Spaghetti with a simple clam sauce

I’ve been in the mood for spaghetti with clam sauce for a few days, and last Friday, gave me a good excuse, Lent. 

This is a very simple version of a white clam sauce. Now the traditional Italian way is to make the sauce with fresh clams, still in the shell. I don’t do that. The fresh clams available in my area would be from the Des Plaines River, and their contamination would be measured in half-life designations. We do have fresh zebra mussels  in Lake Michigan, but they have to be scraped off of water intakes. They, like our other local lake favorite, alewives, have yet to make much of a dent in the Chicago culinary scene.

I find that canned clams work ok. Now, Italians, when making this, add the clams with their shells into the sauce. Don’t be tempted to add the cans along with the clams. It is not the same, and just doesn’t work. 

Here’s how I put this together. This cooks fast, so put the salted pasta water on before you start.

1 cup of olive oil

3 large garlic cloves, smashed and minced

Pinch of red pepper flakes

8 oz. bottle of clam juice

6.5 oz. can of chopped clams

6.5 oz. can of whole cherrystone clams

1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 lb. thick spaghetti

Salted water for spaghetti

Preparation

Fill a large pot with water and a palm full of salt, and put it on to boil, so you can cook the spaghetti. Add a dribble of olive oil to it.

Heat a medium sized dutch oven and add the cup of olive oil to it. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and stir it, on and off the heat, so the garlic just starts to sizzle, but doesn’t begin to brown. When the garlic is sizzling, add the clam juice. Now add the two cans of clams, with their liquid. Bring that to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about two minutes. Stir in the chopped parsley, simmer for one more minute, and keep warm.

Cook the spaghetti for about ten minutes. You want to under cook it just a spec, so that it is just a bit chewier than normal. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce in the dutch oven. Stir, place it in a large serving bowl, and you are ready to serve.

Serving

Serve the spaghetti with lots of sauce, in bowls. To round out this Lenten feast, serve a huge tossed salad. 

For some good garlic bread, rub some toasted homemade bread with garlic, and douse the toast with olive oil and grated Parmesan. Open an ice cold bottle of Vinho Verde from Portugal, and ring the dinner bell.