Linguine Al Vongole

Linguine with clams is one of my favorite dishes. I prefer white sauce, and that's the recipe that I'm posting here, but at the bottom, I'll let you know how you can make it really quickly.

I'm going to give you the cheap and easy way to do this -- with canned clams. If you want to go more gourmet and high end, you could definitely use fresh clams from your local fishery. If so, figure that you'll need 1 pound of clams for every two people you're feeding.

1 large can of whole baby clams
5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of fresh Italian flat leave parsley, minced
1 cup of dry white wine
2 tablespoons fresh cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
The juice of 1 lemon, and the zest of half of that lemon
1 pound of linguini

About 5 minutes before your pasta is done, saute the garlic in 2 tablespoons of oil and add the salt so that the garlic will essentially melt, but not burn. Once the garlic is fully soft and translucent, turn up the heat to high, add the wine, and boil rapidly for a minute to cook off the alcohol. Then turn down the heat, add all the rest of the ingredients except for the remaining olive oil and clams and stir.

Then put the cooked pasta into the sauce (remembering to cook your pasta for 1 minute less than al dente), and add the clams and the juice they are packed in. Toss together over low heat for about a minute or two, add the last of the olive oil before the last few tosses, and serve.

If you are using fresh clams, once your wine is boiling, add the clams, put a cover over the pot, and let them steam for about 4 minutes until all the shells are open (discard any that don't open as those clams aren't good to eat). Then finish off as above. You may need to add a bit of bottled clam juice to the mixture if it's not "wet" enough to really coat the pasta.

For red sauce: Bring 1/2 cup of white wine to a boil for 1 minute and then add 1 cup of marinara sauce from the recipe posted in August 2009 (http://foodislove-judy.blogspot.com/2009/08/recipe-for-marinara-sauce.html), and a can of whole baby clams and the juice they are packed in. Warm this up an toss with a pound of pasta.

A comment on grated cheese:

In Italy, it's practically sinful to put grated parmigiana on anything that has fish or seafood in it, the thought being that the cheese overwhelms the delicate taste of the fish or seafood. This sauce is definitely not lacking in flavor, so you can do without it. That being said, I LOVE grated cheese on my pasta and indeed, have often been accused of loving pasta so much just because it gives me an excuse to use grated cheese. I routinely put it on my linguine with clam sauce (except in the most upscale of Italian restaurants where I know better than to even ask), and absolutely love it :)