SPAGHETTI WITH CLAMS.

An open and shut case.

Pasta and shellfish is always a good idea, but few recipes do the honours as brilliantly as Italy’s linguine or spaghetti alle vongole.

It might look simple, but there are no passengers here. It’s ‘al bianco’, white, so you can’t rely on easy old tomato.

This isn’t just pasta tossed with clams, it’s pasta infused with the essence of clams.

The aim is to get the flavour of the clams through the sauce – amplified - and therefore through the pasta, so that every mouthful is ‘clammy’.

So you have to make everything count.

A good white wine, that will add aroma and acidity.

Great olive oil; your best.

Fresh garlic, finely sliced. The garlic is important! The smell fills the kitchen, yet because it is cooked in the oil and wine, the strength is mellowed and sympathetic.

Fresh parsley.

A couple of small ripe tomatoes, finely chopped, for freshness (not traditional).

A touch of red chilli, which somehow picks up the flavour notes without interfering.

Great pasta. I still have stocks of my favourite Martelli, but there is great pasta out there, bronze-extruded for that little nubbly texture that sticks to the sauce like velcro.

And of course, fresh clams. (Also fabulous, pippies).

Buy them loose, and you’ll need to give them a scrub and purge – soak them in cold water for a couple of hours, changing the water once or twice.

Or seek out Myers Seafood’s Coffin Bay vongole, wild-caught from the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia; one of the best packaged shellfish products we have. Just give them a good rinse before cooking, in case of any residual grit.

Further Reading On the Spaghetti & Clams Curriculum:

In Allegro Al Dente, the pasta cookbook & opera CD that Terry and I put together with the uniquely wonderful Rinaldo di Stasio and rad designer Andrew Hoyne with photographer Rob Blackburn in a well-before-its-time 1994 (omigod), the recipe for spaghetti alle vongole in bianco is an absolute cracker.

Di Stasio’s chef, the late Valerio Nucci, was a master of pasta, creating benchmarks of taste that Melburnians still swear by.

Let me run you through his recipe. After scrubbing the clams and purging, fry bruised garlic cloves, black peppercorns, bay leaf and white wine until the wine has almost gone, before adding the drained clams. Cover, leave 2 minutes, give it a good shake, remove all opened clams. Repeat.

Strain the reserved juices through muslin and set aside, then start the ‘sauce’ for the pasta with olive oil and a crushed garlic clove, adding the reserved juices and clams long enough to toss and heat through. Freshly cooked, drained spaghetti is tossed quickly through, with a heap of finely chopped parsley. (Thanks Valerio, we miss you).

Another good idea comes from one of the River Café cook books – tagliarini with clams and tiny, nutty little coins of fried zucchini. Also in the running, their orecchiette with clams, garlic, red chilli, anchovy and broccoli, and a linguine with clams and finely shaved white asparagus.

And I like this idea, seen at Bert’s Bar and Brasserie in Sydney’s Northern Beaches - add a spoonful of fermented chilli or your chosen flavour kick by the spoonful.

The lesson is clear. Keep it simple, and let the juices of the shellfish inform the pasta. Also learned along the way: don’t add too many things (we had a marital about the addition of fresh tomato, ffs). And don’t be mingy with the extra virgin olive oil; it’s going to bring all those juices together. Let’s go.

SPAGHETTI AND CLAMS, FOR TWO.

• 150g spaghetti, spaghettini or linguine

• 500g small fresh live clams, ready to cook

• 125 ml white wine

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, more for serving

• 2 garlic cloves, very finely sliced

• 2 smallish tomatoes, finely chopped, juices kept

• A little red chilli or pinch of dried chilli flakes

• 2 tbsp roughly chopped parsley

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente.

While that’s happening, heat the white wine and olive oil in a lidded pan with the sliced garlic, allowing the wine to boil and get rid of its alcohol.

Chuck in the clams, slam the lid tight, and leave for 2 minutes over the heat.

Give the pan a big shake, then remove the lid and use tongs to quickly take out all the clams that have opened.

Slam the lid on again and give it another minute, another big shake, another taking out of all that have opened.

Taste the broth left in the pan, it should be divine - maybe a little salty, but that will be ameliorated by the rest of the sauce. If it feels sandy, strain through a fine sieve and return to the pan.

Add the chopped tomato and chilli, maybe some black pepper, and bring back to a simmer.

Add the clams and any residual juices to the sauce, tossing well to reheat, then add the drained pasta and toss well.

Scatter with parsley, bless with a good swirl of olive oil, and serve in warm pasta dishes.

500 grams is roughly 40 clams. I know this because I counted how many empty shells he had and I had, in the interests of gender equality.

Thanks for dropping by! And thanks for your comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Terry for being my number one wham-bam clam-pan shaker.

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I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Thank you for sharing your culture, traditions, knowledge, spirit, art, music, humour and food traditions, allowing us all to experience a greater sense of belonging in this ancient land.