Good food prepared at home doesn’t have to be slow, laborious and complicated. In fact, some of my favorite dishes are dead simple.
Here are a couple of photos from lunch on Saturday, that Sophie prepared in about 30 minutes: Spaghetti alle Vongole. From buying the clams at the fish store to getting lunch on the table took at the most 40 minutes. And most of that time was spent buying the clams. It was made and eaten so quickly that I barely had time to snap these photos.
Spaghetti alle vongole is one of those dishes that people love to order in restaurants, but almost never make at home for some reason. But when you make it at home there are so many advantages. Like being able to indulge in many more clams than you would get in a restaurant. Which is reason enough.
So, if you’re getting ready to prepare a fishy feast on the 24th you might want to make this. And if you make it with mussels as well (just substitute mussels for half of the clams) then you’ve already got 2 of the 7 fishes accounted for.
Not that I’m counting.
spaghetti alle vongole
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4 to 5
I always try to use vongole veraci, 'true' clams, which are available in Rome. They are more expensive, but more flavorful and usually free of sand since they are self cleaning. If you use regular clams, you should probably soak them first, to make sure they open and get rid of any sand inside. And even though I've titled this recipe 'spaghetti' alle vongole, we actually used linguine, which I tend to prefer. But any long pasta will do. Just not short (like penne or rigatoni) please. Why? Just not done.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kilo / 3 pounds of small clams (vongole veraci if you can find them)
- 500 grams/ 1 pound of good quality spaghetti or linguine
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup white wine
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to boil.
- While water is heating up, pour olive oil in a large wide pan, large enough to hold all the clams and cooked pasta. Heat over medium flame and add garlic.
- When garlic begins to become fragrant, (about 2 minutes) add half the parsley and all of the clams. Put lid on pot and let the clams steam open. This should only take about 5 minutes.
- In the meantime, add the pasta to the water, which you’ve lightly salted (not as much as usual, since the clams are salty).
- Once the clams are open, take off the lid and add the wine. Let the wine bubble away. Then turn off heat while pasta finishes cooking. There should be quite a bit of liquid left in the pan, from the wine and the clam juices.
- When pasta still VERY al dente (about 4 minutes away from being done) drain.
- Turn heat on under the clams and add drained pasta and rest of parsley. Stir gently, or shake the pan, coating the pasta and letting the pasta finish cooking in the pan juices.
- Serve.
- Optional: When you add the parsley at the end, you can also add the grated rind of one lemon, which is not traditional, but very nice.
Dear Elizabeth,
Just love all your recipes, they are so natural and tasty.
I wish you and your family a Very Happy Christmas and another
very successful New Year 2016.
Best wishes
Helen Fisco