This easy Cooking Clams Recipe shows you how to steam your foraged clams open for good eating.
Cooking Clams Recipe
The easiest and most popular way to prepare clams is, of course, to steam them. (This can be done with equal success over a beach
campfire or a kitchen range . . . whatever’s convenient.) First, rinse the mollusks several more times to rid them of sand and grit.
Then put them in a large kettle with just a few tablespoons of water. Cover the kettle, bring the water to a boil, and steam the
clams only until the shells open . . . no longer. (Overcooking will toughen the meat.) Finally, serve ’em up with a side dish of melted
Clam chowder is easy to whip up, too . . . especially if you steam the clams open to get at the meat, instead of shucking them
raw. For a good batch of chowder you’ll need a quart of shucked clams (save the broth left over from steaming), with the skins
removed from around their necks. (To skin a small clam, lift it by the siphon-or neck-and make a vertical cut in the flat side of the
neck, then peel the skin away. In the case of a larger clam, cut off half the neck and peel the skin from the remainder of the body.
Rinse the meat in clam juice . . . that is, the juice that’s produced when a batch of clams has been allowed to stand in a bowl.)
Read more about digging for clams: Tips for Clam Digging.
