My family first ate this dish while we were camping with friends at Donner Lake, and we were amazed at how easy it was to make a gourmet meal right from the campsite! This is great to make year round because it’s filling but not too heavy and it goes well with a glass of white wine (or two). We are back in Tahoe this weekend on Good Friday, so this was a nice, quick aprés-ski, hockey play-off watching, meatless meal. It’s a easy meal to pack to take along for cooking while camping or Airbnb-ing.
It can be hard to find fresh clams… so unless we make a trip to the coast, I normally use the canned version. This recipe serves 4.
Ingredients:
- 1 half of a 16 ounce (oz) package of dried Linguini
- 2-3 Tbls. Olive Oil
- 1/2 Cup Diced Onion
- 4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
- 1 Dash of Red Pepper Flakes (more if you like it spicy, less if you don’t)
- 1/2 tsp. Salt
- 3-4 Plum Tomatoes, seeded and diced (or a can of diced tomatoes if you don’t have fresh)
- 1/2 Cup White Wine
- 2 6.5 oz. Cans of Chopped or Whole Clams, with the liquid
- Graded Lemon-rind with 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
- 2 Tbsp. Butter
- 1/4 Cup Chopped Parsley
Steps:
- Add Linguini to a large pot of boiling salted water. Stir the pasta so it doesn’t stick together. Cook one minute short of package directions until “al dente”. It will cook a little more with the sauce.
- Heat olive oil over medium heat in a heavy sauce pan until glistening. Add onion and saute until it begins to soften. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and saute for one minute.
- Add tomatoes and salt and saute until tomatoes soften a little.
- Add white wine and simmer for several minutes. Add some of the wine to a glass, sip.
- Add clams with the clam juice, along with butter, lemon rind and juice and simmer until warmed through.
- Drain Linguine and put back into warm pan. Pour clams sauce over linguine, sprinkle with parsley, mix lightly and let the linguine absorb some of the sauce.
Enjoy with crusty bread