Budget childhood meal. Parsley from the garden, clams from a can. All out of linguine but sauce holding Fusilli was available.
Cost per person: $3.33 It, um,used to be cheaper. But canned protein costs have grown faster than inflation over the last 4 decades.
This is tempting to make for myself. I like seafood, husband does not. Sad, as we live near the ocean and he’s descended from Sicilians.
Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has dreaded the Christmas dinner at my mom’s house because it’s going to evolve all the fishes.
I was raised in a Sicilian kitchen. But I grew up in formally Mexican held territory. So very few of my comfort foods are Italian.
Feast of the Seven Fishes! Lol he hated it. His brother still does that, but we don’t. They’d have ravioli for Christmas, apparently! Since I’m Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas, we do whatever food he wants for Christmas!
Mexican food is amazing! Wish I didn’t have the cilantro gene though.
That looks very juicy and flavorful. Having said that, reading ‘clams from a can’ gives me a physical reaction, and not in a good way 😄 , so im just gonna pretend those are pieces of cured ham instead.
My wife had multiple physical reactions while I ate this. I made her, per request, hummus with honey hot. I had her finish hers before I started mine because I knew goo in that she wasn’t going to like any aspect of this at all.
Cured ham or guanchala is definitely a legit option here. But no butter or olive oil. Just rendered pork fat. Maybe some pecorino paste instead of the clam juice.
That looks awesome! Personally I prefer it with spaghetti or linguine or bucatini, but it’s an absolute banger of a dish. Not to mention, if you can manage to get your hands on some good fresh clams, it’s even better.
Linguine with clam sauce is basically just a standard olive oil-garlic pasta with some clams added. Delicious.
You forgot the parsley and red pepper flakes. Get closer to the French border and you might see butter instead of olive oil. And some people add a little splash of white wine to give it a little bit of acid and brighten it up.
One of my favorite new cooking shows is Culinary Class Wars, and it introduced me to the concept of things being “easy to eat.”
Having things with wildly different sizes makes them harder to eat. I think pairing the clams with rotini would be a lot easier than spaghetti.
Looks delicious!
Yeah, the folds of the pasta can grab the clams a lot easier than a straight pasta. I’m thinking everyone before now has been doing it wrong if they are using linguini with chopped clams. Linguini makes sense if you are fishing whole clams out of a shell. But not if you are going with chopped or minced like you get out of a can.
I never liked spaghetti and preferred linguine as easier to fork up, but the older I get the more I like rotini for its sauce grabbing properties.
I liked angel hair because it cooked faster. But these days I’m reaching more and more for the rotini for that sauce hold.
Never thought about using clams. I always use canned tuna or chicken.
Save the clam juice and use the technique where you finish cooking the pasta in the pan with a little pasta water, but also add in the clam juice.
