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
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!
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
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:
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 19th. Please leave your email so I can contact you, should you win.)
