The Literate Chef

Posts Tagged ‘linguine’

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Linguine with White Clam Sauce (Linguine con Vongole)

In Clams, Pasta, Recipes, Sauces, Seafood on June 16, 2012 at 9:18 AM

Linguine with White Clam Sauce (Linguine con Vongole)

(Serves four)

4 doz. medium-sized Cherrystone or Littleneck clams, about 5 lbs.
4 tbsp. of finely chopped garlic, about 12 cloves
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat (Italian) parsley
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
½ cup of dry white wine
2 8 oz. bottles of Clam Juice
1 & ½ lbs. dried Linguine (Barilla, DeCecco or other premium brand)

These steps can be performed in advance of serving the meal

1.    Set a large pot (6-8 quarts) of water on the stove, cover it and bring to a boil. When it begins to boil, reduce heat, keep covered and hot.
2.    Clean and shuck the clams, reserving the juices, you should have about 3 cups. Set aside 12 clams unopened – 3 for each pasta serving.
3.    Chop the garlic.
4.    Wash and dry the parsley, but do not chop it until just before adding to the sauce, that retains its color.
5.    Heat the olive oil on medium in a large sauté pan, and add the butter.
6.    When the butter is melted, foamy and bubbling, reduce heat to medium, add the garlic and cook it stirring continuously for about 1 minute.
7.    Add the wine and return heat to high, bring to a boil, continue to boil for 3 minutes, stirring continuously
8.    Add clam juice and reserved clam liquid. We prefer our clam sauce with a lot of liquid, if you prefer it on the dry side, than add only 1 bottle or none.
9.    Bring to a boil for 3 minutes.

About 15 or 20 minutes before you are ready to serve the Linguine

1.    Bring the pasta water and clam sauce to a full boil. Add the 12 reserved unopened clams to the sauce and cover.
2.    Add kosher salt to the water and add the linguine. Cook the linguine until not quite al dente, about 7 minutes.
3.    After the pasta has been cooking for about 3 minutes, remove the cover from the sauce, add the parsley and shucked, stir well, and continue cooking uncovered.

White Clam Sauce, ready for the pasta

4.    Drain the pasta, add it to the sauce in the pan, and mix it well with tongs until al dente.
5.    Remove to a large bowl and serve, garnishing each dish with 3 clams that are still in their shells.

Hot crusty Italian Bread makes a great accompaniment, as does a good dry white wine such as Wairau River Sauvignon Blanc.

Please see Clam Shucking for the secret on opening clams.

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Clam Shucking

In General Articles on June 16, 2012 at 9:15 AM

Summer is fast approaching and it is time to make one of our favorite pasta meals, Linguine with White Clam Sauce. This is a quick and easy meal to prepare, with most of the work centered on opening the clams. Fortunately, Big Mike’s best friend, my ‘Uncle’ Joe, was a master clam shucker and taught me the technique, at the many clambake/cookouts he hosted in his Long island backyard in the 1950s.

Uncle Joe moved with his family from the Bronx to Long Island in the early 50s as the potato farms in Nassau County were being sold to real estate developers and constructing tract housing for the returning WWII GIs was a booming business. We still lived in Inwood, without a car. But at least once a month, Uncle Joe drove all the way in from Franklin Square on a Saturday morning to pick up our family, drive us out to his house, and return us to our one-bedroom apartment on Sunday night.

Besides learning how to shuck clams and eat them on the half-shell, Uncle Joe taught me how to pour a beer, build a charcoal fire and grill sausages, skills that have served me well in life. He loved life and lived it to the fullest. I wish our daughters could have known him, but he died much too young. Those weekend outings to ‘the country’ were a real treat, and I remember them and Uncle Joe’s generosity with great fondness.

Dorothea, who did not learn how to shuck clams, taught me how to make a clam sauce the easy way: sauté some chopped garlic in olive oil, toss in some chopped fresh parsley, add a bottle of clam juice and a can of minced clams and voila, homemade clam sauce. It was darn good as far as I was concerned and I didn’t know any better, so that recipe sufficed until I began to experiment on my own.

At first, I merely substituted fresh clams for the canned ones, a significant improvement. Then later, after comparing notes with Tommy T, he convinced me to add butter to the olive oil to finish the sauce. Finally, after reading a few cookbooks, I decided that a little bit of dry white wine would round it out perfectly. So here it is, Chef Scar’s own Linguine with White Clam Sauce. And, if like me, you enjoy cheese with your pasta, don’t listen to the so-called purists who will admonish you for adding cheese to seafood, go ahead and liberally heap several  tablespoons of grated Pecorino-Romano, preferably Locatelli brand on your Linguine. Mangia!

The secret to opening clams is to get them ice cold so that they relax, and use a good thin-bladed clam knife, don’t try to use a kitchen knife or an oyster knife.

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Brother Devil

In General Articles on July 27, 2011 at 4:27 PM

The first time I had Shrimp Fra Diavolo was about 45 years ago at a now defunct Italian restaurant on City Island, The Bronx. Fra Diavolo was not on the menu in our household, which is surprising, given that my mother loved hot spicy food, as exemplified by her homemade hot sauce. As pointed out by her granddaughters, she loved it so, that much to my embarrassment, she even carried a little jar of her hot sauce in her silver-metallic purse.

We took her to dinner once at Roberto, perhaps the best Italian restaurant in NYC, and she ordered a special homemade pasta dish for which Roberto is deservedly famous. Mom tasted it, said it was delicious and then proceeded to whip out her little jar and spoon some of its contents onto her pasta. Thankfully, no one other than my wife and I noticed this cardinal sin and when I commented that if Roberto had wanted it to be eaten spicy, he would have added the hot pepper himself. Mom completely unabashed merely smiled and said that’s the way she likes it and since she’s paying for it, what should he care! I didn’t bother pointing out that I was paying for dinner.

Fra Diavolo (Brother Devil) is the name given to a spicy hot tomato-based sauce that is usually married with some form of seafood: lobster, shrimp, calamari, scungilli, mussels or a combination thereof. It is also frequently served with a side of pasta, or over pasta, such as linguine. Purists will try telling you that you never add cheese to seafood pasta dishes. I was lectured about that once by a South American waiter in an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, NYC. I told him thanks for the advice, but I always eat my macaroni with cheese, even if it has seafood it in, so please bring some.

For Linguine with Shrimp, Fra Diavolo, I tried making it several ways. First I made a hot sauce similar to an Arrabiata and merely added the raw shrimp to the sauce to cook them. The shrimp were lost in the sauce. Then I tried sautéing the shrimp in garlic and oil and adding them to the sauce at the last minute. That was preferable to my palate. Finally, I tried making a basic marinara sauce and then sautéing the shrimp as before, but adding hot pepper and white wine to the sautéing process, this proved to be the best approach in that the shrimp stood out against the sauce. This technique has the added benefit that if one of your family or guests is not a seafood lover, you can merely serve them linguine with marinara sauce and avoid having to make two meals.

In my recipe connected with this article, you can prepare it either way, by adding hot pepper to the sauce and the shrimp, or just to the shrimp; however the circumstances dictate. Buon appetito!

Continuing on with seafood, since it is summer and the grilling season is well under way, please see: Catching Wild Salmon in Alaska and Cooking Wild Salmon at Home.

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Another of Big Mike’s Favorites

In General Articles on April 9, 2011 at 3:15 PM

Another pasta dish that was a memorable staple growing up in my family, one which we introduced to our children and they loved as well, was Linguine with Cauliflower Sauce. With this pasta dish the memory is olfactory. First, the less than pleasant smell of boiling cauliflower, quickly, and thankfully, followed by that of sautéed garlic, then the exquisite aroma of the finished product, which of course contains both Locatelli Romano cheese and Dorothea’s Homemade Hot Pepper Sauce.

This pasta dish (sorry Dad – macaroni dish) was another favorite of my father and was great during those meatless Fridays when Catholics had to ‘suffer’ by abstaining from meat. When it comes to food, Italians have a knack for turning suffering into a joyful feast; just think La Vigilia the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes!

See the recipe for Linguine with Cauliflower Sauce for the technique of preparing this delicious dish.

If you have any of this pasta dish leftover, which is highly unlikely in my house, then you are really lucky and you can use ‘the leftovers’ to make Crispy, Fried, Leftover Linguine with Cauliflower Sauce.

Of course my father was not the only cook in the house, my mother also had her repertoire, which was frequently focused on what was good for you. Please read Eat It! it’s Good for You!, to get a better understanding of what I mean.


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