March 19, 2015 Lunch
Azuma New Recipe Dinner Poached Little
Neck clams in pasta and asparagus
I went to lunch with Suzette today at Azuma. We ordered Chirashi Donburi (boxes filled with
12 pieces of seafood laid on a bed of sushi rice, $14.95). I always order the same items: 2 pieces each
of salmon, octopus, aji tuna and ultra white tuna and 4 pieces of yellow tail. Suzette also ordered a hand held roll of
unagi rolled in a piece of toasted nori ($5.75).
After lunch I drove to Albertson’s and went to the Butcher’s
Block for the weekly special of jumbo 16 to 20 count shrimp for $6.99/lb. When I arrived at the Butcher Block I saw one
of my favorite items mahogany clams for the unbelievably low price of $1.99/lb.
I have bought these clams before and they are wonderful. About two inches across, the clam inside is
about to 1 to 1 1/2 inches across and makes a perfect bite full of rich clam
meat.
We were not hungry but finally at around 7:15 I asked if we
could cook the clams and Suzette agreed, perhaps because it was a wet cool evening.
We thought about just cooking then for a PPI for tomorrow night but I was
getting hungry and I asked if we could cook some spaghetti to add to the
clams. We looked for stock and I found about
24 oz. of the over salted leek and potato broth I had made two weeks ago. We added to it 8 oz. of butter, a cup of
white wine and about 1 Tbsp. of roasted garlic preserved in olive oil. Suzette heated this poaching medium and put in
the clams, while I started boiling water for the spaghetti.
When the water boiled I broke about 1/3 lb.
of spaghetti into thirds and put that into the boiling water for about ten
minutes. I then snapped the ends off 6
or seven stalks of asparagus and cut them into 1 inch sections and put them
into the poaching broth after most of the clams had opened and been removed.
I ran to the basement and fetched a bottle of Concannon Sauvignon
Blanc from California and put it into the freezer to chill. After another five minutes we drained the
spaghetti and put it into the poaching medium, which had now become our main
dish. After the clams were all shucked and
the spaghetti had cooked about five more minutes in the medium, we added the
clams back, added ½ cup of heavy cream to thicken and give the soup a milky
flavor and cooked the soup for a minute.
Suzette sliced 6 pieces of French baguette and toasted
them. I poured the wine and we were
ready to eat. We filled pasta bowls with
the clam, spaghetti, and asparagus soup/stew.
 |
| the one pot dinner |
Hot clam broth is one of my favorite accompaniments for
fresh poached clams and this dish had the light clam broth flavor and milky texture
I love, while also having threads of spaghetti and pieces of asparagus floating
around in the milk and broth soup. We
dipped toasted baguette into the soup and sipped white wine and had a great
meal.
On nights when we do not like to cook an elaborate dinner,
it is fun to fix a simple one pot dinner.
Tonight’s meal was the perfect answer to that urge toward simplicity while
still enjoying the richness of fresh clams.
Bon Appétit
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