On Blairgowrie beach, you can wade out for a quarter mile and the water is still just waist-deep. You will often see people bending over in the shallows searching for clams (known as pipis) - vongole to the Italians.
Not that it's a difficult search at all, just plunge your hands in and you can feel them in the sand. I think there's a daily bag limit, but they don't appear in any danger of being fished out any time soon.
Yesterday a woman was patiently filling a bag with the little bivalves and I asked her if she was looking forward to pasta with clams for dinner. She said "No, I hate them myself, I only cook them for the family!"
That's dedication - she should send her family out to fetch 'em.
When you get pipis from the sea yourself, soak them in a bucket of salted water for twelve hours so that they expel sand and any other impurities.
Then they're ready to eat.
Cook your pasta. I use linguine for this dish. Throw your pipis in a pan with a dash of olive oil, a slurp of white wine - maybe half a glassful - and some finely chopped parsley and crushed garlic. Do not burn the garlic. Shake the pan, cook for a few minutes. The pipis will open out. If you have the lid on the pan you will hear them rattling around as they open.
Now toss in some cream - a dessertspoon or two - and swirl your pan around until the sauce is of a uniform consistency.
Drain the pasta and pour the pipis, shells and all, over the pasta in a large serving dish. Squeeze some lemon juice, add a little cracked pepper and maybe some extra parsley and away you go. Slurp those beautiful pipis out of their garlicky, creamy shells and enjoy the slinky, lemony pasta.
Sauvignon blanc is ideal with this (if you like it - if you don't, a verdelho will do. Or a beer. I don't care. It's about the food.)
Not that it's a difficult search at all, just plunge your hands in and you can feel them in the sand. I think there's a daily bag limit, but they don't appear in any danger of being fished out any time soon.
Yesterday a woman was patiently filling a bag with the little bivalves and I asked her if she was looking forward to pasta with clams for dinner. She said "No, I hate them myself, I only cook them for the family!"
That's dedication - she should send her family out to fetch 'em.
When you get pipis from the sea yourself, soak them in a bucket of salted water for twelve hours so that they expel sand and any other impurities.
Then they're ready to eat.
Cook your pasta. I use linguine for this dish. Throw your pipis in a pan with a dash of olive oil, a slurp of white wine - maybe half a glassful - and some finely chopped parsley and crushed garlic. Do not burn the garlic. Shake the pan, cook for a few minutes. The pipis will open out. If you have the lid on the pan you will hear them rattling around as they open.
Now toss in some cream - a dessertspoon or two - and swirl your pan around until the sauce is of a uniform consistency.
Drain the pasta and pour the pipis, shells and all, over the pasta in a large serving dish. Squeeze some lemon juice, add a little cracked pepper and maybe some extra parsley and away you go. Slurp those beautiful pipis out of their garlicky, creamy shells and enjoy the slinky, lemony pasta.
Sauvignon blanc is ideal with this (if you like it - if you don't, a verdelho will do. Or a beer. I don't care. It's about the food.)
Comments
Post a Comment