When I was a kid, I loved clam chip dip – you know, the stuff they sold in the dairy case at the grocery store right next to the French onion and ranch dips. For whatever reason – increasing cost, decreased demand, or both – it simply disappeared from store shelves… I haven’t seen it in ages.
The other day I went on a nostalgia trip and tracked down a recipe online. After some tweaking, I’ve come up with a recipe that’s not exactly like the stuff I remember from childhood… but it’s pretty close:
Ingredients:
1 6oz. can chopped or minced clams
1 16oz. container sour cream
1 package soup mix (see below)
Fresh or bottled lemon juice
Hardware:
1 container (with lid)
1 spoon
1) Pour or spoon the sour cream into your container.
2) Add the soup mix.
3) Open the can of clams and drain the juice into the empty sour cream container (do not throw away yet!)
4) Add the clams to the dip and mix well.
5) Add a small amount of the reserved clam juice to the dip and mix well. You want to add enough to give the dip a clam taste throughout, but not enough to make the dip runny. I use about half the reserved juice, but that’s just me.
6) Add enough lemon juice to “brighten” the flavor of the dip. This is around half of a fresh lemon, or a couple of squirts of ReaLemon.
7) Cover and chill for several hours before serving.
As far as the “soup mix” goes, I use the “Savory Herb with Garlic” style from Lipton’s “Recipe Secrets” line. Plain old onion soup mix will work in a pinch, but I like the garlicky taste the Recipe Secrets mix gives the dip.