Steam clams

Video: Steamed Clams - Cooking Live Littleneck Clams to perfection in 10 minutes - PoorMansGourmet

Content

Ingredients
To step
Method 1 of 2: Making flavorful steamed clams
Method 2 of 2: Make butter-steamed clams
Tips
Warnings
Necessities

So, you know how to open clams (or beach gapers) in case you want to eat them raw. You also know how to make "clam diggers", although that doesn't really have much to do with the animal, the clam. But how the hell do you make good old steamed clams? For those who don't like to eat an animal while it's alive, and for those who just don't like it when they have to pry open clam shells with a blunt knife, there is a solution that is delicious too. All you have to do in this recipe is clean and soak your clams, quickly make a white wine sauce, and steam the clams. Et voilà!

Ingredients

1.3 kg of clams
Water (or white wine)
2 sliced onions (optional)
1/4 teaspoon thyme (optional)
2 sprigs of parsley (optional)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (+/-)
Unsalted butter
Sea salt
Optional - other aromatic herbs / spices you might like to add are fennel and / or bay leaves, a few threads of saffron, finely chopped chilli, etc.

To step

Method 1 of 2: Making flavorful steamed clams

Inspect the clams. Place clams on a clean, dry kitchen towel and run through it slowly with your hands. Throw away the clams that don't look normal or are already open in the trash Outsideotherwise their stench will quickly become predominant in the house.
Prepare the clams. Have something like a bucket, tub, or sink that you can soak the clams in. The soaking process will clean the clams before cooking.
- Make a weak brine solution - 1/3 cup of salt, with no iodine added (iodine kills clams) on 3.7 liters of water should work.
- Let clams soak in the brine for about fifteen minutes to remove all sand from both the inside and the outside of the clam. Fresh water works quite well too.
- Pour the brine with clams into a colander and rinse with cold water.
- Shake the clams back onto the tea towel you used to wear them on before. Gently rub them dry to remove the last sand.
Place the cleaned clams in a large kettle, wide pan or pan wok. Add 1/2 cup of water for every 453 g of clams. Layer the clams in the pan with the water (or white wine). Put a lid on the pan, put the pan on the stove and turn the heat under it high.
- At this point you can choose to add the aromatic ingredients mentioned above. They are not essential, but if you want to give the clams more flavor you must use the extra ingredients or some of them. Remember, the amounts are set at 1.3kg of clams so you may need to use more or less of the extra ingredients depending on how many clams you want to prepare. If you do choose to add them, now is the time to do so.
Steam the clams. Allow enough time for the clams to open - this will be accompanied by a bang and a puff of steam, and it can happen after 2-3 minutes or after 5-10 minutes, depending on the type of clam. If some don't open in time, you can throw them away because they were probably already dead. However, the cook Stephanie Alexander advises to steam the clams that do not open again because the clams sometimes have a very firm and strong grip on the shell (make sure you remove the clams that have already opened from the pan , because they are ready).
Order. Remove the open clams from the cauldron or whatever you cooked them in and place them on a platter, perhaps with a little of the stock over top. Half lemons, or quarters, and a little bit of sea salt here and there, add a delicious accent to the dish.
Serve hot with melted butter. You can put bread on the table to soak up the moisture.

Method 2 of 2: Make butter-steamed clams

After cleaning, put the clams somewhere for later.
Take a large pan and melt 60 g of butter in it. Add as much water as needed to cover the clams almost completely.
Wait for the water and butter mixture to boil. Add 6 to 12 clams, depending on the size.
Season to taste. Garlic is recommended.
Wait for the shells of the clams to pop open. Let the clams cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
Serve on a plate with lemon and / or garlic butter. Eat and enjoy.
- Chili sauce is also nice to add.

Tips

Pay close attention to which clams do not open after steaming and make sure you have them there all of them gets away. Try them not even if they don't sound hollow - they could be mudders, just full of mud and perhaps rotten flesh.
Don't forget that this one very salty dish; Clams have a naturally salty taste (since they live in or near the ocean's edge), and the added salt will only enhance this flavor. If you have too much sodium in your body, or if you just don't like salt, add less salt.
Garlic adds a delicious flavor to the clams. Simply chop some fresh garlic cloves very finely and add while steaming or if the clams are already steamed.
Sea salt can be added to the butter dip for extra flavor.
When you first eat clams, you need to steam them if you want to appreciate their taste and texture. It is hardly ever a good idea to eat them raw right from the start, straight from half the shell; that is a taste that you will have to get used to.
Clams live in muddy and sandy estuaries. They are mainly found in the Eastern United States and France, but since the word "clam" is a collective term for about 500 types of bivalve molluscs they can be found all over the world. For that reason, names differ from region to region and country to country. Therefore, the basic rule is that smaller clams are tender and will therefore cook faster (as steaming is a quick method), while medium-sized clams are better braised, stuffed, and baked, and large clams are best suited to simmering and cooking dishes. stew until tender, like chowders and soups (the large clams have more meat but less flavor).
Littlenecks (the smallest variety of the American Clam clam species in the US, which can also go by the names quahog, lord, baby, or Manila depending on the size) are the ideal clams to cook with this method because they have the most flavor. to have. In Australia it is probably best to steam the vongole, but watch out for small pearls as they can break your teeth. In addition, the pee and the surf are also good choices. British clam aficionados should look for the palourde or the carpet shell, which live along the British coast and are grown in France.