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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 gr (1.1 lb) spaghetti
* 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
* 2 garlic cloves
* 1 dried peperoncino (or more to taste)
* 1/2 glass of dry, white wine (optional)
* 1 tablespoon Italian flatleaf parsley (optional), 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 cheesecloth.
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, 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.
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Tags: easy italian recipes
Posted in Gourmet cooking · March 8th, 2010 · Comments (0)
Japanese sushi has its own way of presenting in front of the customers. As you can see many of the cuisines around the world, give much significance to the way it is presented. So if you are a regular maker of sushi at home, it will be a good thought on put in some money on sushi plates so that you can also present it in a lovely way.
Most of the sushi chef equally consider the preparation and represent of sushi foods. So they definitely find time to select suitable utensil to present their food. To keep up the practice of sushi exhibit, you should also take care while selecting sushi plate set.
Along with sushi plates, you should also acquire some more accessories which will then support the sushi plate set. Balancing chopsticks holders should be selected for the chop sticks, which is used to eat the sushi. It will be delightful and more fitting if the chopsticks can be kept on the chopstick holders, rather than keeping them on the plate. For keeping your soy sauce and wasabi, some cute thin bowl should also be purchased. You can eat sushi after dipping the sushi in these side dishes which will give a pretty good flavor.
It is important that you take care of some points while eating the sushi. An excess use of soy sauce or wasabi will damage the original flavor of sushi. Pouring these items more in to your sushi food is considered as insulting the sushi chef. Hence you should take very small amount of soy sauce in to your plate and do not wasting it. Too much use of soy sauce and wasabi or wastage of these items is considered as rude behavior in sushi custom.
Along with the sushi plate, you should also buy a good quality tea set. It is traditional to serve green tea with sushi. Hence the use of an delightful and similar tea set will give a enjoyable look to the entire show. At some places in Japan, a rice wine called sake is seved instead of green tea.
Whatever be the drink along with the sushi, the selection of proper cups have an impact on the overall exhibit of the sushi. That is an important aspect in sushi food put on.
If you do not have the time to sit and have the sushi food, rather than using the chop sticks, you can use your hands. This is not considered as a bad manner. While you are sitting alone to have your sushi food , you don’t need to make use of the chopsticks.
You can take sushi foods when you are on a trip just like you are in a restaurant. Some take out restaurants provide suitable dipping cups for the soy sauce.
Ingrid F. Preube
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Tags: food
Posted in Gourmet cooking · February 11th, 2010 · Comments (0)