Linguine and Clams is such a classic pasta. Featured in more movies than I can count, it is almost the quintessential Italian-American pasta dish. There is good reason for this; it's absolutely delicious!
I've been craving Linguine and Clams for a while now and thought it would make a great dish for 30 minutes or less. In fact, it took me only about 20 minutes to put this all together from start to finish. I served the pasta with a light salad of mixed greens drizzled with olive oil, white wine vinegar, and a little salt and pepper.
I used canned clams for this for two simple reasons. The first is that whole clams need to be soaked for at least a few hours and cleaned prior to use. That can't be done in under 30 minutes. The second reason is that I actually prefer canned clams in this. The juice from the clams makes a delicious sauce, and the clams are tender and flavourful without being sandy.
Okay, enough chit-chat; let's get to it.
12:20 - Getting Started
I actually made this for lunch, but it works just as well for dinner.
To start I filled a large pot with hot salted water, put it on the stove on high, and put a lid on it. Covered pots boil about 30% quicker than pots that aren't covered. This is one of those simple tips from my understanding cooking terms guide that makes a real difference in the kitchen.
12:21 - Garlic
With the pot on and starting to heat up, I got down to business prepping my ingredients. The first was a few cloves of garlic.
I cut the ends off the garlic, crushed them a little, pulled the peel off and then thinly sliced it. I set it aside.
12:23 - Onion
With the garlic done and out of the way I went about slicing an onion. First I cut the top and bottom off, then I cut the onion in half down through the middle. I set aside half the onion for another time and removed the peel from the half I kept. With the onion peeled all that was left was to slice it.
I always suggest slicing onions with the grain as opposed to across them. They cook better and less onion juice ends up spraying into the air. So, you cry less.
12:25 - Parsley
The last bit of chopping I had to do was the parsley. I took about ¼ cup of curly parsley that had already been washed and chopped it up until it was fairly fine.
The trick for chopping parsley is to bunch it up into a tight ball and slice it as thin as you can. Then go over one or two more times with your knife.
12:26 - Clams
At this point I was pretty much just waiting for the pasta water to boil so I opened up my clams and set them aside. I left the lid slightly attached because I wanted to be able to easily strain the liquid from the clams. This liquid will go into our sauce, but if the clams get added at the same time they will become rubbery, which is not what we want.
Clams have more uses than pasta. They also earn their place in my seafood chowder.
12:30 - Boiling
Okay, so I had to wait another 4 minutes for the pasta water to boil. Once it did start boiling, I turned the pan on for the sauce to medium then added the linguine to the water.
12:31 - Sauce
I let the pan heat up for about a minute then added in olive oil and butter. Once the butter melted the onions went in. Remember, always preheat your pan before adding oil -- it makes a real difference in how your ingredients cook.
12:33 - Garlic
I cooked the onions for about two minutes then added the garlic. I cooked this for another two minutes then added in the white wine and reduced it until it was almost completely evaporated, then I added some pepper and the juice from the clams. I turned the heat up and cooked this for 3 or 4 minutes.
12:37 - Pasta
At 12:37 I drained the pasta and then added the remaining ingredients into the sauce. That was the clams, parsley, a bit of butter, a bit of salt and the drained pasta.
The extra bit of butter at the end helps to thicken and enrich the sauce. Don't leave it out. It's really important.
12:39 - Finished
At 12:39 I plated the pasta, put some washed mixed greens in a bowl and drizzled them with a bit of olive oil, white wine vinegar, and salt and pepper. Just like that, dinner was done!
Final Thoughts
This is one of my all-time favourite pastas and I genuinely think it's one of the best things you can make in under 20 minutes. If you enjoy simple, flavourful seafood dishes, give this a try -- it's absolutely worth it.
If you like this garlic and white wine pan sauce, this shrimp scampi runs on the same flavours and cooks even faster.
Recipe
Linguine and Clams
Ingredients
- ½ box Linguine I used gluten-free
- 1 can baby clams
- ¼ cup curly parsley chopped
- 3 cloves garlic sliced
- ½ ea onion sliced
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ cup White wine
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add in the pasta.
- Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat and add the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter.
- Add the onions into the pan and cook for 3 minutes or until they start to soften.
- Add in the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Season with a bit of pepper and add the wine.
- Cook until the wine has almost completely evaporated.
- Add the juice of the clams, turn the heat up to medium high and cook until reduced by ¾'s
- Drain the pasta and add into the sauce along with the clams, and parsley.
- Season the pasta with salt and pepper to taste and toss.
- Serve
