Zesty Linguine and New Zealand Clams
Serves 4 Prep 5 mins Cooking 15 mins
Where there is pasta there must be seafood. The clams in this dish not only add a beautiful flavour but also create one of my favourite food sounds. You’ll be taken straight to the ocean when you listen to the pasta being tossed in the pan with the cooked clams and coated in the sauce. A crackle of sorts, that makes me love cooking with shellfish even more. But I understand there’s a few non-seafooders out there, so feel free to take the clams out altogether for a clean zesty pasta dish.
200 g sourdough bread,
cut into small pieces
4 garlic cloves, peeled
80 ml extra virgin olive oil
1–2 tsp chilli flakes, depending on
level of heat you like (optional) shredded zest and juice of 1 lemon,
plus extra zest to serve
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
(a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc worked perfectly here)
1 kg frozen or fresh New Zealand clams
400 g dried linguine
1 cup finely chopped parsley
20 g butter Place sourdough and garlic in a food processor and whiz until finely chopped. Heat oil in a large heavybased saucepan over high heat.
Add sourdough and cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes or until golden and crunchy. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl with chilli flakes and lemon zest. Add 1 cup of wine to uncleaned pan and return to high heat. Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes to reduce liquid by twothirds. Add clams and toss to combine. Cover and cook for 7 minutes or until clams have opened. Discard any unopened clams.
Meanwhile cook pasta as per packet instructions. (I like to go 2 minutes under what the packet says to keep it al dente when it’s added to the clams.) Strain pasta reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Add pasta, parsley and butter to clams and stir through to coat, adding pasta water as you need it. Stir through 1 cup sourdough crumb mixture and season with salt and pepper.
Serve immediately with remaining sourdough mixture alongside and extra lemon zest scattered over to finish.