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Prep time
10 minutes
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Cook time
20 minutes
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Serves
4
Author Notes
Once the ingredients are prepped, the meal comes together very quickly. While the pasta cooks, the clams, garlic, parsley, white wine, and lemon juice simmer, doing their job effortlessly in a separate pan. Hopefully you'll feel like a hero as you toss the pasta with the clams (or at least I did that night, now many years ago). Most of the time, all of the clams open and the result is very satisfying, and a wonderful surprise if you’ve got an audience of small children.
Adapted and tweaked over the years from an old Gourmet recipe (May 2002). —Amanda Moose
Test Kitchen Notes
Featured in: The Lemony, Garlicky Pasta That Helped Me Outsmart My 2-Year-Old. —The Editors
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Ingredients
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1/2 cup
extra-virgin olive oil
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8
garlic cloves, thinly sliced
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3 pounds
fresh Manila clams or small littleneck clams, rinsed several times in cold water
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1/2 cup
roughly chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
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1/2 cup
dry white wine
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1/4 cup
fresh lemon juice
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1 pound
linguine
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Red pepper flakes, to taste
Directions
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Heat oil in a heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add sliced garlic and sauté until light brown, a little less than 1 minute. Add clams and 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley; stir 2 minutes. Add wine; simmer 2 minutes. Add fresh lemon juice. Cover and simmer until clams open, about 6 minutes. Discard any clams that do not open.
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Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite. Reserve about a cup of the pasta water. Drain pasta.
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Add pasta to clam mixture and toss to coat. Season to taste with salt and red pepper flakes, if using. Add pasta water in small increments as needed. Transfer to a large bowl. Sprinkle with remaining parsley.
Amanda Moose was Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, in partnership with The Julia Child Foundation, and was previously Special Assistant to President Obama from 2012 to 2017.
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