Spaghetti in White Wine, Butter Sauce with Clams
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10 to 15 minutes
Serves: 4–6
A perfectly light, buttery, and garlicky late-summer dish that is still relatively light, this recipe calls for middleneck clams — slightly larger than littlenecks — and fresh, homemade spaghetti. You can use store-bought spaghetti or fettuccine depending on how much time you have. The sauce will adhere best to pasta with a rough surface texture. Take care not to oversalt, a measured amount for the pasta water will help prevent the sauce from getting too salty from the water released by the clams during cooking.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon fine sea salt
1 head of garlic, peeled, keep 3 cloves whole, thinly slice remaining cloves
4 ounces sourdough, crusts removed, cut into ½-inch pieces
4 dashes Worcestershire
4 dashes Old Bay hot sauce (yes, it is a thing)
2 tablespoons plus ¼ cup olive oil, plus more for serving
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, plus more for serving
⅓ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 pounds middleneck clams (about 24), scrubbed
12 ounces linguine or spaghetti (about ¾ Egg Yolk Dough recipe, freeze the remaining pasta for up to 1 month)
¾ cup finely chopped parsley
Note: Instead of Worcestershire, you can use 2 oil-packed anchovy fillets. I don’t eat them but they would help provide umami you get with fish sauce — not fishiness.
Preparation
Bring 1 tablespoon fine sea salt and 10 cups water to a boil in a large pot.
Chop 3 garlic cloves in a food processor and add bread, pulsing until you have fine crumbs.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumb mixture and cook, stirring often, until crumbs become crisp, about 6 minutes.
Transfer to a medium bowl. Add lemon zest, salt to taste, and toss to combine; set aside.
Wipe out pot with paper towels.
Heat ¼ cup oil in pot over medium heat. Add thinly sliced garlic and cook, stirring often, until golden, about 3 minutes.
Add Worcestershire, red pepper flakes, Old Bay hot sauce, white wine, and simmer until only a couple of tablespoons of liquid are left in the pot.
Add clams and toss to combine. Cover and cook until clams open, about 5–7 minutes. Transfer open clams to a medium bowl. If any clams are still closed, cover pot again and cook a few more minutes, then transfer to bowl with others (discard any clams at this point that have not opened). Leave liquid in pot.
Cook pasta according to package directions, subtracting 3 minutes from the recommended cook time. If using fresh, homemade pasta, cook pasta in boiling water 1-2 minutes. Reserve 2 cups pasta cooking liquid. Transfer pasta to pot with clam liquid. Add 1 cup pasta cooking liquid and bring to a boil. Cook, tossing constantly and adding more pasta cooking liquid, 1 tablespoon at a time if needed until pasta is al dente and sauce is glossy and thick enough to cling to noodles, about 1-2 minutes.
Remove from heat. Add butter and toss until melted. Add parsley and sprinkle one-third of breadcrumbs over pasta, toss to combine. (Add more or less breadcrumbs, depending on how much liquid is in bottom of the pot. This will absorb some of the sauce but don’t add too much or it will become too dry).
To SERVE
Divide pasta among shallow bowls, top with reserved clams, more breadcrumbs, red pepper flakes, parsley, and a drizzle of oil.
