Linguine with Clams in a Light Red Sauce
I tend to hit my fish and seafood store on Friday evenings, and I am not the only one as it is fairly busy. Last evening, however was different, a quite store and I actually paused to chat with the fish department head honcho. He seemed to be in a chatty mood, and told me about how stressful his job was. It had been a rather long week of sorts, so I told him with some empathy, mine too, on some days just a different kind of stress.
The fun part of the fish store shopping, especially on a quieter evening is to chat with the sellers and pick up something different that I can have fun with. Last evening, it was these littleneck clams, providing the inspiration for creating linguine with clams.
The clams were very fresh and wild caught, they were cooked as soon as I got home, tossed up in a light saucy, white wine sauce. The flavors were simple and delicate.
The magic in the recipe was actually finishing off the pasta in the clam flavored sauce, adding a very different dimension to the pasta. This recipe is inspired by something I had at lunch one of these days actually the first time I had somewhat skeptically tried linguine with clams. That experience was memorable, the sauce for that variation was delicious, but very creamy and rich. So, while one can never go wrong with adding butter and cream to a sauce, I did not want to overwhelm the delicate natural flavors of the fresh clams, so the sauce was mostly about the clams, with some tomatoes and just a touch of coconut milk to stabilize it. You can add heavy cream if you wish, I happened to have some coconut milk handy and so that is what I used. Cooking this dish, made me realize the magic of adding shellfish to pasta, something that has not quite made intuitive sense to me until now.
I shall be making another variation of this recipe or some cousin thereof as my husband now wants to check this out with mussels. Well, it definitely is a very comforting dish, so considering the fact that the groundhog has committed us to six more weeks of winter, lets bring on the comfort food.
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Linguine with Clams in a Light Red Sauce
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
A well seasoned light and flavorful rendition of linguine with clams, perfect for any time of the week and great for easy company fare.
Ingredients
1/3 cup olive oil3 shallots, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup of diced red tomatoes (about 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped)
1 large stick of cinnamon
1 cup of fruity white wine
2 cups of vegetable broth (I liked the lighter taste)
2 minced jalapenos
6 ounces of dried linguine
Water and salt for the pasta
1/3 cup cream or coconut milk
2 pounds of littleneck clams (wild caught), cleaned throughly
Chopped cilantro or parsley to garnish
Instructions
Heat the oil on medium heat for about a minute and add in the shallots and the garlic and cook on medium heat stirring frequently for about 5 minutes, until the air is nice and fragrant and the shallots are turning pale golden.Add in the cinnamon stick and the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are well mixed and beginning to bubble and mix into the onion mixture. This will take about 3 minutes, gradually add in the white wine and bring to a brisk simmer and stir well, loosening the tomato shallot mixture and simmer for 6 minutes until the mixture is fairly thick.
Add in the broth and the jalapenos and simmer for 15 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and the consistency of a thick soup.
While the base is cooking, bring 4 cups of water to a boil and cook the linguine for about 3 minutes and drain and set aside.
Stir in the coconut milk to seal the broth and add in the clams and cover and cook for 3 minutes until the clams are all open.
Carefully remove the clams and place in a large bowl and cover.
Add in the linguine and cook for another 3 minutes, until the linguine is cooked through but not too soft. Remove the cinnamon stick.
Gently add in the clams and garnish with cilantro or parsley and serve.
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