Clams & spaghetti

This is good. Reminds me of summer & Sardinia. 

Must be served with a bottle of wine.

The recipe is taken from Twelve - a tuscan cookbook, by Tessa kiros.

Serves 6

1kg small, fresh clams (vongole)

4 tablespoons of olive oil

3 garlic gloves

1 small dried red chili, crumbled 

1 medium bunch of parsley, chopped

125ml white wine

500g spaghetti

200g ripe cherry tomatoes, halved 

(I used a can of chopped Italian tomatoes, which

I suggest you do when tomatoes are out of season.)

Soak the clams in lightly salted water for a few hours.  Change the water frequently and drain in a colander to get rid of any sand.

Rinse and drain well.

Heat the olive oil in a large wide stockpot, add the garlic, chili and half of the parsley.  As soon a you begin to smell the garlic, add the clams and white white.  Turn up the heat to high, put a lid on, and cook for 5 minutes until the shells have opened.

Remove from the heat.  Discard any clams that have remained tightly shut.  Remove about half of the clams from their shells, discard these shells and return the clam meat back to the pot, leaving the rest of the clams in their shell.

Cook the spaghetti in boiling, salted water.  While the spaghetti is cooking, add the tomatoes to the clam pot and season with salt and pepper.  Return to the heat for a few minutes to heat through.  Drain the spaghetti when it is ready and add it to the clam pot, tossing with a pair of tongs.

There should be a fair amount of liquid from the clams to coat the pasta.  Put into individual pasta bowls, sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve immediately, with an extra drizzle of olive oil.