San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Open up to creamy, briny clams
Anyone can perfect this easy, herby dinner that calls for few ingredients
While I was paying for groceries at the market, a cashier I’ll call Kate picked up my crinkly paper pack of clams and asked, “How do you cook these things? You broil them, right?”
I thought for a second and in elongated speech, said, “Suurrre you couuuld, but, I’m just going to simmer them in white wine, butter and garlic until they pop open. It’s very easy!”
A light seemed to flip on. Her eyes lit up, her eyebrows lifted and she smiled (I think) under her “Finding Nemo” mask. She said she’d try cooking them like that sometime because she needed “new dinner ideas” — which felt like a small, unintended victory.
I say that because clams, to me, are a total backpocket dinner. I think everyone, including Kate, should know how to cook them. Once you know how, they become an incredibly easy, delicious and quick meal for any night of the week. It also helps that small clams are cute, bountiful and pair so well with many flavors.
Those flavors run the gamut. That night I gently simmered them in butter, white wine, garlic and potatoes. But you can also stew them with curry leaf in tomato broth or, yes, they can even be broiled with bacon and bread like in the vintage yet timeless Clams Casino. They are great in a chowder but also in pasta, rice and even on toast or pizza.
In this recipe, I wanted to keep it simple but I still wanted a richtasting broth that didn’t make me feel overly full afterward. How do I do that? Well, I simmer clams in a large pot with a lid like I did that night I met Kate at the market. This time of year I like to use heavy cream, but just a little, not the whole dairy farm. I also add olive oil, which breaks my own rule of mixing fats. But here it works and I give in.
I very finely grate inseason, fresh horseradish (check out Knoll Farm for local and organic) into that cream along with garlic, infusing it with a distinct, peppery, wasabilike flavor that works really well with the sweet, briny clams. I add white wine to balance out the acidity, making for a sauce for which toasted bread, in my opinion, is the perfect saucesoaking medium. (But thick crackers or flatbread would be good too.)
Sometimes I like to use freshly shaved fennel as an alternative to cooking with sliced yellow onion, and in this dish I simmer strips of fennel with the clams to add an anisey note plus some sweetness. Its fronds, the thin green strands on the stalks, get saved for an herb salad along with parsley and dill, making this dish decidedly “healthy”feeling or at least making it taste so.
Because I’m lowkey obsessed with horseradish and I think this ingredient deserves more attention than just being a creamy condiment for steak or the underdog in Bloody Marys, I ask you to double up on it by freshly grating more over the top — making it look like a small snowy scene over a mountain of mollusks. Don’t worry: Freshly grated horseradish is much less pungent than its creamy “prepared” cousin.
For clams, I prefer Manila clams, which are farmed on the West Coast from California to Washington. They range from 1 to 2 inches, taste sweet and a little mineraly and have a tender, juicy chew. Little Neck clams work and are very abundant but tend to be a little larger. If you can find Savory clams (a variety I came across recently), they are just plain gorgeous with a purple interior and meat that’s plump and briny.
Essentially all these ingredients get thrown in a pot with a lid and heated until the shells open and, voila! Just don’t overcook your clams. Once almost all have popped open, don’t cook them much longer because they can get tough and chewy.
If you’re a seasoned cook, you probably know how good clams are and I hope you make this dish. For all of you who aren’t, including curious Kate, there’s certainly space for a few clams in your back pocket.