Linguine with Clams My Way

There are countless recipes for linguine with clams across Italy. My version is very personal — born on a hot Gargano summer when I was 16 years old, alone in the kitchen, for the first time truly my own.

The Memory

I was 16, alone at home. I remember the heat — that dry summer heat of the Gargano. I had been wandering through the old covered market of the village — la Chiazzetta — and outside were the fishmongers with their fresh catch. The clams caught my eye, and the fishmonger had thrown some carpet shells into the bag too, just to make the numbers even. I came home and tried to cook them the way I had seen them made in restaurants — my mother had never cooked them. Perhaps it was my first real journey into cooking. Today it is one of my daughter's favourite dishes.

Ingredients

Serves 4

500g fresh clams (vongole veraci)
250g large carpet shells / lupine (also fine with clams only, or carpet shells only)
500g linguine
3 cloves of garlic
A bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 glass of dry white wine
1 lemon (optional — to taste)
Extra virgin olive oil — generous
Half a tbsp chilli oil or 1 fresh chilli, crushed
Salt to taste
1 tbsp coarse salt for purging

Method

Purge the clams and carpet shells

Place the clams and carpet shells in a bowl of fresh cold water with 1 tbsp of coarse salt. Leave them to purge for 20 minutes — they will expel any sand. Meanwhile, finely chop the parsley. At least 5 minutes before cooking the clams, put the pasta water on to boil.

Make the base

Pour the extra virgin olive oil and half a tablespoon of chilli oil (or the crushed chilli) into a wide pan. Turn on the heat. Crush the 3 garlic cloves with the palm of your hand and add them to the pan. Let them colour well until golden, then add the chopped parsley and stir.

Cook the clams and carpet shells

Drain and rinse the clams and carpet shells well. Add them to the pan and cover immediately with a lid — ideally a domed glass lid rather than a flat one, so you can watch the clams open without lifting it. After 3 minutes add the glass of white wine and let it evaporate. The clams will open in a few minutes. Discard any that remain closed.

Cook the pasta

Drop the linguine into the boiling salted water and cook until just under al dente — a couple of minutes less than the packet instructions. Drain, keeping back a ladle of pasta cooking water.

Bring it all together

Transfer the linguine directly into the pan with the clams. Add a ladle of pasta cooking water to create a flavourful broth. Toss everything together over high heat for a couple of minutes until the pasta has absorbed all the sauce. That is it — done.

Serve

Plate the linguine and finish with a generous drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil. If you like — and I do — squeeze fresh lemon juice directly over the finished plate. The lemon gives an extraordinary freshness and beautifully contrasts the heat from the chilli. Entirely to personal taste.

My tips

The clams must be very fresh — buy them on the day at the fish market.
A domed glass lid is important — it lets you see when the clams open without losing steam.
The pasta cooking water is essential — it creates that creamy broth that brings everything together.
Carpet shells have a harder shell than clams — they may take a minute or two longer to open.
The lemon is optional but I recommend it — it completely transforms the dish, adding freshness and cutting through the heat.
Never add cheese to clam pasta — it simply does not belong here.