Home › The World's Kitchen › Steamed Soft Clams
Steamed Soft Clams
Plunge thirty-six fresh soft clams in fresh water, thoroughly brush and wash them several times, drain and place in a saucepan with a gill water. Cover the pan, place on the fire for five minutes, then set in the oven for twenty-five minutes. Take from the oven, lift up the upper shell of each, arrange them on a large dish over a folded napkin, decorate with six quarters lemon and a little parsley greens; strain the gravy through a cheesecloth into a small tureen and send all to the table with a little melted butter separately.
A straightforward steamer preparation from a period when clams were cooked far longer than we would tolerate. The one change worth making is the timing.
- A gillHalf a cup of water, no more. The clams release a great deal of their own liquor once they open, and that liquor is the point of the dish.
- Thirty minutes is far too longSoft-shell clams open in five to eight minutes over a good heat and are done the moment they do. The additional twenty-five minutes in the oven will leave them shrunken and tough. Skip the oven step entirely.
- Purging the sandSoft clams (steamers) hold grit in the siphon. An hour in cold water salted to roughly a third of a cup per gallon lets them expel it; plain fresh water, as directed here, kills them and they purge less. Rinse and brush the shells afterward as the recipe says.
- Sorting before and afterDiscard any clam with a cracked shell or one that does not close at all before cooking, and any that stays shut after steaming.
- Strain the broth, and mean itCheesecloth is specified for a reason: whatever sand the clams did not give up in soaking ends up in the pan. Let the liquid settle a minute first and pour off the top, leaving the last spoonful behind.
- The napkinThe folded napkin under the clams is not decoration. It soaks up the liquid that drains from the shells so the platter does not turn into a puddle.
- The siphon skinEaters normally slip the dark sheath off the long neck before dipping. It is edible but tough; this recipe does not mention the step.
- YieldThirty-six clams will serve three or four as a first course, though the recipe's six lemon quarters suggest it was laid out for as many as six. Serve the broth for dipping and drinking, and the melted butter after.
Soft-shell clams, Mya arenaria, are the steamers of the North Atlantic coast, dug out of tidal mud flats rather than dredged, and they were cheap enough in the nineteenth century to be treated as everyday food from Maine to Long Island. This preparation is essentially the clambake reduced to a saucepan: clams, their own liquor, drawn butter, lemon. Filippini's International Cook Book was compiled by a man who spent decades at Delmonico's in New York, which explains why a mud-flat supper arrives here with a folded napkin, lemon quarters, parsley and a separate tureen of broth. The dining-room dressing is restaurant practice laid over a dish that fishermen ate straight from the pot.