Linguine with Clam Sauce

Sunday 10 January

We were planning on dinner based around a batch of organic cannellini beans from Jungle Jim's that we had soaked last night and cooked slowly in the crockpot all day.  But when we came home, they were still sort of crunchy after 7 hours of simmering.  So we had to think up a quick alternate.

There was still over a half tub of the clams from last night, plus most of their juice.  We were going to skip a day and then make linguine with clam sauce, but we now had to move it up, despite the fact that it meant we'd eat the same main ingredient two nights in a row.  Oh well - it's better than crunchy beans.

Linguine with Clam Sauce

While the linguini are boiling, heat 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil in a broad pan, and gently sweat 3 cloves minced garlic in it. 

Add 2 anchovy fillets and a dollop of their oil, and let them sizzle till broken up. 

Drain the clams and pour their juice into the pan, with a little white wine; let it boil down. 

When the linguine are al dente, add the chopped clams to the pan to cook just a bit (and we added a drizzle of heavy cream from the bottom of a bottle we happened to have, but the classic way is to add no dairy at all).

Throw the linguine in the pan and let them soak up the sauce; toss in some chopped parsley and, if necessary, drizzle in a little extra olive oil. 

If you can't have the real vongole veraci, this is still pretty damn good.