Linguine with Clam Sauce
Author: 
Recipe type: entrees
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup water
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 32 manila or littleneck clams, scrubbed
  • 1 cup bottled clam juice
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • ¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper lakes
  • 2 teaspoons dried thyme, crumbled
  • Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
  • 1 pound linguine
Instructions
  1. Put the water and wine in a large pot and bring to a simmer over high heat.
  2. Reduce heat to medium-high.
  3. Add clams to the pot and cover tightly.
  4. Steam clams until shells open (discard any clams that do not open) about 7-8 minutes.
  5. Remove pot from heat.
  6. Put a colander lined with 2 layers of fine-mesh cheesecloth onto a large bowl.
  7. Pour clams and liquid into the colander.
  8. This will strain liquid and get rid of any sand you may have missed in the scrubbing process. Remove clams to a separate bowl.
  9. Put the liquid from steamed clams into a measuring pitcher.
  10. Add enough bottled clam juice to make 2 cups.
  11. Put olive oil in a saucepan set over med.
  12. Heat.
  13. Add garlic & saute, stirring, until garlic is lightly browned.
  14. Discard garlic.
  15. Add clam juice, parsley, red pepper flakes 7 thyme to the saucepan.
  16. Salt & pepper to taste.
  17. Bring sauce to a gentle simmer.
  18. While sauce is simmering, cook the linguine in a large pot of boiing, salted water until it is al dente.
  19. Drain.
  20. Divide the pasta among four heated pasta bowls.
  21. Arrange 8 o the clams around the pasta in each bowl. pour an equal amount of sauce over the pasta and clams.
  22. Garnish with extra parsley.
  23. NOTE: If fresh clams are not available, substitute 2 cups of minced canned clams wih juice. You might need to add extra bottled clam juice. While this is a pasta dish, not a soup, there should be a good amount of clam juice surrounding the pasta. Add canned clams to the sauce at the very last minute, just to heat them through. Simmering the canned clams in the liquid for too long a time makes them rubbery. Turning a white clam sauce into a red clam sauce takes but one simple added step. Everything stays pretty much the same. The only change would be to replace half the amount of clam juice (bottled or from the steaming of the clams0 with tomato puree or all-purpose ground tomatoes (about one cup). Presto! linguine with red clam sauce.
Recipe by Pizza Today at https://pizzatoday.com/recipes/entrees/linguine-with-clam-sauce