Day 2: Clams, clams, and more clams

Yesterday my husband surprised me with a HUGE container of clams. Someone at his work was sweet enough to bring him some freshly dug up clams from one of the beaches here in Kuwait. The first thing I noticed was how beautiful all the shells were. Good thing my daughter didn't see the shells before I cooked them otherwise she would have begged me to let her keep a few of them as some sort of weird pet.

Right after my husband brought these bad boys home, I started googling for the best "clam" recipe I could find. I decided to go with a simple one from foodtv.com. This was my first time cooking clams and cooking with any sort of alcohol. I've always been so nervous about cooking with wine, or any sort of alcohol for that matter, because I'm not really a drinker and didn't like the idea of an "alcohol after-taste" in my food. However, this recipe proved me wrong and made be quickly realize I might have been missing out on years of eating delicious yummies that use alcohol to enhance the flavor of the food.

I made these guys in a big cast iron pot with a good helping of white wine and butter. I could have easily eaten the whole pot with a crispy baguette on the side to sop up all of the scrumptious pan drippings but instead I decided to pour the whole mixture over some spaghetti. I'll definitely be making this again! And maybe next time I'll be the one to have dug up the clams myself! Overall, day 2 ended with a big bowl of clam happiness. <3

Clams with a White Wine Sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced or 1/2 a red onion finely chopped
5 to 7 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 1/2 pounds of clams
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced into small cubs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, zested for garnish
Pasta (optional)

Directions

1. In a large pot, bring water to a boil for the pasta. Cook pasta accordingly to directions on the packaging. (OPTIONAL)
2. While the pasta is cooking away, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan. When almost smoking, add shallots (or red onion) and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add clams and wine. Cover and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes or until most clams have opened. 
3. Add in half the amount of parsley to the clams. Whisk in butter to thicken sauce slightly. If you didn't want to make pasta with this dish, then you're finished. Just add some lemon zest as a garnish and you're good to go. However, if you deicded to make pasta feel free to read the next two steps. 
4. Drain pasta. Do not rinse pasta and place it into the clam saute pan. 
5.  Pour pasta into large serving dish. Top with some lemon zest and parsley for garnish. 


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