Mario’s Linguine With Clam Sauce #Recipe and #Giveaway by Leslie Karst

LADIES AND GENTS, today is the first post from our newest member, Leslie Karst! Please give a warm welcome. She is a terrific writer and enthusiastic cook. I'm thrilled to be sharing Wednesdays with her.  I'll let Leslie tell you a bit about herself.  And don't miss her fabulous giveaway. ~ Daryl

WELCOME, LESLIE!

This is my first post as a new member of the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen gang, and I want to thank all the MLK gals for inviting me to be a part of this fabulous blog. It’s an enormous honor, and I’m eager to share my love of food and cooking with all of you!

For those who don’t know me, I write the Sally Solari culinary mysteries, which take place in the beautiful beach town of Santa Cruz, California:

Sally, a fourth generation Italian American, has found herself caught between two cultures—that of her father’s traditional Italian seafood eatery, and that of the newly arrived “foodies,” whose food revolution has taken the old-generation Italian fishermen and restaurateurs completely by surprise. Throw a few dead bodies into the mix and Sally’s once peaceful life heats up like a cast iron skillet over an open flame.

For my very first recipe as an official MLKer, I thought I’d present a recipe from the first book in my series, Dying for a Taste: Linguine with Clam Sauce. This is one of the signature dishes prepared by Sally’s father, Mario, at their family restaurant out on the historic Santa Cruz fisherman’s wharf. The flat shape of the linguine (“little tongues,” in Italian) provides the perfect vehicle to soak up this luscious sauce and, served with a tossed green salad and crunchy francese bread, the dish makes for a surprisingly easy meal.

INGREDIENTS (makes 4 generous servings)

3 tablespoons olive oil

6 cloves peeled garlic, thinly sliced (¼ cup)

½ teaspoon red chili pepper flakes (optional)

8 oz. clam juice (1 bottle)

1 cup dry white wine (Mario uses Pinot Grigio)

2 pounds clams

2 tablespoons butter

1 pound dried linguine

½ cup chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley

salt and pepper, to taste

chili flakes for garnish (optional)

my mise en place (messo in posto?)

Any type of clams will work for this dish, but the hardshell varieties—such as Littleneck, Manila, or Cherry Stones—have a lot less grit and, if store-bought, should already be cleaned and flushed of sand. Discard any clams that have cracked shells, or which are open and won’t close within a couple minutes after being tapped on the kitchen counter.

the Manila clams I used

DIRECTIONS

Start by getting a large pot of salted water heating for the linguine.

In another large, heavy pot (big enough to hold the entire dish when it’s been made), heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat until glistening. Add the garlic and fry for a minute, stirring often so it don’t burn. When the garlic starts to brown, add the bottle of clam juice and the wine to the pot.

Let this simmer until reduced by about a third.

Robin hanging out while I heat the linguine water

and simmer the clam juice and wine

By now your water should be boiling. Dump in the linguine and cook until al dente. When the pasta is done, drain it, return it to the pot, and toss it in 1 T olive oil to keep from sticking together.

Meanwhile, turn the heat up to high under the sauce and dump the clams into the pot and cover. When they are all open (from 4 to 8 minutes, depending on the type of clams), remove them to a bowl with a slotted spoon and cover the bowl to keep them warm.

Leaving the heat on high, let the sauce boil (uncovered) until reduced by half. Add the butter and let it melt, and then turn off the heat under the pot.

Dump the cooked linguine into the sauce pot.

Stir it all up well, so all the pasta is coated with sauce. Add half the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, and then add back the clams and any liquid that has collected in the bowl, and stir it all together:

Serve in large, shallow bowls and garnish with the rest of the chopped parsley, and chili flakes, if desired (see top photo). For a more elegant presentation you can plate up the linguini without the clams and then arrange them around the edge of the bowls. Buon appetito!

the remnants of my meal, along with
a green salad and francese bread

The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. Putting this early education to good use, she now writes the Sally Solari Mysteries, a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California which has twice been nominated for the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery. An ex-lawyer like her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i.

Visit Leslie to learn more about her and her books:

Website

Facebook

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Leslie also blogs with Chicks on the Case

AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate my joining the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen blog, I’m giving away a copy of the first book in my Sally Solari series, Dying for a Taste—yes, the one with the Linguine with Clam Sauce recipe—to one lucky reader. To be entered, all you have to do is comment below and answer this question: What is your favorite food memory from your childhood? (The giveaway runs through Tues., May 19^th. Please leave your email so I can contact you, should you win.)