Linguine with Clams 

White Sauce 

Laura Vitale Recipe

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Clam sauce is a topping for pasta, usually linguine. The two most popular varieties are white, usually featuring minced clams, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and parsley, or red, usually a thin tomato sauce with minced clams. Other variants include the incorporation of whole clams, hot pepper flakes and other ingredients. Clam juice may be used in the preparation of clam sauce.

 Italians prepare this dish two ways: in white , ie, with oil, garlic, parsley, and sometimes a splash of white wine; and in red , like tomatoes, tomatoes, and tomatoes. Traditionally, the bivalves are cooked quickly in hot olives. The live clams open during cooking, releasing a liquid that serves as the primary flavoring agent.  The clams are then added to the pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or vermicelli), along with salt, black pepper (or red pepper), and a handful of finely chopped parsley.

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In the Liguria region of Italy, east of Genoa, spaghetti alle vongole (clams) means tiny spaghetti with baby clams in the shell, no more than the size of a thumbnail, with a white wine / garlic sauce. Linguine also may be used for pasta in preference to spaghetti.

Italian-American recipes sometimes use cream in this dish, but in its area of ​​origin. Gillian Riley considers a cream of Italian cooking, remarking that, “the way cream dumbs”.  Italian-born experts such as Marcella Hazan, however, give a recipe for sauces with cream, such as “Pink Shrimp Sauce with Cream”. 

In America, it is a cheese that is sometimes added to this dish. 

Palourde, or carpet-shell clams, clam true , are used; or the small, Mediterranean Wedge Shell ( Donax trunculus ), also known as the Tellina or “bean clam”. Both types are also called arselle in Liguria and Tuscany. ^[1] In America small cherrystone clams may be substituted. 

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