Hello everybody! Today’s recipe is pasta with clams in red sauce. You can use spaghetti for the pasta or substitute with your favorite long strand pasta. For the red sauce, you can either use fresh plum tomatoes or canned peeled whole tomatoes. So delicious!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. Spaghetti
• 28 Little Neck Clams
• 28 oz. Whole Peeled Plum Tomatoes
• 3 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 1 tsp. Hot Pepper Flakes, optional
• Handful of Parsley, chopped
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt

Begin by washing the clams four to five times to remove all of the sand. To clean the clams, place in a bowl and fill with cold water. Mix around and drain. Repeat three to four more times. Fill the bowl with water again and add three tablespoons of salt to remove any sand left. Mix and let sit for thirty minutes. After thirty minutes, drain the clams and set aside.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil to cook the spaghetti in a later step.

Meanwhile, add a large drizzle of olive oil into a deep sauté pan and warm up over medium to high heat. Add in the garlic and sauté for about two minutes, until golden.

Pour the tomatoes into the sauté pan and lightly smash the tomatoes using a wooden spoon as you mix together. Add in the hot pepper flakes and a pinch of salt, to taste. Mix and continue to cook for fifteen minutes over a medium flame.

After the red sauce has cooked for fifteen minutes, add the spaghetti into the pot of boiling water and cook for ten minutes or the time recommended on the package. Reserve half a cup of the cooking water and drain the spaghetti. Set aside.

Meanwhile, add the clams into the red sauce pan. Mix until the clams are fully covered by the sauce and then cover the pan with a lid and let cook for about ten minutes over medium heat. You don’t want the clams to overcook so make sure to check on them frequently to see if they have begun to open up and to stir.

Once the clams have all opened up, remove the lid and add the spaghetti into the pan. Lower the heat to low and mix together so that the spaghetti is fully coated with the red sauce. Add in some of the pasta water if the sauce is too dry.

Serve in a dish and enjoy with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley. Salute and cin cin!