And then it kind of became
a destination thing, didn't it. Where it was like, you know,
people would go on vacations, maybe people who were working
in Hartford or water Bury going a vacation down south
of the sho line.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Yeah, it became kind of go to food for them.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, it's absolutely go to food in the summertime for vacationers.
If you're on the coastline. All the way down there's
clam shops, lobster shacks, oyster shacks, crab shacks, just littered
it up down there's as man as there used to be.
And it also, you know what else is really interesting
correlated with the with the introduction of the automobile, because

(13:05):
people started to go on road trips and then roadside
clamshacks and you know, kind of like pulling over and
grabbing some seafood became really popular. As I said, travel
you're on a drive. Yeah, when you're traveling and you're
on a drive, it became like a popular almost like
a fast food in a way, because you know, it's
it's really simple quick. It makes sounds like they're kind
of the first kind of makes sense, yeah, because you

(13:27):
would go there and you would get like a handful
of fried things. You know, usually, like you said, it
would be like whole belly fried clam strips with maybe
some you know, boiled red skinned potatoes, and then you
get some slabs of lemon that maybe you were really
lucky they made a home cocktail sauce or had some
sort of tartar. It all sounds incredible. I mean, I
absolutely love the story. But I was gonna ask you

(13:49):
because I know you were doing so much researching when
it comes to this stuff. I mean, I think about
how it is today. You know, you get your seafood,
your fried potatoes, your lemon, and your sauce. But back
in the twenties or when it's started. Was it all
the same way to come across the NFL like that
when it was first started, It's pretty much definitely it
was always served with al lemon. I'm actually looking up
right now to see when tartar sauce was introduced. Yeah,

(14:12):
so yeah, I mean that's kind of the information I'm
looking for here. I'm just I'm just curious, like when
they first started putting these dishes together, Like how do
you come up with the idea of tartar sauce or
cocktail sauce or putting that lemon on there? Like?

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Why is it there?

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Is it ad seasoning? Is it just for acidity? I mean,
is it ad salt? What's the point of it? Does
it just taste good? I don't know. Does it just
add to the plate? And wonder what the Actually it
was a French sauce and it was first used on beef,
which is crazy, And it didn't get used on fish
until like the twenties when Helman's became kind of like popular,
and then after Helman's became a popular mayonnaise company, tartar

(14:50):
sauce kind of became hot in the States. In the
twenties it became like a sauce to make with Helman's mayonnaise.
So that's probably where I started, you know, I think
when it started, that's when it started to be accompanied
with fried clams. So that dates all the way back
to that first seafood scheck that I was talking about,
the Milford fish Harry Perry, I think it was called.
So were they trying to tell us that tartar sauce

(15:11):
has been in the Connecticut too, I think it was.
It was invented in France and then it became popular
again with fried fish when Hellman's became a company right
back in Connecticut in the day when tartar sauce was
invented in Connecticut, in our state, all those from Connecticut.

(15:31):
So it is cool though, and it's really cool to
think that, like someone invented the buttered lobster role. I mean,
think about the first person who had a lobster roll.
Idea like the hot buttered lobster role came yeah, no,
and they come to you and they're like, listen, last night,
I took lobster, took it out of the shell, put

(15:51):
it in hot butter. Let's sit for a little bit,
took it out, put it on a hot dog bun.
Do you think they had hot dog buns?

Speaker 4 (15:59):
All right?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
All a role that I had griddled a little bit
and it's you gotta try one, and do you think
just blew their minds And they were like, you're a wizard.
This guy is a wizard. Think about the first time
you tried one. It's true, you don't think about it
if it was like you've never heard of one, like
they weren't famous in Maine, right, And someone just was like,
hey man, you know them sea bugs? Yeah? Man, I

(16:22):
put one on a roll. It's really good. Bro. I
love how I love how these people from this time
frame speak the same way we speak now. But you know,
of course I kind of like, yeah, of course, right,
I want to jump into kind of what these places serve,
Like what's on the menu, what's the dish? You know?
I mean, because we touched on a lot of things here,

(16:42):
but we haven't touched on like, you know, kind of
you order this fried seafood basket, you get your fried shrimp,
you get your fried clams. You know, there's on a
piece of flounder in their fry, which is also one
of my favorites, by the way. But then they put
the fried scallops in there, and like, you know, I
just get funny about it because I feel like everybody
overcooks a scallop, and overcooked scalop is gross. Yeah, But
when a scalp's done right, like done right where it's

(17:05):
fried just in super hot, clean oil and the outside
gets crisp and the inside is just cooked through and
it's a sweet salty morsel, that's what's delicious. That's sound delicious.
I mean when you say it like that, it's not
rubbery and bouncy in your mouth.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
It's kind of yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
And we have ever crisp now we're like wizards. That's
the stuff that makes things stay extra crisp. You add
to your breading, right, yeah, yeah, it's like a it's
a modified food, starch free every crisp and bread. Yet
work on it, right, working on it. But I mean
I love, like I said, like a piece of fish,
like a fried piece of fish in there. You know.
It's particularly like a flounder is great, you know, sea bass.

(17:47):
I think it is great in there too. I mean
some people disagree with but I love that. I think
that I think a nice piece of fish. It look
a little half a fil a or a third file
a is delicious. Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more.
I couldn't agree with you more. A little piece of
fried fish breaks it all up, you know, and you
get the shelves, you get the creaminess of an oyster.
Maybe you get the really brininess of a clam. You
get like the crunch of a shrimp, and then you
get that flakiness of the fish when it's fried just

(18:10):
right with some of that tar tar delicious and you
know the sauces, like we talked about before, the sauce
are so important to it. But what about some of
those side dishes too. I think the side dishes are
really really important. It comes to, you know, coal slaw. Yeah,
we said at the same time, that beautiful creaminess, the
little tart you're kidding me, And it's cold and kind

(18:30):
of if you have a hot fried food, the cold
coal slag in your mouth feels great. I love it.
I judge a place by the coleslaw. I always it
doesn't come with my thing. I'm always like, I'll take
a little side of that coaslaw, and I'm like, I'll
eat that and I'm always like, because you know, sometimes
it comes in the jug and you can tell that
it came out.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
We don't want that.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
We don't want that, you know what I mean, And
unless it's a really good jug, kind like the kind
of KFC uses a KFC makes there, as I promise,
because I worked there and I know for a fact
that we used to make they make their own, Yes, sir,
when I was there, we made it. Yes, what's the sauce?
I don't know that that's a sidebar. Yeah, that's a
whole of the show in itself. But uh, you know,
and we talked about obviously the French fries. You have

(19:08):
Christy potatoes on there, but you like to have a
boiled potato, which I thought was interesting, oh man, because
I'm from upstate New York, and upstate New York we
have salt potatoes. I don't know if you know what
those are, but you know, talk about it's just a
small new potato that we boil the heck out of
in a ton of salt, and then we serve them
and like when you know, as as they steam off,
they just look crusted like the salt like like it's

(19:30):
like flake through all around the little thing and it's
they're just really salty, little creamy, little potato bites, and
I just think that goes really it's a great foil
against fried seafood. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. I
think you're absolutely right about that. And then and the
salt potatoes are pretty good. So that's but French fries
and come out. French fries is staple, right, French fries
is classic, man. You can't go wrong with French fries.

(19:52):
And uh, you know, I also I want a little
hot sauce floating right. Nothing would make me happier than
if they made hot sauce themselves. I mean a little
hot sauce, a little lemon harder. You give me all
the sauces. Plus, I talk cocktails. Give me a good soda,
give me a cold local beer, lemonade, iced tea. What's
your favorite beverage to have in these places, Jeffrey, Honestly, man,

(20:12):
I go really classic. I want a root beer or
like a grape soda. O. Grape soda is a way
to go too. I'm a lemonade guy myself, were an
iced tea. We're talking all about clam shacks all across
the border down there by the water. You' checking out
some of the foods right on WICC. Stay right there.
We'll be right back with more fun information about clams

(20:39):
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(22:13):
Foods Right here on wis you see the voice of
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Happy Saturday to you and friends. Listen if maybe you
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You go to something called any of your podcast provider's friends,
that can be Apple, that can be Spotify, that can
be anywhere, and guess what, you can find this very
program that you might have missed today and catched a
whole bit of it because we got a whole bunch
of knowledge coming at you here in a little bit
on the first break, we told a little bit of
a history of clamshacks and kind of what to expect

(22:59):
when you're going there and you know where they came from.
You know, a very loose history, because that's what we do.
We also found out that the hot buttered lobster role
friends and Jeffy said, this not me, was invented in Connecticut.
Couldn't according to law? How about that according to the
but you also couldn't find anything to rebuke that. So
I couldn't. And we didn't put it on a license
plate yet, So not yet, but it's coming, it could be.

(23:22):
It's coming for sure, no doubt about it. It's going
to be like a home of the lobsterle Welcome to Connecticut,
home of pizza and the lobster roll and hamburgers.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
That's what we're gonna have hold on.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
What So it's like, what's what's the Connecticut state saying? Now,
Connecticut state saying is home of the pizza. I don't know, Oh,
I know, when you're coming back into the state. There's
signs every right it says home of Pizza or something
like that, the Capital of the US, Pizza Capital of
the US. So soon it'll be like pizza, lobster, roll,

(23:53):
Hamburger Capital of the US. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
I think that's what the plant going to be. I
think that's what they're working on.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Just listen. This is amazing. I think it sounds delicious.
I mean people, yeah, aren't you.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
I would be.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
It brings a lot of pride. So we thought we'd
talk about now some of our favorite seafood places across
the state.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
And there's lists all over the place. Guys.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
You can find lists for these places anywhere. You can look,
you know, and just google it, look it up. There's maps,
there's like the Connecticut Clamshack Trail, all kinds of stuff. So,
but I want to talk about one of my first
experiences at a clamshack, and it was years ago when
we first started doing restaurant road trip. I went to
Costello's Clamshack, which is, you know, one of the best places.

(24:34):
It's such a simple, simple place, a bunch of picnic
tables outside. It's the fried seafood counterpart to Abbots, Abbots,
Lobster in the Rough.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
It's a similar part of that, you know. They call
it the sister restaurant.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
It's at the No Eggs shipyard at the end of
the dock and it's a large patio and a second
level deck that overlooks the river. It's it's great. I mean,
it has all the things you want. You know, you're talking,
you know, clam belly strips, clam strips, shrimps, scallops, oysters,
all the fried seafood sandwiches. They also go into tacos
and salads and chowder and hot and cold lobster rolls.

(25:06):
I mean, Costello's Clamshack is definitely when you're in the area,
one of those places that you got to go. And
it was my first real experience out of New England.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Clamshack. It was great.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
It was Abbots, No no Costello's. Costello's. Yeah, I mean
they're basically sister restaurants. But yes, yeah, listen, they're legendary
in Connecticut. They they do it right. Everyone says that
that's like I've actually never been, but I have. People
always tell me when when I mentioned the places that
I have gone there, like you haven't been to Habits
And I'm like, no, I've never made it. What was
the place we went to the other day you were

(25:33):
telling me about it. You stopped somewhere. Oh oh, I
was on the way to the ferry and friends of
ours said that they had googled it once a long
time ago and they said it's amazing. We're like, okay.
It's called Captain Scott's Lobster Shack. It's in New London.
It's off of Tillery Street on like it's like this
weird little driveway like you to see this, like from
coming from like the ferry.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, slip.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
There's like it's a left hand turn and it's like
you see it. You kind of go over some railroad tracks.
You're like, where the heck am I going? It's like
a dirt road sort of. Then you take it left
and there's like a big gate and it opens up
into like a driveway and you pull in and there's
a whole bunch of places that are you know, a
bunch of fishermen and there's tons of boats. It's like
a pier, all like an opposite side of the pier
and drive down in and there's a fish shop and

(26:16):
then you go a little bit further and there's like
a little ice cream shop and right next to that
there's a clam shack or a lobster shack, and they
do lobsters, they do whole belly clams. They do clam
strips as well. They do oysters, they do shrimp. They
had fried they had French fries, they had red potatoes,
had coalsa, they had corn, all the things that you wanted,
and a beautiful location. They have a big pavilion and

(26:37):
they had a whole bunch of seats pier. It's really
it was a real it was a real gem. Like
I've eaten a couple of nice places in New London.
I mean it was a great spot to go eat,
but this was like a really fun kind of It's
like way off the beaten path. Yeah, but it was delicious.
It's on the water, right right on the water. It's
it's gorgeous. It's like an inlet. You're on like an inlet.

(26:59):
It's one of those things too. I get that people
have to have it, but there's some places I think
when you get too far inland, and not only mean
like Kansas, I just meaning in your state, like if
you're in Hartford, you want to have clam belly. It
just feels kind of weird to me totally. But there's
also something about like looking over and seeing fishermen puling
a fish off their boats and then going past them
and being like, this is where I'm eating, you know,

(27:20):
this is where the fish is, Like this is It
was really cool. It was like it really felt awesome.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
What was your favorite thing you ate there?

Speaker 3 (27:26):
Probably the clam bellies were amazing, Amber said. Amber had
the lobsarol. She had a buttered lobster role. She said
it was really really really good.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Amber Jeff's white. How much was it like seven hundred dollars?

Speaker 3 (27:36):
I think it was it was either thirty six or
thirty eight dollars for the small terrible, and I think
it was like forty eight or fifty for the large one.
I think we got the large one, and I mean
it was it was delicious. And the whole belly clamstrips
are the whole belly clam fried clams that I think

(27:56):
that was like twenty five dollars or something like that.
I mean, they were delicious. It all sounds delicious. This
is a great spot. And what was tell the name
more time. I was trying to write it down, Yeah,
Captain Scott's, and I was trying to see if it
was on one of these lists I'm looking at, But no,
it's not. But what is on one of the lists
is literally one of the classic places here in Connecticut's

(28:17):
in Clinton, Connecticut Lobster Landing. You know, it's that quintessential
lobster shack. They had to close it back in twenty four,
twenty four to twenty five they closed it. It was
twenty four because they finally had to bring the building
up to code for so long, finally, Yeah, I mean
one of the things that was crazy is that like
it had no you know, wheelchair ramp and had to
put a building that could weather the tide a little

(28:38):
bit more, and like you know that the you know,
the whole building probably needs to be about four feet higher,
so they had to like raise it up and fix it.
But it's got redone, you know, the best known for
its uh live for its lobster roles. You can also
buy live lobsters there and stuff and then you know,
you get the lobster there with just you know, butter
and squeeze a lemon. Very very simple, but yeah, Lobster

(28:59):
Land in Clinton. It's just one of those quintessential New
England places. I mean, it was one of those things
that people would go and take a picture in front
of because it looks exactly like you think it looks. Wow, fantastic,
beautiful place, delicious.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Well known.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
It's kind of one of those you have to go
check it out at least, you know, at least go
there once. It's worth the trip, you know, Yeah, it
sounds awesome. That's what I love.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
One of things I love about our state is just
so many things. It's just like a day trip.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
It's definitely worth going, you know, and checking it out
and taking the ride over there and just you know,
like I said, you know, having some food or just
hanging out for the day.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
It's pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
So obviously we have to start this well not starting
this list, I guess we've been talking about it a minute,
But Abbot's Lobster in the Rough is kind of like
one of those places that's just been around forever. Started
in nineteen forty seven. It's a no Ak Abbot's Lobster.
It's a wood shingled house with picnic tables overlooking the harbor.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
And no ink.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
You know, they serve like full lobster dinners, steamers, stuff, clams,
clam chowders, oysters, lobster rolls, corn cop of course, you know,
and as in the case with many seafood s tracks,
guests are also invited to bring their own bottler, wine
or beer, which to me, I think is an interesting
thing because you know, a lot of restaurants they thrive
on their wine and beer sales and stuff, like the
time they make the most money, the margins are best

(30:09):
on that whatever. It's fine, right, but restaurants like this
that have been around since nineteen forty seven you can
bring your own. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, by b Yob
is some of my favorite kind of situation. I think.
I love that. You know, Interestingly, Captain Scotts didn't sell
beer either. They they sold non alcoholic beer. Like you
can get a non alcoholic guinness, are you serious? That's

(30:29):
all yeahous, but you couldn't get a beer. I was
kind of like, oh, okay, I get like they just
don't serve alcohol, and I was like, that's awesome, Like,
you know, probably keeps out some of the riff ref well,
it also probably you know, stops some of the insurance issue,
like insurance costs. You know, it stops having to pay
the licensing fee for it, the tax for it to
the state. There's a lot of money there that when
you don't serve alcohol you can get away with it. Yeah,
you can make more money in your business. And I

(30:50):
love it, you know. So that's that's that's interesting. So, yeah,
this place is fantastic. Abbots, you have to go check
it out. Quint essential Connecticut lobster place, you know. Yeah, yeah,
I know, like Abbots lobsters. Let's called Lobster in the
Rough technically, but it's yeah, it's Abbots. Captain Scott's Lobster
Dock down in New London. Another great spot. I've been here.
That's what I just said. Was that the one you're

(31:11):
talking about? Yeah, that's what I just said. That's not
what I'm talking about. I haven't been there in New London, Okay, yeah, yeah,
there you go. So it's in now in New London,
Hamilton Street. Right, Yeah, well there you go. Some one
that just said this is not the one I was
thinking of. But anyway, it's you know everything you said,
all the fried stuff, all local clam fritters, which.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Is kind of fun. That's something that they're known for.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
Oh yeah, the clam fritters. I didn't get a The
lady the line told us that was really really good.
She's one who told me to get the boiled potatoes too,
which I loved. I loved. My wife was kind of
like lamenting that getting French fries.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
But well, cap'n Scott's is the place to go, no doubt.
You got to check it out.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Also Clam Castle featuring Taco Pacifico in Madison, Connecticut, which
is a beautiful area in our state. People have gorgeous Yeah,
I love Madison. It's a great, great area. A lot
of a lot of fun stuff there. We did some
stuff at the hotel there.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
That was hotel that's right.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
What a gorgeous, what a gorgeous. Uh. This whole town,
the whole town is such a quintessential New England percent
So clam Castle's near hamon Acid Beach. Uh. They focus
on golden fried seafood with options like cod and clams
and shrimp and scallops and calamari, you name it. Uh.
In February, the e Re announced it would change its
name to clam Castle featuring Taco Pacifico as it incorporates

(32:24):
Mexican fair into its menu. So they're changing it up
a little bit. And I bet they're having beer battery
in their you know, in their frying you know, the
their seafood. I'm guessing it's probably gonna happen to I
haven't been here yet, but I want to go check
it out. Sounds dope, obviously, we talked about here a
few minutes ago. Costello's, you know, it's it's it's one

(32:47):
of the best in the state. It's literally no frills.
You go there, you get yourself some fry clam bell
as they put it, usually on a big leaf of
like kale or something, just to kind of help protect
the cardboard that's in. So yeah, one of my favorite Costello's, uh,
the dock down in Waterford. It's it's you can you
can boat up to it, which is pretty cool. Uh,
swing biogra bite to eat. It's just a great spot.

(33:09):
You know, it's a lot of a traditional seafood stuff, lobsterol,
steam muscles as well like a grilled swordfish, you know,
a cheeseburgers they have there. But the cool part about
the dock is that you literally can pull your boat
up to it. That's awesome. I love I love places
that are doing like the market value catch of the day,
and you know it's really the catch of the day,
like someone brought it in like a like a swordfish,

(33:30):
Like they nailed the swordfish and they got a blue
fin tuna and they brought it in and it's like
you get some really amazing dishes that just get brought
out of nowhere. Yeah, that's that's the best part about
a place like that, no doubt about it. We got
to talk about Flanders and East Lime. People them into Flanders.
It's a niantic, which is a against Yeah, well no,
it's no, it's not limes. Stop it, Jeff.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
You know I'm gonna lose my mind. You're gonna triggering
me very much right now.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Lime l y m e limey lime, which actually storms
comes from the using the term lamy the people of
limes life nyanti. Let's see, Flanders was founded in eighty three,
which at this point has been around for a long time.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
That's a long time.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
H good, what fifty years now, is that right? Almost
fifty eighty three? Yeah, yeah, fifty two years, right, it's
not fit eighty three is not fifty two years yet,
I'm doing that. I'm averaging. I'm like rounding up.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Let's call it that forty about fifty years. Yeah, long time.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Founded by traveling salesman and his wife, and then now
it's a family affair with two of his daughters running
the market's two locations, uh, the original market East Lime
and the stand at Crescent Beach and Iyantick.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
So yeah, it's kind of fun.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
They've got this place and you know their chef has
a degree from CIA how about that? Which is great, awesome,
And the menu features five favorites like clamstrip roles and
of course lobster rolls, along with some more creative fair
like lobster pot pie and gorganzola shrimp, which I have
no had. That sounds kind of I'm a little afraid
of that, but it sounds great. I definitely would try
it because I love gorgonzola and I also love shrimp.

(35:06):
So and the lobsters, fish and Chips was featured on
season one of Fingerlocking Favorites on the Food Network, So
Flanders Fish Market definitely worth the worth a trip down
in Niantic Chesterfield Road.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
By the way, how about that.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Ved We got Fred Shanty in New London. It's this
old school like it's been there since nineteen seventy two
that has like a Coca Cola signs, a coc Cola
made them there, you know sign out front.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
It's been the same sign ever since.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Has the Coke colag on the bottom, says Fred Shanty,
famous since nineteen seventy two. Neighborhood favorite waterfront side down
in New London. He says, don't come here expect anything fancy,
just classic seafood fair, jumbo lobster style rolls, hold belly,
fried clams, fish and chip, scalps, burgers, dogs, ice cream.
This is your typical you know, side of the road
pull over in you know, on the shoreline and get

(35:55):
something like this where you know, fried food plus burgers
and stuff, Jeffrey and no shake. I think it's you know,
that little fried seafood situation. Here's the thing too, another
interesting fact. You always I've always thought about the why
ice cream and milkshakes all that goes so well, you
know ocean side, Do you know why? No, there's a
science behind us because we breathe in that salty air,

(36:16):
the sweetness from ice cream goes well with it. It's
it like counteracts the saltiness to have a sweetness. So
people want sweetness when they're around, you know, the ocean.
That's funny. I always crave, like when I hear the
ice cream truck. When I'm at the beach, I'm always like,
I run over. It's like it makes me.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
Do you go to the beach a lot?

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Jop? No, not often, But when I used to, I
used to go. I used to go what I I
don't work. Uh, actually I probably could go to the
beach where I really wanted to. But I used to
go to the beach. I was more. You know, I
work alone a lot, so but when I worked in
a kitchen with a bunch of people, we would go
to the beach on our lunch breaks. It's like a
crew and that was always fun. But I love going
to the beach. I think it's great. I'll still on
the beach and drink some wine even so by myself.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
I don't care.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's great. I love it.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Yeah, count me in.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Yeah, and maybe I'm like get some fried clams too.
That sounds absolutely stunning right now. To make make me
very you're very happy. Guildford's Lobster Pound. This is a
great spot here. What are you laughing at? Which is
I think it's a funny name, Guildford Slapter Pound. Yeah,
it's in Guildford obviously, which is you know, not that
far from anybody. Captain bart Mansey, who established Lobster Pound

(37:15):
in nineteen ninety one, promises the freshest lobster rolls around
the restaurant's deck overlooks Faulkner Island, Grass Island and acres
are protecting salt marsh. Lobster is a star here. Got
gotta go for the lobster, the hot buttered rolls. The
menu offers off the stuffed clams, clear broth, clam chowder
that you go, and hot dogs. So there's there's your

(37:37):
first mention of that clear chowder here from some of
these other places. Jeffy, have you ever had the difference?
Do you have your tastes it? Absolutely? Yeah. I've had
Rhode Island clam chowder. Actually, I mean I love it.
I love all clam chowder.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
I can't lie.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
And your clam chowder guy didn't know that I would
thank you for that. Oh yeah, I mean I just
love that. Briany, like you know, I'm actually I've won
the sag Harbor clam chowder contests. Right, let's go, let's go.
That's right on the let's go. Former champion. My name's
not a cup somewhere.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Was that former or still current champion because.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
They've had several sins and I just like I said,
I'm no longer in the restaurant. I don't. I don't.
Maybe I should go back and see if I can
take the crown again. The four King Chef returns. Yeah,
come back, come back with a vengeance this year.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
I think you should do that. That's that's that's a.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Great one, the Manhattan version personally.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
But yeah, that was nobody else Internet.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
That's why. No, it was a lot of entries. Actually,
it was just you know, it was like eight other people.
I beat them all. U Harrings No Harrings no Ac
obviously is a no inc. It's located in the docks
on the Mystic River. It takes its name from the
old Harrings Main, which opened on the same site in
nineteen thirty one as a bait Harry for a second No, no,
no horring, I thought no, but it was a famous

(38:48):
bait and tackle shop. Jeffrey that you know, fuel dock
and lobster pound. That's what it was. I love that.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
Now it's open year round, an indoor outboor seeding featuring.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
A lobster prepared in very various ways, seafood burgers, all
the things you want, beautiful location anytime of a year
during a high season, diners can get tables on the dock,
providing a fabulous perch to watch water traffic pass by.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
It is BYOB, which is interesting.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Or you can scan a QR code to have a
beverage of your choice delivered to your table in short
order from the Universal Package store nearby.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
How about that? So they got a whole partnership which
is pretty smart.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's crazy. Yeah, Like instead of BYOB, they're like, you know,
BYOB or door dash y yeah or door dashy right. Yeah,
but it's wild. But that's a great way to just, like,
like you said, just push off the responsibility of having
to carry that insurance and all that kind of stuff.
I'm sure I think that's a great idea. Like you
just scan, they're gonna bring it to you. Fantastic and

(39:43):
hold a great way to partner up a local business together,
you know, mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
I mean I would do that. You and I would
sit there on the dock and just order some beers
from from the local package store.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
You know what It'd be even funnier is if they
had like a mixologist that walked around and was like, like,
you know what I suggest you order? You know what
you would like? How about would make you a delicious cosmopolitan?
But I have to walk over here and make it
and then bring it back to and it to go, yeah, no,
you no order from the order from them. We're gonna
need a little cranberry. We're gonna Oh that's hilarious. And

(40:13):
you bring it all there so you can make it
the table.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Another really, really fantastic spot that I've been to several times,
Not Norms in Norwalk. Not Norms.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yeah, not Norms K N O T N O R
M not oh oh oh oh oh.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
I thought it was like n OT, Like, well, who
else would it be if it's not Norm' Oh it's
a very trendy seafood. You know. I use the word
shack here. It's air quoting. It's a Normwalk community staple.
I mean a lot of great restaurants in Norwalk, but
not Norms is well known. It's a modern take on
classic buttered lobster rolls and has several like you know,

(40:48):
local oysters and tacos, other seafood favorites. Beer and wine
is also served at this place as well, so it's
not byob A few outdoor tables lying the sidewalk and
you're right there on the water as well out in
norm Walk. So a beautiful place, you know, legendary has
been there forever.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
It's great.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Oh man, not names, not Norms, I mean, is it on?
Is a is Storchy on the list? He is, We're
gonna get We're gonna get there, ok, because I'm gonna
mentioned nor Walk. I'm like, I can't even I can't
even breathe without thinking about those The butter drawer. Yeah,
well that's a whole situation, that stay thattle butter drawer.
Oh my gosh, don't get me started. Yeah, there's a

(41:22):
lot of other great ones here on this list, but
if it's just a few more to point out that
are kind of some of the uh, you know, crazy
important ones. Lobster landing and Clinton we talked about did
we did talk about lops landing.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
We didn't talk about that and that's what.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
That's amazing spot. We'll Wait and Seafood and Fish Market
down in Norwalk off of Waiton Avenue. Uh, it's it's
it's a great spot. It's an upscale you know it's.
It's right next to the upscale or Wait and Seafood,
you'll find a small fish shack serving up casual to
go fair oysters, fresh caught fish. The menu offers hot
and cold lobster rolls, a full line of a fried seafood.

(41:55):
I mean you name it, and uh they call it
the land lubber, land lubber, land lubber options like sirlaring
burger and chicken tenders for the land to lubber, which
would be jeffy, never lubber, that's right. Never sea sproling Mystic.
It's a clamshack off the Mystic River. That's how they
describe themselves. There's really not a better way to put it.

(42:17):
It may not look like much, but the locals swear
by the summer staple and head and droves every year
for seafood and ice cream again, salt and sweet.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
There we go.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
It's no particularly for its fry clams, but offers all
the favorite shrimp scops, all the things you want hand
battered and cooked to order. So none of this is
that frozen nonsense. So yeah, yeah, been there time for sure, right.
I mean, if you're going someplace locally like this, it
should all be fresh stuff, no question about it. So
there's so many choices out there, friends, so many choices.

(42:46):
You know, you got to make sure you go either
cops line on doorster shack down nor walk too. That's
Storty's place. You got to go check those guys out. Yeah,
and of course you know Lobster Burger and our friend
Matt Stortch, you know, is a great spot as well.
Burger Lobster to match Burger Lobster. Yeah, yeah, that place
man delicious, great stuff. So there's a lot of fun
stuff out there, friends. So I'll tell you what, take

(43:06):
a trip, take a road trip, go find something great
in our state to eat this weekend. You know, maybe
take the family out tonight, go tomorrow afternoon. Well who knows,
whatever works for you, but it's worth the trip for sure.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Go sure you go check it out.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
When we come back, Jeff and I are going to
dive deep into buying seafood at home and maybe maybe,
just maybe you don't want to go out, you want
to try doing it at your house. What can you
do to serve a group of people with delicious fried
seafood or boils or lobsters.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
We're gonna tell you.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Come up next, right here, Plumber, the foods and wys.
You see the voice of Connecticut. Stay right there, friends,
it's Chef Plumb and Chef Jeffrey, and we'll be right
back to break down some more culinary knowledge and take
you down a trip of seafood delights.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
We'll be right back, friend, I don't know what I'm
talking about, Checkie, just talking.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Summer Calm Chef's gone along to the seaside for the
right of his line, cam shacks and lops, the rolls
on the shoreline where we go Chef Marm and Jeffy

(44:37):
searching for seafood.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
It's the season. It's the season. Summer's the season we
see food season. It's the season. It's the season.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
For seed food, Oh, belly clams, Friday corney and oil
lobster rolls from Lobster's freshly boiled oysters and crabs too.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
For the season.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
They're the best food.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Chef blab and Jeffy searchant for see. It's the season.
It's the season. Summer's the season, Bossy food season, it's
the season. It's the season for seed. Oh yeah, plumb

(46:03):
love foods live right here. Wy. You see the Voice
of Connecticut. That's the Flames with their brand new banger.
I can't even call it hit you because I had one.
It's called Clamshacks, my friends, the Flames. I mean, this
is they told them. What made you tell them to
do a yacht rock song? Or did they just decide that? Listen.
All I said is just imagine chef plumbing Jeffy cruising

(46:27):
the shoreline for seafood, and they were like, we got you.
I was like, and then they just put this whole
little mix together. I mean, my only critique maybe is
the cornmeal and oil part of the of the of
the frime, because I don't know if that's really a
New England thing. I mean, they might have, like they're
not culinary agents. Obviously, cornbill came from New England too,
so came from Connecticut, so.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
It did makes sense to put it in there.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
I guess cornflower I've heard, but corn flower, yeah, well,
I'll tell you man, that's a winner.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
That's a winter song.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
And I couldn't tell if we were listening to the
Guardian of the Galaxy soundtrack or if it was yacht
rock Radio. Either way, one of my favorite songs they
made so far. That was great. That was first of all,
it's a vibe, the whole thing that's gonna go on
my Spotify summer playlist, no question about it. They hit it,
They hit it, They nailed it. They hit the whole
vibe of the show today. And gentlemen, listen to that
again if you want go ahead back it up. Yeah, well,

(47:17):
if you want to listen to it again. It's very simple.
You can actually get this podcast anywhere you get your
favorite podcast, make sure you download them. You can go
to Apple, you can go to Spotify. You can even
go to spreaker s P R E A K e
R dot com. That's spreaker dot com. That's our hosting.
That's why I say that we love those guys. Yeah,
so we're talking all about Connecticut seafood checks on this

(47:38):
episode of Plumb Love Foods or Your wy c C
The Voice of Connecticut. I'll tell you it's one of
my favorite things to talk about. In the summer, and
you suggested this show, and I was like, that's a
really great idea because I mean, fried seafood, raw things,
raw clans, raw Oyster's nothing say summer quite.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Like that to me.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Sometimes, Jeffy, maybe you don't want to go out, Maybe
you can't go out. Maybe your family you have too
many people come in, you can't get a reservation somewhere.
Maybe you just decide, you know what, I'm gonna do
this at home. We're gonna do something delicious at home.
Where do we start? What are we talking about? First?
Do you want to start with like a clam bake?
Do you want to start with a clam boil?

Speaker 4 (48:12):
What do you think?

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Well? I think, but first let's decide what do you
want to do? Do you want to do a clam
bake a clam boil? What's the difference? Do you want
me to talk about that?

Speaker 4 (48:19):
Yeah, I go for it.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
All right, Well, this is a big deal because there's
a clam boil. That is exactly what it says there, right,
it's a clam boil. You're boiling your clams, your seafood.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
You know.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Often it's a mix of a bunch of things. It's
usually a little sausage of some kind of there. I've
seen hot dogs thrown in a mix, some small potatoes,
baby pieces of corn get thrown in towards the end,
and then that's all poured out and everyone comes in
and gets pieces and eats it and it's delicious. And
then a bake is exactly what that sounds like. It's baked,
and it's not baked in in oven. Usually traditionally it's

(48:53):
baked on the beach, so it's really like a beach food,
and it's you dig a hole, you get your coil,
your coils, no, you get your your coals, your your charcoal.
You get a little chimney, or you start your fire
in there. And when you get your coals, nice and
nice bet of coals, you push them back, you get
them all spread out. Then you take seaweed, You layer

(49:13):
seaweed on there, and then you layer all your seafood
on there, and then you cover it up with a
little bit more seaweed and you let it just bake
right there on the on the until it all opens up.
And you know, people, you put your vegetables below the
clams and it kind of drizzles down on top of it,
and you get like a smoky flavor to everything because
a little bit of salty brinness from the seaweed to

(49:33):
which is pretty cool. A little bit of salty brinness
from the seaweed and smoke from the seaweed, because the
seaweed just starts to smoke with that charcoal because it's
you know, it's wet, it's mostly moisture. It's it's a
it's a that's which I love both experiences. To be clear,
I'm not I'm not you know, one of them. No, no, no, both.
I'm pumped to do either one. If a client asked

(49:55):
me to do a bake, I'm super into it. If
they want to do a boil, I'm also super into it.
I think they're both really really fun ways to eat
a lot of fun seafood, and they're a great thing
to do for like a vacation. Like if you're on
a vacation with a bunch of people, you know, our family.
Sometimes we all get together with my sister in law,
other people will runt the house someplace and we all
stay somewhere. And this is a great thing to do
for everybody because it has a little something for everybody

(50:16):
in the pot. You know, there's like seafood, there's a
little meat, there's a little there's vegetables. Everything's all together.
It's one big pot you're cooking in, you know. And
it also leaves a lot of room when when Grandma,
when Grandpa or auntie Erma wants to come, What can
I bring?

Speaker 4 (50:29):
What can I bring?

Speaker 3 (50:29):
You can tell it to bring some tato sad. You
can tell it to bring some coal salad. You can
tell her to bring a side dish like that'd be
very specific. Yeah, yeah, or you know even I mean,
I just just when you said bring you know. A
fun thing to do for a boil or a clam
bake is if you're all going to meet together at
the beach, is every family brings one awesome part. So
somebody might bring lobsters because they have a connect someone
might bring their great clams, someone might you know, have

(50:50):
something else and put it all together and build the
bake on the beach as a big party and you know,
cook it off. Yeah, which is a great way to
do it too. You can do it in the backyard also,
it's fantastic. Yeah, you definitely could do it in the backyard.
You could take a hole anywhere and do it. Honestly,
you know, one of my favorite's important. I feel like
you can collect you.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Can buy it. You can buy seaweed.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
I bet you could do it on corn, silk and
cobs too. Ooh, using the even just using Yeah, that's
not a bad idea. I bet you could, Like when
you shuck the corn, you can take save all that there. Yep,
maybe put in a bucket of water. Yeah, I definitely
think you could do that, you know, I don't. I
love doing boils as well. I think boils are fantastic,
a great way to feed a lot of people and
very be very festive. You can flavor that water you're

(51:30):
cooking in, you can, you know. I use a little
bit of beer, old Bay Lemon breach, you know. And
I actually don't bring it to a full boil like
boils to twelve. I'll probably go around one ninety. You know.
It's kind of like every everyone a little bit. Time
you're getting bubbles, I feel like it's too hot. It
can like make it overcooked very quickly. So I tell
you my secret way to have them. H I'm not
done my secrets. Oh. You can also buy on Amazon

(51:50):
these little tiny bags and you can each person can
individually make their own bag of what they want to
have on the seafood, Like you can have a selection
of clams and oysters and you know, a certain types
of seafood. They put it inside these little net like
bags and tie them up and they can put the
little name on there and you drop it into the
liquid and it cooks and pull it out and have
your own situation. So everybody has their own little bag
of seafood. I love that. Would I would recommend that

(52:11):
if you're using potatoes, like par cook them first means
and you cook them about you know, eighty percent of
the way done. So for some potatoes that take longer,
it's not gonna cook as fast as you know, a
scallop will in that bag, So you know, get it
park booked. I totally agree. And what I love you
said about not cooking it a boil. What I like
to do is I like to bring the spices and

(52:33):
everything up to a boil and then turn it off
and then I'll throw in the seafood in layers, like
I throw in whatever that's going to cook the longest first,
and then throw in the next, and throw in the next,
and throw in the next Yeah, and then scoop it
all out once it's all over. That's great.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
That's a delicious way to do it too.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Yeah, it's just like it's almost like a surefire waiting.
You know, it's hot enough to cook everything. You don't
have to worry, and it just starts cooling off a
little by little by little by little as you're putting
the seafood in to where it all opens up. You know,
it ends up being really nice. Yeah, and again, either
one of those people can bring different side dishes. It's
pretty simple to make that, to execute that sort of
dinner with a bunch of people. It's the spices you

(53:11):
throw in yours. It's a good one man. You know,
I definitely amount a fan. I'm not against using Old
Bay because it's just typical delicious specialisticker. Being where I'm from,
so Old Bay's fantastic. But if I don't use Old Bay,
I'll go lemon heavy garlic powder. I like a little
lowry seasoning salt in there. Yeah, you know, I don't
mind throwing some fresh herbs. I like whole garlic cloves particular.

(53:34):
This year, we can get you know, young garlic where
it has an age, so it still kind of has
a little bit more moisture content to it. In the skin.
Are out of the skin, in the smash throat.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
In the skin, cut the whole, cut the whole bulb
in half and throw it in the pot.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Oh, the whole half a bulb trick.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, which works really well, you know, because
then any of that stuff that you even take any
of that.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Out with your boil, it's gonna be delicious, Like who cares?
Just eat it?

Speaker 3 (53:56):
You know, oh totally, you know. I mean what I
always do is I kind of build it like a corporalion,
you know, which is a traditional kind of stock for seafood.
You know. I usually do a lot of celery, a
little bit of penel, some onion, a lot of garlic, lemon,
white wine or beer and water. Bring that up to
a boil and scoop out everything in there, and then

(54:17):
put my seafood.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Into that scoop it out. I'll leave it in.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Yeah. I like to scoop it out just because then
it's easier to you know, it makes it a little
bit cleaner too, because sometimes when celery gets overcooked, it
becomes weird and stringing it'll stick to the clams and stuff,
you know, like a big fan of using beer though,
I'm a big fan of using beer. I think beer
adds a lot of flavor to it, particularly when you
get really hoppy beers in there that have that oral
thing in the background, you know, Using an I p A,
using something like that to help flavor that liquid is

(54:43):
a great way to go. I'm not using part of
those hops. Some of those hops, like you said, they
have so much citrus. The flavors are just lean right
into seafood, like people don't realize that, and they're great
to drink with a lot of seafood. Honestly, that's that's
one of my favorite times to have a really hoppy
beer with like a nice briny or fried piece of seafood. Yeah, delicious, Right,

(55:04):
So I think I think those are kind of a
staples that you have to have. But for me, like
I said, I don't use a dark beer when I'm
cooking seafood. You use a lighter beer. You want crisp,
you want hoppy, you know that, Yeah, the flavors you're
looking for. I absolutely agree with that. You know, I
think I usually probably go like two beers to a
gallon of water sot of situation. It sounds right, Yeah,
because you don't want to go because you go all
too much beer, it can get bitter. Yeah, you don't

(55:26):
want to cook all in beer. That's it'll it'll it'll
take on too much of a yeasty flavor too, it won't.
It won't be as pleasant as a Yeah. And as
it gets hotter and hotter, it starts to build that
foam because those those those uh solids are to come
together and build that foam on top. So it's paying
the butt a little bit of beer way to go
for sure, one hundred percent, there's no question about it. Yeah.
And you can boil everything in it, which is great too.

(55:46):
You get one of those big turkey fire pots and
put it on a burner, put it on your grill.
You don't even have to have a burner. You just
put a giant pot on your grill, crank your grill
all the way up and use it like a stove.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Works great. Oh, that's a great idea. Yeah, And just
make sure.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
One of the things you can do it make it
get hotter faster is put a top on it.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
You put a lid on it.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
It helps it get hotter quicker. Definitely. Whenever you're boiling anything,
honestly put a lid on it. Yeah, so that's some
tips there for doing that stuff in the backyard, which
is great, but you know, it doesn't always have to
be a boil or a bake. I recently did a
whole party with a grilled lobster where we got lobsters.
I ended up cutting them in half where you can
give a little bit easy clean out to them too,

(56:23):
and that I would put them on the grill and
we grilled them. But one of the things that I
love to do for this particular event that people would
just ate up. They couldn't figure out why it tastes
so good. So first of all, I always start with
lobster shell side down on the grill, right, because I
got to cut in half with split in half horizontally,
you know, I'm sorry, verticals from head to tail, split
in half. I'll give it a good little rents out

(56:43):
on the inside just to clean it out because it's
going to be showing you want to be a little
bit more attractive. But then I make the same garlic
sauce that we make for pizzas. You know, it's a
little bit olive oil, a little bit of romano parmesan cheese,
and a whole bunch of fresh gral and some salt
and then you know, put in a blender, get some
period up and then put that in a squirre bottle
and that becomes a little drizzle I put onto my

(57:06):
lobsters as they're cooking, So it gets this like garlicky
buttery situation based. Get along the crust on there too,
mm hmm. And you can put little lemon juice, that
water and that liquid too if you want. But squirting
that on the inside of the tails as they're cooking
shell side down. What happens is it makes it just
simply easily released from the shell when you're cooking it.
But remember friends go very very quickly, so the tail

(57:28):
will cook before the claws. So if you have a
big old claw on there, you might want to take
it off or you know, let it cook separately. So
I love this. It looks great on to play. People
can grab a whole half a lot so they feel
special getting it. You know, it's it's a it's a
funny way to do it, but it just gets that
beautiful almost. It's not like you're basing it. It's because
you're putting that butter sauce, that that garlicy butter olive

(57:48):
oil situation you're putting in the tail, so almost it's
like a little the flesh. It's like a cup of
just delicious butter.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah. I do almost the exact same thing, but I
make but what we used to call our scampy sauce
from back in the day. I worked at a restaurant
and it was a wine, lemon, garlic, oil, parsley all
blended together, and then we'd keep it in a squirre
bottle and that's what we would squirre it on our
shrimps that were our shramps that were going under the broiler.

(58:18):
And I just like to use that with a lot
of grilled seafood. So I do the same thing you do,
and I half a lobster. I squared all that stuff
all in there, and I like to let it sit
for a second and then throw them on and then
like you get that crust, the flavor of it like
a f And there's something special to me scampy sauce.
I don't know if you guys remember if anyone ever
ate it like red lobster when they were a kid.
But when I was a kid, that was what seafood

(58:40):
was because I never been to a crampshack or any
of that stuff, so it was like fancy and the
scampy sauce was some magic to me. So I had
to recreate it and make it what it is now.
And again I like the idea of having it in
a squirt bottle. What a great way to do that,
I mean, you mean, simple, some garlic, some urbs. Oh,
I forgot the wine lemon. Secret is a little Worcester
in a scampy sauce. Really yeah, okay, a little I'll

(59:02):
to try that. Usually my little secret is little horse radish,
but I like that. Horse radish is also really good,
But I like it. It's a little just a just
a pinch, don't just a pinch square get crazy? But
what a great sauce to have around, especially when you're
cooking seafood at the house, you know, I mean, I
love that. I mean, what a great thing to put
on like clams, you know, put some of that just
on some clams in a small pot on your grill,
let them open up, and the juice is all mixed together.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
Oh my gracious.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Well, you know the other thing I like to do
is get oysters and clams as they open on the grill,
I take the squirt batll. I do a little squirt
on the inside as they open, just so it has
that and it kind of like cooks it on there,
almost like a little grilled Rockefeller or a grilled scampy.
Which shell we should talk about, you know, doing these
clams and doing these oysters on the grill. I mean,
what an easy, easy way to cook fresh.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Shellfish like this?

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Right? Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's like a built in
timer when you say pops open. But when you say
fresh shellfish, are you talking like like stuff that you
know is bought right that day? Yeah, you go get
the clams from the guy, and that's as fresh as
you get. You.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Yeah, you good at yourself, You good them yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah, you know that's what you want to make sure
they're all alive too, if it doesn't open up after
it all. So let's say you're cooking a dozen clams,
right yep, and you put them on your grill, yeah,
and they're starting to pop open.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
And you see light little bubbles happening. It's good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
That's how you know things are working out. But there's
two that haven't quite opened yet, and everything else is
open up and ready, right, those two that haven't opened,
just throw them away. Just that mother nature is saying,
don't eat this. When mother nature tells you, don't eat
something like that, when it comes to fresh seafood, just
just take her word where you go okay, and stay
away from it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Goes for oysters, goes for.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Clams, any kind of shellfish, mussels, it's not opening when
you are cooking it, do not eat it, Jeffy. Also,
trust your nose, you know, like if it doesn't smell right,
just don't just throw it out. It's not worth it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Yeah, your nose, nose.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Yeah, you don't want to eat a bad clam or
a bad oyster or any of that stuff. It's just
that though not another day. The stomach that the stuff
that comes with that is terrible and you're not gonna
die from it, but you'll get a terrible not gonna
be happy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
No, you're not gonna be happy. He's not good, terrible tummy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
You don't want that at all, So sour tell me,
trust me, I know all about it. The King of
sour tummy. Yeah it's true. But yeah, cooking them on
the grill though, what a fantastic way, easy way to
do it, you know. I actually will do them on
like a on put my cast iron pan on the grill,
a small one, because I feel like when they crack
open and they open up on the grill, you lose

(01:01:30):
a lot of that liquor in there, that that delicious
juice that's in there right because it falls into the
grill because it pops open. But if you put it
in that small pan, you're gonna get the same effect,
and you're gonna get that juice, which is delicious. I
love it, you know what. I love to throw on
the grill too, And it's not it's not actually grilled,
but I like putting it on the grill because I
like and it's usually a charcoal grow because I like
the smoke hitting into it, sure is. I'll take muscles.

(01:01:51):
I love fresh muscles. I like getting them cleaned up,
but pull the beards off them. Then I line them
in a pan. I pour a little marin ara over them,
squeeze lemon on it, and then put whole pieces of
basil like I just take like, you know, like sprigs
of basil and throw it on top, and I put
that pan on the grill and I fire it up hot.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
Give out recipes. Jeff, Peoples do that later. That sounds great.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Oh yeah, but I'm just saying what we were talking about,
grilled clams and oysters, and all of a sudden, I
started thinking, oh man, I love yeah, yeah, muscles. So
but it's a simple way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
I'm just trying to give those easy ways to do
this at home. You know, you can also, like Jeff's saying,
like similar to what he just said, there you do
a bake. If you don't have a grill, you can
do it in your oven. You know, the same idea.
Put everything in a pan, just put it in the
oven and let it, let it roast, and be smart
about it. Go buy some foil pants so you can
just throw them away when you're done. I recycle them
and keep it simple. And the cool thing about an
event like this too, Jeff, when you have the family over,

(01:02:40):
you're doing a clam bake, clam roast, all that sort
of stuff. You know, you're cooking lobsters on the grill.
You can get away with using paper plates. Here you
can get away with using disposable stuff. You know, it
doesn't have to be anything beautiful, anything pretty. But if
you are doing lobsters, a fun thing to do is
to go on Amazon and buy like, you know, there's
you know, two dozen and three dozen, like you can
get lobster bibs.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
It's just something cute to add to the mix.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
Oh, get bibs, Get crackers, get seafood forks. You know,
let people really enjoy it, you know. And if you
don't have those things, there's ways to crack a lobster,
to really open it up enough where you can almost
get it out with the back of a spoon. You
don't you know where like you know, you can half
crack the shells. You know, you pull the thumb all

(01:03:19):
the way out and you pull the cartilage out with that,
you hold it flat, take the butt of a thick
knife and you kind of give it a swat, give
it a twist and a crack so it's opened on
the sides. You know, you have to break open the
knuckles and you can use the back of the spoon
to get in there. You just pull all that meat
out of the knuckle and all the other stuff will
come out, and I mean the tails. Obviously you can

(01:03:40):
just cut that in half and lay it on the tray,
you know, the move I was doing recently for work,
so people it can be a little bit nicer, you know.
I can clean them in the kitchen easier than they
can clean them to the tables. So I actually cooked
the lobsters, took them out, and I almost took everything
out of the shell first, like I dist like, I
took the tail off. I cracked the shell down the middle.
I took scissors and clipped it all the way up,
and then like I pulled the meat, the tail meat out,

(01:04:02):
but then put it back in the shell. Does that
makes sense. It's a little bit time consuming. The same
thing with the cloths. I make sure they're all cracked
and red and pulled out and easy to eat. And yeah,
I made a big bowl of the knuckle meat, you know,
so it's kind of all together. Yeah, you know, so
it's easy for the people to eat. Yeah. It took
me in probably an extra half an hour in the
kitchen to do it to twelve lobsters. But it looked
great on the table. The client loved it, and it
felt like a like a higher end way of having

(01:04:22):
lobsters as opposed to just kind of getting it all
over the place. I was just gonna say, honestly, when
you get when when you go to a fine dining
restaurant or a great lobster restaurant and they serve your
lobster like that where they pull the tail all the
way out of the shell. They'll stuff the caffety with
something delicious, then they lay all the meat out of
the cloth, they lay it on top, and then they'll
maybe brush it with a little butter before they bring

(01:04:44):
it to the table and serve it with lemons on
the side. Like I mean, that's the that's the bougiest
way to get it. But it's really it really feels great.
And like us as private chefs, that's our that's our
main goal. We love to put swineles on faces and
if we can, if we could church something up with
a little press, oh yeah, it's a great way to
do it in that old school way. Like you were saying,

(01:05:04):
remember pulling the lobster tail right out, you cut it
with scissors, you lay it out, and you lay it
on top of the show, put it around the top
of the show, right larious hilarious. I remember those Those
are the best times ever. You know, it just looks good.
People get excited about it, so you know, I'm down
with it. I feel like this music comes in so
hot and it's like heavy and like like loud on here.
I don't know why you're checking out Plumbo it is

(01:05:26):
you check out plumblof Foods live right here on the
Voice connect at w i CC. It's Chef Plump, Chef Jeff.
We're talking all about delicious seafood shacks and cooking seafood
at the house, particularly shellfish and all those fun things.
We come back. We've got some recipes for you guys.
That's right to finish the show up. We're gonna wrap
it up on the next break. Stay right there, we'll
be right back Blumbo Foods on WYCC, The Voice of Connecticut.

(01:06:09):
We hope you guys having a great Saturday. Happy summer
to you. I feel like we've been celebrating summer on
the show for the past three or four weeks. Joffre
it's put some fun shows. Absolutely, how could you not
celebrate summer right now? So that's time. It's such a
great time a year. On this week's episode, right now.
If you listen to as we speak, it's talking all
about seafood tracks and cooking clams and oysters and lobsters

(01:06:30):
and having those great spots you can go to, or
even doing it at your house. And jeff and I
just so happy to be two very experienced chefs who
are about to break down some recipes for you and
give you some fun things to try. When it comes
to cooking these things at home, you know, and you
can almost maybe do it year round when you have
some recipes of your own Jeffrey. Yeah, you can definitely
do it year round. That's the best part of cooking

(01:06:50):
at home. It doesn't have to you don't have to
follow anything other than well maybe the seasons with you
when you get your food. But that's about it. What
I think is the best part is the fact that
if you've missed any part of the show, jeff any
part of it, you can go back to any place
you get podcasts, and guess what, you can get this
episode for free and check out any part you've missed, Jeffie.
It's free, that's right, Apple, Spotify, you name it, it's there.

(01:07:13):
It's right. We're we're all over, We're all over everywhere.
You can just ask Siri or Google or what other
other AI device you use, because they know us. We're
in touch. We're in touch with the AI, We're in
touch with the with the computers. We're on the interwebs.

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
I'm working on getting a bat robot, remember those from
J Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
And we have people who listen to us all the
way down in your y which is on the on
the opposite side of the world, people in Australia, New
Zealand Europe.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Do you think Australian clam bakes are the same as ours?

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
I would imagine they're a little different because their seafood's
a little different. But I think it's probably very similar.
And now I want to know, I mean, what's then
down under? Which I wonder what an Australian clam bake
is like, They've got to have them right, all right,
I'm going to google it now. He's like, yeah, I'm
gonna look it up. I'm gonna find it. So yeah,
if you missing a part of the show, go check
out get to podcast. You can hear it anywhere on

(01:08:03):
any of your devices, on your phone, whatever you got.
We're hanging out talking all about seafood checks and cooking
and dealing with you know, shellfish and things like that
at home, and we just gave a couple of you know,
tips and ways to kind of celebrate this seafood at
home on our last break talking about grilling and what
you can grill and how and doing shellfish on the grill. However,
we didn't really get deep into any recipes of what

(01:08:23):
it actually means. So I thought we'd spend the last
break here talking about some of our favorite things to
cook on the grill and how we do it. And
I'm gonna give you one of mine r off the bat, Jeffy.
And you know, I kind of lead let into it
last break talking about grilling oysters and clams. One of
my favorite things to do is do a simple grilled oyster.
Let me tell you about this, right, so you get
some great local oysters, which we get great ones here,
We really do.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
Are you're gonna put them on the grill.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
If you look at the oyster, it has a one
side of the shell's maybe more flat than the other side, right,
So you wanna put the non flat side down on
your grill, which does make it a little bit difficult.

Speaker 4 (01:08:53):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
It's fine, but don't worry it to be perfect. You're
grilling oysters doesn't have to be perfect. And so once
you put on the grill and it gets hot enough,
it starts to it pops open because the pressure in
the air heats up.

Speaker 4 (01:09:02):
And pops the shell.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
So when that happens, take it off the grill. Once
that pops, I take it off the grill because it's
not overcooked. And then when I'm gonna do is, I'm
gonna add something delicious to it, JEFFI, It's gonna sound crazy,
but I'm gonna tell you you're gonna love it. I'm
gonna add a little shredded cheese that's gonna be shredded
green air cheese, and a little shredded apple green Granny
Smith apples on top of it with a pinch of salt.

(01:09:23):
It is unbelievable. And you can melt that cheese. Can
you turn the whole mixture and like a bread cremike
stre if you want to put it on top of
the oyster and the it and do it that way
as well. But doing it like fresh and crunchy like that,
it comes out so delicious. And people are always like
they're like, what is that? What is that?

Speaker 4 (01:09:37):
You're like, Oh, it's green apple and green air.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
And you're like, did you use like slice Swiss cheese
and just cut it up and put it on there?
Sure you can melt it? Yeah, I think you totally could.
I think at that point you want to melt it.
But like when I do it, I kind of mix
the green are I put it, I shred it up,
so I kind of mix it with the apple, so
it's like a mixture. It goes on top, oh, almost
like a little slaw, like a cheese and a slaw
that gets got on top, and then it probably melts

(01:09:59):
from the heat of the oil a little bit, and
if it's hot enough it will, but it's okay if
it doesn't, you know. But then the cool move there
is you can actually if you want to leave it
on the grill and close the grill for another two
or three minutes you not even not probably another ninety
seconds of the most actually not two or three minutes. Sorry,
it'll start to kind of melt down into it, which
then it tastes delicious.

Speaker 4 (01:10:15):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
That's yeah. I like that, the you know, the tartness
of the Granny Smith apple with the fattiness of the
cheese and then the brightness of that oyster. Oh, it's
just it's it's really it goes really well together. Oh absolutely.
My favorite thing with grilled oyster is just any flavored
I just like putting flavored butters. You know, I might
I might make a spicy butter, garlic butter. I might
make a horse radish and beer butter, you know, just

(01:10:39):
like I like having melted butters on the side that
I can drizzle over a grilled oyster when they especially
when they come out and they're a little bit smoky
and crunchy on the side. So something about a compound
butter that's been melted that just pours over it. And
you know me, I have like five in my freezer
from every party I make too much, so I of
course a little extra, you know, A fun way to
make compound butter like this for your party, or for

(01:10:59):
your event, or forhoever you're serving. This is take your
favorite cocktail, maybe it's a margarita, maybe it's an old
fashioned whatever, right, and what you're gonna do is get
some softened butter and take that whole margarita and just
pour it into a bowl, maybe your mixer, maybe your KitchenAid,
using the dough hook to start, and then you're gonna
add a bunch of room temperature butter to it and
just let it whip for about fifteen minutes. And what

(01:11:21):
ends up happening is you now have your favorite cocktail
wiped into a butter. Then you take that butter and
you're gonna put it into a small container or roll
it up into a bag and put it in the
freezer so it kind of stiffens up a little bit,
and then pull it out so you can slice pieces
of it. And what happens is it gets all emulsified together,
so you have this delicious literal like you know, this
is my margarita cocktail butter. I love. It's an easy

(01:11:42):
way to make a compound butter out of a cocktail.
Oh that sounds so good. It works great, man, I would.
I'll make a delicious old fashioned butter and put it
on ribbis.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
In the winter.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
Oh yeah, that sounds amazing. A good mohito butter on
some grilled shrimp.

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
Let's go. And when you do that, keep those those
herbs in there and you keep that min in there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Oh yeah, I probably go a little heavy on those things,
especially because I was gonna mix it with all that fat,
it would come out really great.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Or you pour half, so you pour half of it
in and drink the other half water cooking.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Oh that's now you sold me. Now all the way
in this is like, this is amazing. It's a great
way to do it. So yeah, one of my favorite
ways to make an easy compound butter to go with
stuff as that. So yeah, what else do you offer
a recipe, Jeffy, give me something, I mean, for a recipe.
We've been talking about clam strips, and I think it's
important to talk about how to fry clam strips properly.
And to me, first of all, you can cut the clams.

(01:12:30):
You can get big clams. You can get cherry stones,
or you can get little necks. In my opinion, a
little neck is like about the size of a quarter.
A cherry stone gets about a half dollar, maybe a
little bit bigger. And then you have cow hogs or
chowder clams, yeah, which what I've always heard them called.
And those are the ones that become soap dishes on
your grandma's house. Okay, you know what I'm talking about.

(01:12:52):
Like half of a the scalp show almost yeah or
like yeah, so those usually get cut into big slices
or if they're cherry stones, which is a nice big belly,
the belly of the clam. When you take a clam
out of the shell, there's a belly in the center
of the clam, and then you have like the what

(01:13:12):
I think it's called the foot, the front part of
the clam or yeah, the lip of it, and all
that together a whole belly clam. That entire piece is
left together. So that's how I like to do them personally.
I don't know about you, Plumb, but I'm excited how
you're doing. Also in the class and clamatamy. Yeah, clamatomy,
I'm a I'm a clamatist, that's right. It's funny because

(01:13:34):
then you can look at something like because you can
eat that whole thing, but you open up something like
a scallop, you.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
Can't eat all of that, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting how the animals are different, you know, definitely, definitely.
So I take the clams then and I soak them
a little bit of milk. I like to use milk.
This is what my aunt taught me. Don't get upset
at me. But I do milk, salt, pepper, sugar and

(01:14:03):
little lemon zest in the milk, and I soak the
clams in that this amberda No, it's it's antimilia, but anyway,
it's delicious. And then recently on Instagram, we gotta go.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
I might have questions.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
We can't change a subject yet, All right, go ahead.
When you soak them on these and then you take
them out, do you dry them off?

Speaker 4 (01:14:21):
What do you do after that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
Oh no, no, no, they come out of that and
it goes right into like a corn flour ap flour mix,
and then I shake it off and I shake it
over like a like a I have like a wire
strainer that I like to shake it off of or
shake the extra or you can even do it with
your hands, just kind of like go like this and
get in there. You can put it in a paper
bag with that mix, and you can shake it in
a paper bag and then dump it out and then
peel it out any one of those ways, and then

(01:14:44):
you just deep fry that hot oil. I go about
three seventy five I drop it in. It's probably about
ninety seconds at the max. Do you carry oil, I
use just a neutral oil I'm off of I'm off
of all nutsed oils, so I'm really going mostly vegetable
fats or I use avocado oil or some Yeah, that's

(01:15:06):
pretty much what I've been using. A lot of olive oil.
I use like a really like a like a not
an extra virgin, but like a more processed olive oil.
I've been frying stuff in that, especially if you keep
it a little low. If you don't go super hot
and olive oil, you're gonna be okay. I can still
fry in it. It's like a misconception that you can't
fry in olive oil. It does have a lower burning point,
but you generally aren't cranking your oil up to five

(01:15:30):
hundred degrees or former fifty degrees. You know, three twenty
five to three seventy five is what you're frying. Ass
perfect for the most part. So but just to back
up what I said about what I did there, with
a little bit of sugar, interestingly, because it just adds
a little bit of sweetness to the back of the
clam and I felt so vindicated because people always laugh
at me when I add sugar to that milk.

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
Mix.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Our good friend and New England legendary chef Michelle Augustus
does hers in condensed milk oh interesting, which is very sweet,
which is very sweet, more sweet than what I do.
And she said the same thing in her video. It
adds a little bit of sweetness, and I was like,
that's why I love her. You know, we were at Simpatico. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:16:13):
I see. That makes a lot of sense. Man, that
makes a lot of sense. I mean, I gotta try it.
I've never done it. And then once it comes out,
squeeze the lemon over the top, hit them with some salt. Yep,
as soon as they come out of the fryar immediately
on a paper bag or on some napkins to soak
up that extra oil. Hit it with some salt, newspaper,
Hit them with some salt. Squeeze some lemon over the top.

(01:16:35):
I don't give anybody a choice. I put lemon on
it because that's how it's supposed to be served. And
then I start with a little more lemon on the side,
and then cocktail sauce or tartar. Yeah, yeah, it sounds great.
I think this I kind of want some of right now, Jeff,
what about it's just can we touch on it for
a second about the condiments you can make or serve
or put with these things, because there's so many things
you can do out there. A sock I'm just tartar sauce,
or melted butter, or cocktail sauce, or yes, making a

(01:16:56):
little bit of a chili aoli to go with it,
or even a garlic aeoli. Are you kidding?

Speaker 4 (01:17:00):
One of the best things ever with fried seafood.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
Just get some great, great hot sauces and have them out.
I mean, I love saracha on a clam. I love
I just had Zab's hot sauce for the first time,
which is almost like a mustardie kind of hot sauce.
Sounds great that it almost has like an old Bay
mustard sort of hot sauce flavor. I had it at
that actually that Captain Scott's Place in New Delicious. They

(01:17:23):
also served like a like an almost like an Amish
pepper relish like on the side that you can put
on stuff. And I was putting that on the on
the oysters, and it was so good. It's funny, a
little bit of spice goes a long way with that,
doesn't that's a whofant dimension to it, kind of opens
it up almost. Oh, definitely, definitely. I love that idea
that that's a great way of doing it. That's fantastic. Yeah. Well,
you know what I was doing is I was mixing

(01:17:43):
it right into their tartar sauce, so that a little
tartar sauce and I was taking that little relish and
putting a stirring it in there, and it was really good,
made like a spicy tartar sauce. It made me think, like,
what a great idea to take like pickle chili peppers,
like cherry peppers and dice them up and add them
to tartar sauce just.

Speaker 4 (01:17:58):
To give it a little kick.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
I love that, you know, a really easy sauce I
love to have with any kind of like you know,
fried seafood that I'm making. I'll take you know, basically,
you know, I'd say a tablespoon of sour cream to
like three teaspoons of mayo lemon juice. I'll add then
a bunch of chopped hlapinos right and add that to
it right there, and then I'll add a pinch of

(01:18:22):
vinegar and a pinch of Dijon mustard and just whip
it all together and it's like a lapino aoli great
and it's really really good. But when you do the holopenos,
you got to take out the ribs and the seeds, right,
you just want the fruit flesh on the outside. And
I dice it very very small, you know, and add
that to it. If you put it in your blender,
one of the fun things that does that kind of
turns green, which is cool. But you can definitely leave

(01:18:43):
it into some a tiny mint or a tiny dice
that you've done with your knife works really really well,
very very simple. Like I said, a little bit of mayo,
you know, probably three to one mayo to sour cream,
you know, a little bit of a little vinegar, little
lemon juice, salt and that jlopeno in there. It's very simple.
But man, little mustard, it's really really good. That sounds great,
you know, great great sauce like a po boy type

(01:19:04):
sandwich too. Just spread that on.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
They're delicious.

Speaker 3 (01:19:06):
You know. This is a really great seafood sauce is
that I make like a cilantro pesto where it's just
like cilantro lemon. A lot of garlic, a touch of
ginger and like just oil and I put that in
the in the quisan art and I just whip it
together and I just drizzle that on top of seafood.
I just love the I love the cilantro flavor with
the garlic and the ginger together. It's just such a good,

(01:19:29):
just a delicious. Don't sleep on ginger with seafood. It's
really good. Yeah, Yeah, Ginger and seafood are definitely good friends.
Lemon grass as well. Like, you know, if you want
to get crazy, if like you want to steam mussels
and you want to make yourself a nice lemon grass
and like Thai curry broth, there you go, oh man,
Like put a knob a ginger, a piece of lemon grass,
a big tablespoon of some red curry paste beautiful some

(01:19:53):
some you know whatever water or stock. Then you finish
it with a little coconut milk and then boil your
your your muscles or your clams or whatever in that.
I'm telling you to be thrilled with the outcome.

Speaker 4 (01:20:05):
Yeah, that's gonna be delicious. Everyone loves that, no doubt
about it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
And I think when you're doing clams too at home,
just doing a simple steam clam is delicious, of course,
don't get twisted. That's a great way to do it.
But take a bunch of shouts and onions or shouts
and garlic. Chop it all up and start your pan
with that. Anything delicious starts with shouts and garlic or
onions and garlic. Start with that in the pan. Then
add some of those herbs to it, you know. I
like to add stems of parsley, chop up and use that,

(01:20:31):
you know, And then I add that to the pan
and get that all kind of working together. Make sure
you see them a little bit of salt. I don't
add pepper till the end here. And then I'm gonna
pour in white wine. And you want a white wine,
you want to think of something that's kind of crisp
summary you know, you want to go that sansa route.
You want to go to that salvagon blancat pino greasy
or something like that. Right. And I'm a firm, firm,
firm believer, and not everybody grows in me here, Jeffrey.

(01:20:53):
But I don't believe in cooking wine. I believe wine
is wine. If it's wine, you woul drink and you
should cook with it. And they used to don't buy
wine like the cooking wine or whatever if it's not
something you want to drink and don't cook with it.
You know, I do agree with that, but I also
just from having a catering background and showing up at
people's houses and just trying to make make something delicious
out of what I have. I think if what you

(01:21:14):
have is cooking wine, you have to use it, taste it,
season it properly, so that's delicious. But preferably I go
with Plum's idea and just using a delicious wine that
I could also have a glass of while I'm cooking
with it. It doesn't have to be expensive, like don't
get it doesn't have to be to spend one hundred
dollars on a bottle of wine. No, there's great bottles
of that ten to fifteen dollars level. That's great to
twelve bucks. Some of my favorite wines are twelve dollars

(01:21:36):
a bottle. Yeah, literally great, which you can get you
can do fantastic on that. But anyway, have all that
in the pot, right, add your clams to it and
let those clams open up, and that the juice kind
of mix with that you wine and garlic and onion mixture,
getting all nice and happy in there.

Speaker 4 (01:21:50):
And then when I do it is Jeff, I'll throw
a stick of butter in it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
Got that butter kind of melt down and you know,
emulsify with that wine mixture, and then hit a little
bit of lemon juice and let it kind of all
come together, and then pour it all into a big bowl.
And I finish it with a bunch more herbs, a
bunch of parsley cilantro, a little bit of regano as
a winner here always. And I'm not a biger Regine fan,
but Regnan does work great in this kind of cook
and then little green onions I think is very very

(01:22:14):
important with this. But I serve it, and most importantly
you have to do this, serve it with some fresh
slice bagett. You want that biget to dip into that
beautiful broth that you've made. I was waiting for that.
I was just bread. You need bread for the bro
It's so important. Yeah, if you want to get you know,
you can even be very rustic about it. Don't just
slice it pretty. You can just take the bread and

(01:22:34):
tear it with your hands and put it on a board,
so it's torn up pieces of bread right there. I'm
telling you what a great crowd pleaser at a whole
table of people when you're serving great seafood, like you
serve this as an appetizer.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
It's amazing. One of my favorites. Jeff has got to
be doing clams that way.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
Oh yeah, I love clams that way. I honestly, I
like to serve grilled bread with mine a lot. I'll
just garlic and a little olive oil, salt and pepper
and put it on the slices of my wife sour dough.
We'll just grill it up and I just serve that
on the side with like, you know, like the broth
with the grilled sour dough and beautiful. You know again,
I'm a huge fan of muscles. I love muscles all

(01:23:11):
different ways and small.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
We're friends, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
The broth of muscles is so yeah, well you're over here, muscles,
marinair over here. Stop it. That's a great way to
do it, I think, one of my favorites. And then
just to get back to it too, you know, we
talk in lobsters. You know, Lobsters are such an easy
thing to cook. You can do them in your oven,
you can do them on a pan, you can do
them on your grill. You can boil them, you can
broil them. There's no right or wrong here. But when

(01:23:35):
it comes down to actually having a lobster roll and
you want to have a delicious Connecticut style obstera role, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:23:40):
Got to be hot buttered.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
Jeffy, I know people love a lobster salad, and I'm
a lobster style guy too. I love a nice cold
opster role. There's no right or wrong here. I think
that if you're going to do it though and serve
it to the group hot buttered lobster roll, I think
it's easy. You just take a bunch of lobster meat,
throw it at some butter, and let it hang. Yeah.
I was gonna say, I'll go for either. I will
never send one back of some like, oh I'm serving
hot buttered lobster. I'm not like. No, I'm in. I'm

(01:24:03):
all in. I love lobster in all its forms, but
when I'm making it at home personally, I tend to lean.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
Towards the lobster salad.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
Lobster salad, I tend to, you know, church it up
with like some sort of preserved chili and you know
uzoo or I want to I want it to be fancy. Yeah,
well you're doing some kind of chili on. There is
a great way. I love serrano pepper is sliced rely
thin mixed in with it is delicious, I think. And
I've been making them with mixed garlic, like a little
garlic crisp now I mix ye, which is great. Yeah.

(01:24:32):
So another thing I think we didn't touch on I
want to touch on quickly when we're talking recipes is
reserving some of this seafood and ways that are delicious.
Then you can pack for like a to bring to
the picnic or bring to the barbecue. This is your
expertise here. I've never got like. You can take oysters.
You get them out of the shell, you take some
of the liquid, you make a bread and butter pickle,
like your easiest sweet bread and butter pickle, a lot
of mustard seed, a little bit of dill seed, pour

(01:24:55):
it over your your oysters, hot into the over the
raw oysters, close it, put it in the fridge, let
it cool all the way, and then bring those to
the and serve them with a little with your toast
or whatever. Oh a week at least, and they're so
so good bread and butter oysters blow your mind.

Speaker 4 (01:25:13):
WHOA that kind of sounds delicious.

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
It's so good.

Speaker 4 (01:25:16):
I'm telling you, man, I kind of like that idea.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
I want to try that. You should definitely try it.
I'm telling you to make your client very happy. Could
you do it with clams too? You could definitely do
it with clams. I like oysters because oysters tend to,
like clams, will firm up a little more when they're cooked.
Oysters become a little more anxious and luscious when they're cooked.
And I think there's like almost like a fattiness to it,
which cuts really well with the pickliness of the pickle
Brian with the oyster brine. Yeah, it kind of has

(01:25:40):
that like that that's sourness almost to it, right, Yeah,
that sour sweetness that cuts with the oyster flesh. To me,
is like a little bit more like unctious. I don't explain,
make it sounds a saying that damn word. Yeah, it's
like a on amount apia when we listen to this show.

Speaker 4 (01:25:56):
I don't know what that means, but I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
Words that sound like what they are oh okay, well
they sploosh okay. So one of my other favorites here too,
before we get out of here. When it comes to
oysters and clams, I love a good baked clam. And
it's such an easy thing to do. You know. You
can struck your clams, very very simple, and you can
do some chopped clams mixed in with a bread crumb
mixture or whatever. There's no right or wrong here. One
of my favorites though, is fresh young garlic, a little

(01:26:22):
poblano chili breadcrumbs of course, and I mixed in a
little bit of romano where parmesan cheese, the powdered kind
and with that, you know, like really really grated, very
very very very small, and then lemon zest and then
you put spoonfuls of that inside your clams and then
bake them in the oven.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
Oh my gosh, it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
That sounds so good. I love the baked clam. Baked clams.
That hits me right in the heart. I mean, it's
just such a delicious like it goes back o reganado.
That's how I like to do them. That's my preferred way,
and you don't have to overthink it. That's the thing.
You don't have to overthink it, like there's something delicious
to pull on top of.

Speaker 4 (01:26:54):
You know, I feel like we're good.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
We're just getting into it now, and I feel like
the show's ending.

Speaker 4 (01:26:57):
Jeffy, I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
Listen, get out there, look up your favorite recipe. Don't
be afraid to do it. Listen to the things that
we did. Go back to the podcast, listen to it
anywhere you find podcasts. Cook at home, enjoy food. Yeah,
or go out tonight and then cook tomorrow night. You
know it's great. Clamshocks and all over the state on
the shore line. The shoreline is not far from anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
Go check it out.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
We appreciate you guys checking the show out. I'm Chef Plum.
That's Chef jeff Friends. Remember, food is one of the
most important things we have in life. Everything important life
evolves around food. Let's give the time it deserves for
Chef Jeffy. I'm Chef Plump. Thanks checking out Plum love
foods right here on the Voice of Connecticut WYCC. We'll
see you guys next Saturday. Take care of friends,