We had a wonderful week away in Cornwall recently so my next few posts will be overloaded with gorgeous sea views and beaches and just general amazingness of Cornwall.
Every time we visit, I make it a point to look for fresh clams so I can make big bowls of spaghetti vongole for dinner. Our go-to fishmonger is W Stevenson of Newlyn, and I just love looking through their display of fresh fish and shellfish caught from local waters. They sell dressed crab too, either in containers or in the shell in either white or a combination of white and brown meat.
Apart from clams, I also got a whole bunch of oysters, scallops and mackerel. G loves his scallops with fried bacon bits, whilst I just like mine plain with salt and pepper, fried in butter. We’re getting quite good at shucking oysters too – it was hilarious our first time trying to do it with just a butter knife. It worked, but the poor knife got bent at several points. I’ve learned now to pack an oyster knife just for this reason.
Look at this wonderful array of fresh, plump, juicy oysters. They had incredibly deep-cupped shells with sweet meat and briny juices but not overly salty. We had them with plenty of lemon juice and tabasco. No shallots this time because I forgot.
Instead of the usual pasta dish, this time I decided to do something a little different and I found this simple but delicious-looking recipe from stalwart of South East Asian cooking, Rasa Malaysia. So I didn’t have to lug multiple sauce bottles down to Cornwall just for one dish, I mixed the sauce up in advance in a small bottle and used that instead, which worked really well. To prep the clams, I cleaned them under running water first, then discarded the ones that remained open. Then I soaked them in liberally salted water for an hour to purge the sand out, and gave them another rinse after. I used pretty much the same recipe, just doubled up the sauce ingredients and changed the proportion of aromatics slightly. Do have it with plenty of rice or bread to soak up the sauce because it is so more-ish and it will be such a waste not to eat it all up.
Taiwanese Stir-Fry Clams
Serves 2, or 4 with other side dishes
1 kg clams
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 inches ginger, peeled, sliced and cut into thin matchsticks
2 fresh red chillies, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 spring onions – slice white part finely, slice green part into 2 inch lengths
Sauce ingredients:
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp rice wine
1/2 tsp sesame oil
- Heat a wok over high heat and add in the oil. When the oil is shimmering and smoking, add in the ginger and chillies and stir for a minute until fragrant. Then add in the garlic and white parts of the spring onions and stir for another minute.
- Add the clams and toss to mix. Stir in all the sauce ingredients and cover with a lid to steam until the clams have just opened. Top up initially with a quarter cup of water (you may need up to half a cup of water), tasting along the way until the seasoning tastes just right. Discard clams that haven’t opened up.
- Add in the green parts of the spring onions and do a final stir to wilt them slightly and serve immediately with boiled rice or bread.
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