Quick and Easy Steamed Clams
By: Chris Manteria
Published: Friday, June 22, 2012 - 12:06pm

Ingredients




12 littleneck clams
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 cloves garlic - minced

Preparation

1 Clean your clams. Cleaning clams is very easy. 2 Fill your sink or a small container with enough room for the clams to be covered in water with cool clean fresh water. 3 Let the clams sit for 15 minutes. They will spit out most of their sand and the salt water they are retaining. 4 Brush the exterior with a stiff brush to clean the shells and refresh the water. 5 Let sit another 10-15 minutes and you are good to go. *Some people put a tablespoon of cornmeal in the water to help draw out the sand. I find it unnecessary. 6 Melt the butter in a large pan. 7 Sautee the garlic over medium high heat. 8 You want the garlic to get golden toasty but you do not want to burn the butter or the garlic. If you do you need to start over. 9 Add the white wine and clams. Toss to coat the clams. 10 Cover and steam until your clams open up. This should take roughly 5 minutes. Any clams that do not open you should throw away. 11 Once your clams are opened up put them in a bowl and serve them. Make sure that you keep that juice that was in the pan. It is a great combination of butter, garlic, wine and the juice given off by the clams themselves. Serve with the clams and some crusty bread for dipping.

About

Growing up we had fish on a pretty regular basis. When you live on an island and can drive less than 10 minutes to the nearest store where the catch of the day literally was what had just come off the boat within the last couple of hours why wouldn't you? It was inexpensive, tastes great and is generally pretty healthy for you. Now the inexpensive isn't what it used to be but it is still pretty healthy for you and easy to get on Long Island, just go down to Jordon's Lobster Farm in Island Park, NY and pickup fish, lobsters or other shellfish and you can make this quick and easy dish. Don't live in Long Island? I'm sure you can find a fish vendor by you who carries clams.