fettuccine with clam sauce

the wet markets have unexpectedly become our second home. recently, we’ve been shopping at the one in lei muk shue. we found a seafood vendor there that has some really fresh clams, at a very reasonable price too, $18 hkd per catty. a catty is basically a pound. we decided to make a sauce with those clams, to go with our handmade pasta. if you don’t know how to make pasta from scratch, then you must check out our recipe here. it’s super easy! when you use fresh ingredients, the less you do the better, especially with seafood and pasta. salt isn’t needed here because the clams have natural saltiness. 

pasta 8 oz (230 g)
clams 2 lb (1 kg)
dry white wine 1 cup
heavy cream 1/4 cup
butter 2 tbsp
shallots 2 large
garlic 3 cloves
oregano 1 tsp

• scrub the clams, soak them in cold water for at least 30 minutes to remove the sand
• in a hot pan, drizzle some oil and add garlic and shallots, cook to lightly brown
• toss in the clams and sauteed for a couple of minutes
• add the cup of white wine and quickly cover with a lid
• turn heat to medium and cook until the clams open (some may not open, throw those away)
• once fully cooked, transfer the clams into a bowl (leave the liquid in the pan, that’s the sauce!)
• add the oregano, butter, and cream to the pan of liquid
• pick the meat out of each clam. add all the clam meat back into the pan once the butter is melted
• in a separate pot, add salt and water to boil the pasta
• add the cooked pasta to the pan and toss evenly, add some pasta water to thicken, if necessary
• (optional) top with parmesan and chopped parsley

the clams are cooked when they open

toss the cooked pasta into the pan of sauce

rich and briny

commentaries

jun:

linguine pasta also works well with this sauce. try adding other seafood in there too, like shrimp or scallop.

priscilla:

there are many folklores teaching people how to remove grit or sand from the clams. what i do is place a piece of metal, like a spoon, into the water when i soak the clams. i looked online to see the logic behind this method, but there was no definite answer. the most important thing is, it works! we also tried putting lots of salt into the water, it did not work as well but making the clams very salty. metal works best so far.

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