Cookbook | Ingredients | Recipes
| Pasta Recipes | Italian-American cuisine | Clam recipes
| Spaghetti with Clams in White Wine Sauce | |
|---|---|
| Category | Pasta recipes |
| Servings | 6 |
| Time | 1 hour |
| Difficulty | |
This recipe is an Americanized version of spaghetti alle vongole, a Neapolitan dish that's popular throughout Italy.
The Neapolitan version calls for clams, spaghetti, garlic, olive oil, parsley, salt, black pepper and sometimes red pepper flakes.[1]. This American version adds butter, white wine and sometimes cream to the traditional ingredients.
Cleaning and eating clams
This recipe calls for live clams. Here are some safety guidelines for buying, eating and cooking live clams.
- Never buy a clam that's open or cracked.
- Never eat a clam that won't open after cooking.
- Cook clams within 24 hours of purchasing.
- Always brush clams clean before cooking.
For more info on this subject, read Happy as a clam by Chef Mark R. Vogel.
Ingredients
- olive oil
- 8 oz clams or carpet clams as they are sometimes known
- 2 cloves garlic
- large or very large pinch of red peppers (dried is fine) depending on taste
- ½ cup of white wine
- The zest or the juice of 1 lemon
- The zest of ½ lime
- spaghetti, enough for the number of people to be served
- a handful of flat leaf parsley
- 1 oz salted butter
Procedure
- Put a large saucepan of water on, and when at a rolling boil, put in the spaghetti, keeping an eye on the cooking time to ensure that the spaghetti is NEVER overcooked.
- Put the clams into a separate small saucepan with the white wine and poach gently for about 2 minutes. Take off the heat and set aside.
- Pour a generous quantity of olive oil into a small frying pan and heat.
- Add the garlic cloves which have been either chopped or put through a garlic crush.
- Add the chillies and the chopped parsley and the lemon zest.
- Heat everything for about 3 minutes.
- Now add about ½ of the white wine the clams were cooked in.
- Continue to heat for a few minutes on a high heat to induce a slight reduction.
- Add the cooked clams to the sauce and turn the heat off completely.
- Once the pasta is cooked drain it through sieve or colander and return to the saucepan.
- Add the Salted butter to the pasta and mix through thoroughly. This will induce the sauce to thicken a little.
- Add the cooked clams to the sauce and the pasta.
- Mix up thoroughly ensuring you do not damage the clams.
- Serve in a high-sided bowl, ensuring that each guest gets his fair share of clams.
Tips
Add some cream to the sauce before serving if you like. However refrain from adding parmesan cheese. Most Italians frown on adding cheese to fish-based pasta dishes. Also, you don't have to use spaghetti. Penne works well with the spicy sauce. Linguine also works. But make sure the pasta is al dente.
Boun appetito, Wikibookians !!