A summer favourite
Spaghetti alle vongole is a dish that captures the essence of our summer. It speaks of family and friends gathered together for a lazy lunch by the seaside, or at home. The light and fresh flavours make it ideal for hot days as well as balmy nights.
The key to a perfect spaghetti alle vongole lies in the simplicity of the dish. Avoid recipes with a long list of ingredients. The flavours of the softened garlic and chilli infuse with the sweet, briny juices of the fresh clams steaming in a splash of white wine, creating a light, delicate sauce. Toss with al dente spaghetti, a spritz of freshly squeezed lemon juice and some zest, and before serving finish with a generous handful of chopped parsley. Straightforward yet deeply satisfying.
We rarely use butter, the cooking fat of northern Italy, but this is a dish where we consider it essential. Butter thickens the sauce and brings a glossy richness. We still cut it with extra virgin olive oil. Cooking with olive oil is a habit that is hard to give up in the Puglia kitchen, and we would miss its flavour, but it also slackens the texture of the sauce.
We use fresh chilli for its fruitier flavour, but dried chilli can be used instead. Often the garlic we buy from the market is younger (and stronger), in which case we use only one clove. Otherwise we might use more depending on mood and social situation, although the garlic should complement rather than overpower the clams!
Spaghetti is the classic pasta, but linguine works equally well. Sometimes we use troccoli, a type of fresh pasta widely used in the Foggia area, reminding us of visits to Vieste, on Puglia’s Gargano peninsula. Similar to spaghetti, the troccoli has a rougher, square shape. It is made using a special grooved rolling pin, called the “troccolaturo di bronzo” (from the Latin turculum), from which the pasta gets its name. Troccoli is ideal for other seafood and fish-based sauces.
Spaghetti alle vongole is such a part of our seaside summer that the increasing costs of the dish is one of the factors that has driven Italian holidaymakers, especially those in Puglia, to vacation in Albania for its lower prices!
For this you will need
- 500g spaghetti (dried)
- 1kg fresh clams
- 50g butter
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus more, as needed)
- 1–3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 fresh chilli pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
- 100ml dry white wine
- Generous bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- Zest of a small lemon, finely grated, plus juice
- Salt and pepper to season
Instructions
- Rinse the clams under cold, running water. Soak the clams in a bowl with salted water for a couple of hours to help them purge any sand. Change the water at least once (adding salt each time you do). Drain and rinse well.
- Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of salted boiling water until al dente—usually a couple of minutes under the recommended time. Reserve some of the pasta water for the sauce and set it aside.
- Prepare the sauce: While the pasta is cooking, put half the butter and all the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Soften the garlic and chilli, taking care not to let the garlic burn and become bitter!
- Add the clams: Drain the clams and add them to the pan, increasing the heat. Pour in the wine, cover, and leave for a couple of minutes until the shells have opened. Discard any that remain closed. We often take some clams out of their shells for variety, though we leave most sitting in their opened shells.
- Combine with spaghetti: Drain the spaghetti and add it to the pan along with the remaining butter. Add a splash of the reserved pasta water, lemon juice, and zest. Toss well, and leave for a couple of minutes with the lid on the pan. Allowing the pasta to sit in the sauce for a couple of minutes to absorb it is an essential part of cooking most pasta dishes. It allows the sauce to come together with the pasta, improving the flavour and becoming creamier.
- Finish and serve: Stir through the chopped parsley, season to taste, and serve. If the sauce needs to be slackened, add a little more of the pasta water and/or a drizzle of olive oil.
A note about the method: in some traditional recipes the clam broth is strained through a fine sieve and then reduced to thicker, before returning the clams and adding the pasta. In the summer heat, even in our outside kitchen, the less time spent over the stove the better. By thoroughly rinsing and soaking the clams, emulsifying the sauce with butter and letting the pasta sit in the sauce before serving, the sauce thickens without taking the extra step. In keeping with this dish, the simpler, the better!
More from the Puglia Kitchen | spaghetti all’assassina, Bari’s iconic pasta dish.
