White Clam Sauce

Clam sauce is a fantastic way to spice up any pasta dish.  Traditionally linguine is the pasta of choice when you see this dish mainly because unlike spaghetti linguine is flat whereas spaghetti is round.  Flat past has a larger surface area to absorb the juices of the sauce verses round.  However you wouldn't want to use a super flat pasta like tagliatelle because of its size would overwhelm the dish.  In other words stick with linguine.

So with any shellfish sauce the shellfish must be cleaned thoroughly to get rid of any sand or other ocean particles that might not be edible.  

So what kind of clams do we go with:  there are several varieties to choose from:  In order of size from smallest to largest Little Neck, Top Neck, Steamer, Cherry Stone, and Quahog.  I have found in making this dish that the smaller you go the tastier the sauce.

Ingredients: White Clam sauce
2 pounds little neck clams fresh with shells
4 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of fresh garlic
6 tablespoons of butter
5 stems of fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Clean your clams and place them aside do not remove the shells because they are the main ingredient in creating the sauce.

Get a large and add olive oil and garlic and soften for about one minute then add your your clams with shells in the pot and cover on high heat for about 3 minutes this process is called "sweating"  what you are doing is allowing the heat from the oil and steam from the moisture of the clams to create the sauce.

After the three minuets have passed add the butter this create more liquid to coat your pasta.  Let this simmer out for about 15 minuets and make sure you stir continuously as you do not want the garlic to burn or the clams to get overdone.  2 minutes before you remove the clams chop up the fresh parsley and incorporate in the sauce also add salt and pepper to taste.  When your sauce is in the simmer stage start your linguine so that when your sauce is done you combine them together.