Farm to table has been all the rage for quite a while. Clams from the bay to the table for a, not so quick, appetizer are pretty darn nice. The bay in Westhampton is a great source for clams. It is a little work, but equipped with a couple clam rakes, my daughter Jenn and I were able to dig up a dozen clams in about 30 minutes.
Our daughter Jennifer and I digging for clams at low tide
Sometimes the digging is easier than others. The whole time we were digging the other day, I kept thinking about the expression an old co-worker at General Foods used to use: “Happy as a clam at high tide”. The guy was very impressed with his Harvard MBA. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but when digging for clams at high tide, I remember him.
Simple Baked Clams
1 dozen clams
½ cup Panko bread crump
¼ cup butter
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 tablespoon pesto
2 tablespoons Italian parsley chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1/3 cup salt in 1 gallon of water (to purge clams of sand)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Place clams in salted water (1/3 cup ton 1 gallon water) for 20 to 60 minutes to purge clams of sand
Place clams in a pot cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes until clams open. As the pop open pull them out of the water and place them on a baking sheet to allow to cool. Once they are cool, pull off one shell and cut the clam muscles to remove the meat from the shell, placing the loose clam back on the half shell (See the stories below)
Melt butter in a small pan and add garlic and simmer for 10 minutes on a low heat
Add panko, ½ cup pf Pecorino Romano and pesto combining to a course mix
Place a teaspoon on the crumb/butter mixture on top of each clam, then top with generous sprinkle og cheese and then bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes
Cutting the muscles is important
We once went to a very nice wedding on the Ocean. Our friends have done extremely well (Chairman of a large Corporation) and had a beautiful wedding for their daughter on the beach. No expense was spared at the wedding and there was a wonderful raw bar at the reception. One problem, the staff had only cut one side of the clam muscles. Here were all these beautifully dressed guests in their Sunday finest trying to eat their clams without leaking cocktail sauce on their clothes because the clam muscles hadn’t been completely cut. The moral of this story, all the money in the world won’t save you from a mess if you don’t cut the clam muscles.
A wonderful wedding raw bar with both clam muscles cut
Mary On The Half Shell
This statue is very popular in the Italian neighborhoods of New York. When our kids were younger we used to always go to New York at Christmas. One of our family traditions was to drive around with my buddy John Nangle to look at Christmas lights. Uncle John was quick to point out tacky displays of nativity scenes which he called “Holy Molies. John’s favorite level of tackiness was when a yard displayed a tacky daily double of both a set of “Holy Mollies and Mary on the Half Shell”.
Mary on the half shell statue
The kicker to this story is that one year when our son Brian was about 9, we came back from New York to Memphis to view lights. Our neighborhood had a lighting contest each holiday season. After viewing the lights with Uncle John in New York and the winners of the contest in Memphis, Brian proclaimed: “Dad…to win, next year we need TACKY”.
Brian and his son Declan on the other side of the dunes from the Bay
At the end of the day, there is something pretty special about fresh ingredients
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