Spaghetti alle vongole recipe

It felt like summer today. Warm and sunny, and the air smelled clean. Light-footed people wore overcoats on their arm, and a silly smile on their winter faces. When days like these happen, I like to prepare summery fares, usually involving seafood.

Vongole, which are known in the English speaking world as clams, can be used for a variety of dishes ranging from simple appetizers to chowders down to pasta and risotto. For me the best way to eat them is either simply sauteed over bruschetta or with spaghetti, but strictly tomato-less. This is the best way to enjoy their taste, a heady mix of mellow sweet flesh and iodine.

As usual with clams, there are a couple of things to do before cooking them. First of all discard any open clams that do not react when you touch them. Second, given vongole’s natural habitat, they need to be purged to eliminate any sand they might have ingested: to do this, simply cover the telline with 1 quart of cold salted water (about 1 tablespoon of salt will do) and let them rest for 3 hours somewhere dark. After that time, simply lift them from the water leaving any sand behind.

The recipe below is for spaghetti with clams, yet if you leave the pasta out and stop once the clams are open, you have sautée di vongole, a tasty antipasto on its own. Also, I have made the parsley optional in the recipe because some people aren’t particularly fond of this herb, yet traditionally parsley is a must on pasta with any sort of shellfish. Clearly, you can use this recipe with any sort of small clams that are typical of the area where you live. The freshest your clams the better, and what’s fresher than local?

1 kg (2.2 lb) clams, purged as described above
500 g (1.1 lb) spaghetti
3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons Colatura (anchovy juice)
1 dried peperoncino (or more to taste)
1/2 glass of dry, white wine (optional)
1 tablespoon Italian flat leaf parsley (I prefer fresh basil), chopped
Salt

Bring a large pot of very lightly salted water to a boil, in the meantime start heating the oil over a medium flame in a pan wide enough to hold all the clams in one layer.

Once the oil is hot but not smoking, add the garlic and peperoncino, and as soon as the garlic turns golden brown, crank up the heat up to the maximum and add the clams. Shake the pan to distribute the clams as much as possible. Add the wine here, if using, letting it evaporate. Cover the pan and allow the shells to open for 2-3 minutes.

Discard any clams that fail to open, the garlic and the peperoncino. By no means discard the precious clam juice collected at the bottom of the pan! You'll be using it to dress the pasta together with the clams themselves. If you properly purged the vongole, there should be no sand there, but if there still is some, simply strain trough a clean gauze.

The pasta water will probably be boiling by now, so add the spaghetti, pushing them down so they fit into the pot if you don’t have a special high spaghetti pot, stir and check from time to time. Never, under any circumstance, break the spaghetti to make them fit the pot!

You can add the clams to the pasta in their shells, something many of us do in Italy, yet, in regards to your guests, it is courteous to remove the clam meats from most of the shells, keeping only a few to decorate the dishes. The best way to do this is getting messy and using your fingers. (I would recommend you get someone else to help you, so that you speed up things while the pasta cooks.) Once shelled, return the clams to their juice.

As soon as the pasta is cooked slightly short of al dente, drain and add it to the vongole pan, together with the clam meats and juices, and the precious (and all-natural) flavor enhancer Colatura, tossing for a minute over a medium flame to blend the flavors. At this point, the aroma in the kitchen will force you to come to terms with the fact that there will be no leftovers.

Divide the seasoned pasta among four (warm) dishes and garnish with the remaining clams in their shells and, if you like, parsley. Uncork a bottle of chilled white wine and luxuriate.

Brasato al Barolo recipe

Classic, elegant and Piemontese. Quintessential "secondo" entrée, Brasato is ideally braised with the "king of wines" Barolo. Since this particular meat recipe yields 10 servings, I suggest you save it for a special occasion, and get a head start on the invitations.

As handed to me personally by Sonia in her divine Trattoria dai Saletta, in Torino:

1 1/2 kg (3.3 lbs) beef suitable for braising, in one piece (I used brisket–but sirloin and round are OK too), not too lean or it will be dry
1 1/2 liters (a bottle and a half) of Barolo or similar full bodied, tannic red wine
3 garlic cloves, halved
4 onions, minced
4 carrots, minced
a stalk of celery, minced
2 bay leaves
a sprig of rosemary
5 cloves
100 g (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil
A fistful of flour
Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Tie the meat with butcher's twine so it will keep its shape, dredge it lightly with flour and sear it in a pot with the oil. Once it’s well browned on all sides, add the minced vegetables, garlic, bay leaf, rosemary and cloves. Season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer over a low flame until the vegetables are translucent.

Pour in the wine to cover the meat completely, place the lid back on the pot and cook gently until the meat is done, about 2 hours, turning the roast occasionally.

When the meat is done remove it to a platter and discard the string, bay leaf and rosemary. Strain the cooking fondo, pour it over the meat, and serve. The meat will be so tender you'll carve it with a spoon.

Serve with mashed potatoes or steaming polenta, and the other vegetables you like (as long as not too obtrusive). And, of course, a bottle of Barolo.

More polenta recipes

Some of you don't dig cornmeal, and I totally get that. I didn't eat tomatoes and artichokes until I was 12, and now they're among my favorite vegetables. I'm still however nervous around liver and tripe, and anything involving innards, I am still learning to eat. So the polenta non-lovers will forgive me for this.

This post is for all you polenta advocates. A few days ago I posted a tomato sauce with short ribs and sausage as a polenta dressing. Today I want to tell you about how they do it in Modena, Val d'Aosta and a small village in Abruzzo called Castel del Monte.

1. Polenta Pasticciata Modenese

Modena's own Formula One polenta topping, better than a Ferrari: it races straight from the mouth to the thighs without even a pit stop.

First of all, make your basic polenta by following the steps illustrated in the recipe I posted a while back.

While someone takes a shift at stirring, assemble:

100 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
150 g (3/4 cup) Parmigiano, grated
200 g (1 cup) Gorgonzola cheese

Once the polenta is done and ladled onto wooden plates, fold in fistfuls of grated Parmigiano, flakes of butter and slices of sharp Gorgonzola.

Mix well, devour and thank God, Mother Earth, Buddha, Visnu and the entire Greek Pantheon.

Image © Roccoeisuoifornelli

2. Polenta alla Valdostana

Polenta of the taragna whole grain variety, is coarse and speckled with darker grains.

Again, begin by making your basic polenta by following the steps illustrated in the recipe I posted here, but let the taragna become a little more firm than your regular cornmeal polenta.

 

Image © Buttalapasta

While a kind soul takes over the stirring spoon, assemble:

200 g (1 cup) or more Fontina cheese cut in strips
50 g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter 

Once the polenta is thick and spooned onto wooden plates, toss in the cheese and butter, but beware: the heat of the polenta will melt the fondant Fontina. The effect could bring tears of joy to your eyes.


3. Polenta ai Finferli

These fairly bright yellowish orange wild mushrooms that are known by a variety of names, including Gallinacci or Galletti in Italy–and Chanterelles in France and the English speaking world–are among my favorite spores along with the mighty Porcini and the delicate and almost extinct Ovoli. This is a tasty basic sauce from Abruzzo, made with wild mushrooms that can easily dress fettuccine or polenta alike.

Begin by making your basic polenta by following the steps illustrated in the recipe I posted here.

You can make the mushroom sauce in advance, or on the day, provided you serve it piping hot spooned over the just-made polenta.
1 kg (2.2 lbs) finferli/chanterelle mushrooms
3 garlic cloves
A small bunch of Italian flatleaf parsley
100 g (1/2 cup) butter
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt

Carefully rinse the mushrooms with water, cut the stems and trumpet caps in half and put them in a skillet with the butter, oil and garlic. Cook at moderate heat, stirring often. When the mushrooms are cooked soft and still moist, remove from heat, add salt, and sprinkle with chopped parsley and, if you like, a few shavings of Parmigiano.

Once the polenta is done and ladled onto wooden plates, spoon generous amounts of the mushroom salsa on top. Pour yourself a glass of robust red wine, sit comfortably and blissfully enjoy your meal.

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that 

five or six days later you’re hungry again."

~ George Miller

Pasta e patate recipe

Don't let the name fool you, pasta with potatoes is a soup. Thick and hearty, but still, a soup.

It is usually prepared with pasta mista (pasta ammescata in Neapolitan dialect), which has recently been produced industrially as a distinct variety of pasta, but which was once sold cheaply by weight, made up of odd broken pieces of various different shapes of pasta.

The traditional cooking method for this kind of soup consists in cooking the condiments first, making the base of the soup, then throwing in the pasta. While cooking with all the other ingredients, the pasta retains precious starches, which would have been lost if normally cooked separately in salty water and then drained. Cooking pasta together with vegetables makes the sauce creamier; as a bonus, adding the secret ingredient* makes this a 100% authentic cucina povera specialty.

500 g (1.1 lb) small tubetti or mis-matched pasta (you can make your own with odd leftover pasta shapes, provided they all share the same cooking time)
500 g (1.1 lb) russet potatoes (best if old!), peeled and cubed
1 glass of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 white onion, minced
1 celery rib, minced
1 quart of beef broth
*200 g (1 cup) smoked provola, diced (can be substituted with any smoked semi-soft cheese)
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large stewpot equipped with a tight fitting lid. Sauté the onion and garlic and when they begin to tan, add the celery, simmer lightly, and season with salt and pepper.

Pour in 2 ladles of stock and add the cubed potatoes. Gently simmer over medium-low heat, and bear in mind the potatoes mustn’t purée.

Add the raw pasta and cook as you would risotto, ladling in broth a little at a time as it absorbs. The degree of thickness is determined by this key step. Too much stock will make your soup too liquid, too little will result in a soggy "neither fish nor flesh" dish. Keep hearty Italian minestre like Ribollita in mind as a texture model.

When the pasta is cooked through, rank up the heat and toss in the diced smoked cheese, stirring constantly. Cover and let the cheese melt and form lovely long springy ribbons.

One last turn of the peppermill and devour while still burning hot.

Pane di Altamura bread

I like the smell of bread bakeries. They're simply called "forni" here, ovens. You walk in and the aroma is intoxicating! I usually rip off a warm chunk of bread from a just-baked loaf and eat it as I walk home from the forno. The "fornaio" is the bread baker, a person usually covered in white flour, whose day is articulated by odd sleeping patterns. He bakes all night, delivers at dawn and sleeps all day.

Apart from slabs of warm pizza bianca, in my daily stop at the forno, I always buy a loaf of delicious Pane di Altamura, a regional specialty.

Image © Il Mangione

With over 300 varieties of wheat still cultivated to this day, Puglia is the Italian region with the highest biodiversity record of whole wheat production. A large choice of breads is therefore available. All the high quality breads from Puglia are however guided by the famous champion Pane di Altamura.

Altamura is a small town in the olive-clad hills of inland, central Puglia. The bread made here is unusual. It is obtained according to the ancient process employing either a basic leavening agent, like lievito madre (soudough starter yeast compound) or biga naturale, a pre-fermented starter–that add a deeper complexity to the final product–sea salt and water.

I once went on a weight loss program whose sole carb intake was constituted by thick slices of Pane di Altamura eaten on a daily basis. The diet eventually didn’t work because I doubled the dosage constantly, wolverine-style.

The crust is brown and rough, while the crumb is yellow, fluffy and deliciously sweet and savory at the same time. This particular bread lasts five days if stored properly in its paper bag the fornaio wraps it in, which makes it perfect for lazy bread consumers. Towards the last day it becomes a little chewy, but popping it in the oven will restore and exalt its original fragrance and texture.

Pane di Altamura bread is produced uniquely in its territory of origin, with wheat harvested exclusively in the vicinity of the town of Altamura. Every delicious loaf is therefore guaranteed by a DOP protected designation of origin indication. When buying your imported Altamura bread you’ll be certain of its delicious authenticity. There is infact only one genuine Pane di Altamura.

Shall I cut you a few slices for some bruschetta?

Happy Fat Tuesday, Italian Mardi Gras!!