White Clam Sauce with Linguine

Wash the fresh clams (large hard-shell clams) under running water. Put them in a bowl of warm water. The clams will open in 10–20 minutes; change the water if needed to keep it warm. If the water is too cold, the clams will close again.

Using a small knife, open the clams completely. Reserve their juice and meat.

Separate the meat and juice using tongs. Rinse the meat gently in the juice, as there is still sand in it. Then slowly pour the clean juice into another bowl, leaving the sand behind.

In a large pan, sauté garlic with olive oil. Extra virgin oil is too strong for this recipe, use regular olive oil or rapeseed oil. When garlic turns brown, add clam meat and juice quickly.

When the sauce is boiling, add the cooking wine (or dry white wine) and the chopped parsley. Cook for 1–2 minutes, then turn off the heat. If you cook clams for too long, they lose their flavour and become chewy, so cook everything very quickly.

Add cooked linguine into the pan. Mix gently and serve. Garnish with more chopped parsley.