An evergreen reinterpreted by one of Italy's best cooks.
Spaghetto alle vongole by Viviana Varese
Ingredients for 4 people
- 1 kg clams
- 300 g fish stock
- 320 gr bronze-drawn spaghetti (80 g per person)
- 90 gr extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 40 gr finely chopped fresh parsley (keep the stems, too)
- Coarse salt to taste
Procedure
Take the clams rinse them well, remove any open or broken ones and soak them in a bowl with cold salted water (a tablespoon of coarse salt) and let them sit for at least 2 hours. In summer place them in the lower part of the refrigerator.
In a frying pan put a clove of crushed garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. Rinse the clams again and when the oil is hot transfer them to the pan; add a little white wine. Cover with a lid and let them open over high heat. As they open remove them and place them in a bowl; as soon as you are done, cover with foil-the steam will keep them nice and soft. Pour the liquid that remained in the pan through a very fine strainer so that the remaining sand is filtered out and keep aside.
Shell the clams, which will have cooled in the meantime, leaving some in their shells, and cover the mollusks, again with foil.
Drop the pasta into lightly salted boiling water 1/3 of the way through cooking, meanwhile in a frying pan heat the oil with a clove of crushed garlic and the parsley stalks. Add the filtered water from the clams kept aside and the spaghetti, which should have just softened. The actual cooking will take place in the pan, gradually adding the boiling fish stock. The starch in the pasta will give a unique creaminess. Taste to see if a pinch of salt is needed and, when there is just a minute left until the end of the cooking time, remove the garlic, parsley stalks and put in the clams (with the shells and without), a drizzle of raw extra-virgin olive oil, finely chopped parsley and sauté. When the spaghetti is well blended proceed with plating: for those who want, and to their liking, you can add a sprinkling of tuna roe.
As an alternative to spaghetti you can use Busiata, a typical Sicilian pasta format, which we also offer at POLPO Semplicemente Pesce.
