My most ordered pasta dish at any Italian restaurant. I am addicted to those sweet little clams smothered in a white wine garlic sauce. It transports me immediately to Italy walking along a little cobbled street and stopping for a big bowl of Vongole and a glass of wine. It is such a flavorful dish whilst also being so simple and elegant and even better, dairy free!
My biggest pet peeve is when restaurants don’t clean the clams and you get a big mouthful of grit. So make sure to do the first step of letting the clams sit for 30 minutes in cold salted water.
Here’s my recipe for it so you can make it at home too!
Feeds 2-3 people
1lb wild caught clams
1 packet organic linguine
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp Calabrian chili paste (if you like a mild spice)
1 pint of organic baby heirloom tomatoes
1.5 cups white wine
Handful of fresh parsley, finely diced
Salt/black pepper to taste
First thing I would recommend is buying clams and using them that day. I wouldn’t wait on them. They are definitely something to make fresh!
Start by soaking your clams in cold salted water for 30 minutes to draw out any grit and sand from them.
Then wash the clams in a strainer to finish and place in the fridge to keep them cold until you are ready to use them momentarily.
Now start boiling your salted pasta water and once boiled, add in your linguine and cook until Al dente. So about 2 minutes less than what the box recommends.
In a large shallow Dutch oven, (I like my everyday pan by le crueset), Add in olive oil, Calabrian chili paste and your whole baby tomatoes and cook on a medium heat until blistered. About 4-5 minutes.
Now add in your garlic and toss around the pan for a minute so it cooks but doesn’t burn.
Add in a big guzzle of white wine and then your beautiful clams and cover the pan with a lid for 3 minutes until the clams have all opened!
If there are clams that didn’t open it means they were dead so throw them away.
Now remove the clams from the pan.
Your linguine should be ready at this point. Remove 1 cup of pasta water and drain the rest. Add the linguine in to the sauce immediately with the pasta water and cook on medium-low, simmering whilst stirring the pasta in to the sauce. The pasta water will make the sauce creamy and the pasta will finish cooking for 2 minutes.
Now add the clams back over the pasta and sprinkle with fresh finely diced parsley and serve immediately with crusty bread and a glass of wine outside in the sunshine of your back garden.
Enjoy!