Red

Spaghetti Alle Vongole Rosso

What’s on the menu is determined by what’s on sale sometimes, rather than what you’d like to have for dinner. The vine tomato was on special pricing at a near by market – 99 cent per pound. I doubt out of season tomatoes have full flavor but they looked so darn cute! It’s time to replenish lycopene in my body?

I don’t know much about Italian but I think rosso means red and the type of pasta dish using clams is called vongole. This is not a complicated recipe though you need to give plenty of time for the clams to spit sand out before cooking so obtain clams the day before. Biting into sandy clams is an unpleasant experience of course! In that case, you may spit discretely into your napkin.

Here is easy way to remove sand from clams – prepare a deep casserole dish by inserting a drainage rack. Lay the clams in a single layer. Pour enough salt water (1 Tablespoon salt dissolved in every 500cc water) to cover most of its body but leave the top of the shell slightly exposed. Put a long chopstick or ruler across the casserole dish (this will prevent the newspaper from falling into the dish). Cover with 3-4 layers of newspaper on top. Leave it in a dark place for at least 1 hour but overnight if you can as you will have more success. Clean the clam’s shell with a stiff vegetable brush under running water. See a similar method here. 

Ingredients and instructions for 2-3 servings (print recipe here)

For Homemade tomato sauce yield approximately 4 cups Note: you need only 2 cups from this. Refrigerate the rest for later use.

• 1/2 medium onion minced
  
• 6 medium fresh tomatoes; cook in boiling water for 1 minute then immediately plunge in ice cold water to peel skin. Finely chop them and reserve the liquid
• Olive oil 2 Tablespoons
• Dry basil 1 teaspoon or fresh basil chopped 3 Tablespoons
• Salt

1. Heat olive oil in a thick pan at medium heat. Add onion and cook until transparent. Do not brown.
2. Add basil and when it gets fragrant add chopped tomatoes and liquid. Simmer till soft 20 – 25 minutes.
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3. Crush the tomato with potato musher or immersion blender for smoother texture then salt to taste.Note: add a can of tomato sauce (1/2 cup to 1 cup) to enhance the flavor if you prefer stronger taste
   

For Vongole

• Olive oil 3 Tablespoons
• Garlic 2 cloves minced
• Anchovies (I used oil pack) 4
• Red dried whole hot pepper 1-2
• Clams 15 to 25
• White wine 4 Tablespoons
• Homemade tomato sauce (recipe above) 2 cups.
• Spaghetti noodle 10-15 oz.
• Dry or fresh parsley (optional)

1. Start boiling plenty of water with 2-3 Tablespoons salt in a large pot for spaghetti. Cook spaghetti al dente and reserve 1/4 cup of cooking water.
2. In a large frying pan heat olive oil at low heat. Add garlic, anchovies and red pepper. Chop up anchovies while sautéing; cook about 5 minutes to infuse red pepper into oil. Do not brown garlic.
3. When the garlic starts getting aromatic, put in the sand-purged clams then pour wine in. Turn the heat up to high to evaporate alcohol. Remove red pepper and discard
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4. Lower the heat to medium. Add home made tomato sauce and cook until clams start opening up.
   
5. Add cooked spaghetti plus reserved cooking water if needed to thin the sauce.
6. Toss gently to coat spaghetti with tomato sauce. Sprinkle with parsley and serve hot. Buon appetito!

 

Around corner from Living Room Theater in downtown Portland where we viewed a Japanese film called ‘Like Father, Like Son’ we stopped by for an early supper at Boxer Ramen.My choice of tonkotsu ramen was (almost ) a knock out. The pork belly had a nice jab to it.Whimsical interior I liked. The movie was thought provoking and had its charm. My husband started crying in the middle of the movie. I pretended not to notice.

The multi talented singer/actor Masaharu Fukyuyama produced many hit songs. I’m huge fan of his and have several CDs. Click above to enjoy one of my favorite music video of his. Have a beautiful week!