Clam and Mussel Pasta

My good friend Jennifer is the muse behind “se mangia” (let’s eat).

One day over lunch she pointed out that a lot of our clients not only love great food, but like us, they also love to cook.

I am very much a locavore. For me, great food is all about finding the very best ingredients then doing as little as possible to it… I don’t remember if that’s Alice Waters or Marcella Hazan – in practice it’s both of them – and it is excellent advice.

I encourage you to adjust my recipes to what is fresh and locally available.

With a bit of this and that, this recipe becomes French moules marinieres (pastis and tarragon), Italian spaghetti alli vongole (tomatoes and basil) or a Spanish pastas con almejas (chorizo and sherry). Or chop up the trinity, add some heat and go Cajun.

If you’d like, skip the pasta and serve it in bowls with crusty bread, steamer style.

I apologize for any vagaries or imprecisions, for me adapting the recipe to the moment is the joy of cooking.

La Ricetta

Quantita

2-4oz dry linguine or fettucine per person

3tbsp olive oil

2 cups dry white or rosé

1/2-1 head of garlic, chopped

3-6 shallots, chopped

1 fennel bulb or celery stalks, chopped

1-3 tomatoes if you like but only in season, diced

1 cup of coarsely chopped parsley, also some basil if you are going with the tomatoes

Spanish chorizo – a classic with clams but strictly optional – diced

Fresh seafood in suitable quantities for your group

Preparazione

Set the pasta water to boil.

Chop or dice the vegetables – I try to scale the size to the seafood – small clams like Manilas are easily overwhelmed.

Drain all the seafood and rinse as necessary.

Sui Fuocco

Assuming the pasta will take 10-12 minutes, the seafood will cook in about the same amount of time. You might want a bit of a head start if you are planning a reduction or have a lot of big clams.

Heat the olive oil.

You will build your base – for all intents and purposes a soffrito – in the same pot you will use for steaming.

You will steam the bi-valves sitting on top of the soffrito – as they open they will add their juices to the goodness…

When the water is boiling, toss the pasta in.

Gently sauté the veggies untill they clear, add the wine and bring to a very gentle boil – what you are after is a fragrant steam….

The next “depends“, depends on what you have to cook. Clams, cockles and the like take 5-8 minutes, mussels are a matter of 3-4 minutes.

Once the pot is steaming, I load it in order of cooking time.

Keep the heat up and put the lid on. You should smell good smells and hear the shells opening…

Remove from the heat, and remove the shells to a bowl. Discard any shells that did not open, and any that look the least bit suspect compared to their peers (no bad clams is the obvious principle.)

Reserve the liquid and the soffrito in the pot.

A Tavola

Now you have some choices depending on how hungry you are, and how fancy your guests are.

Some folks just pour the broth and the soffrito onto a bowl of linguine or fettucine, mound the clams and mussels on top with a handful of parsley, and go for it.

Or you can remove the meats entirely, discarding the shells.

If you like you can reduce the liquid by some amount to concentrate the flavors, just keep an eye out if its already very salty from the seafood.

You can certainly add a dollop of really excellent olive oil or maybe a touch of a nice Spanish sherry with the chorizo or sherry vinegar with the tomatoes.

At the very end I throw the meats in to warm them.

Toss the pasta thoroughly in the reserved liquid and soffrito. After the pasta coats toss in a handful of chopped parsley (and basil if you are doing the tomatoes).

Serve with some crusty bread, a salad, another bottle of wine, and some cheese and fruit for dessert.

Bon apetito!

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