Farm Kitchen Clams Casino

This.

This it the thing I make best. Or the thing that gets requested the most. Yes, people have been known to ask for my boozy chocolate cake from time to time, and the stuffed mushrooms. Oh. Yes. The crab cakes. They ask for those an awful lot, too. And the hot chocolate and the pink drink and the Nog. But nothing like this. As far as the Farmer is concerned, I could make this each and every day and there would be no complaints. Not one.

And here is how it’s done:

First, three small sweet red peppers are chopped fine (to equal a half cup), along with a sweet onion or two, preferably of the cipollini variety—to equal a half cup as well. And four cloves of garlic, also chopped fine. These are all set into a cast iron frying pan along with a quarter cup reserved bacon fat—any good and true Farmer has a cup full of the stuff sitting by the stove, just ready to be used. This all gets cooked and stirred over medium heat until it’s soft and just about to char. A half cup good (and by good, I mean sweet. I like any table wine by Three Brothers Winery, up here in the Finger Lakes) white wine is poured over all and set a cooking until it becomes one with the veggies who have just been swimming in it. The stove is turned off and the pan set aside. In the meantime, a half cup of garlic/cheese croutons are crushed fine and stirred into the concoction, along with a good pinch of cayenne pepper and salt and pepper to taste. The whole mess is put in a bowl and set in the fridge and forgotten about for at least an hour. Which is just fine, because we’ll need a bit of time to rinse off and steam the clams. We’ll be using two dozen; I like the little neck varieties (unless we’re grilling them—in which case we go with a larger variety). They’re rinsed well in cool water, rubbing the sides with a cloth to get rid of that pesky sand. Some say to soak them in water with cornmeal, others have their own suggestions. If you have something that works, by all means, do it. For me, rinsing and rubbing has proved to be enough. Oh. It must be said at this point to throw out any clams that are already open, smell bad, or have cracks in their shells. No one’s gotten sick in my kitchen from a bad clam and I’m not about to start now.

A pot that’s been fitted with a steamer basket is filled with a bit of water and a dash of salt and set on the stove top with its cover in place. Once it starts sputtering a bit, the clams are dropped in the steamer basket and the lid reapplied.

The pot’s checked every few minutes or so, and the clams removed once they open. Try your best to keep all their juices with them—that’s the tasty part. If some falls into the water, no worries. We can freeze those juices and use them later in our chowder.

Once all the clams are done (throw out any that don’t open after five minutes of cooking), they’re placed in a baking pan and their tops discarded. By that I mean once open each clam has a top and a bottom. The bottom’s where the cooked clam now lays, hopefully bathed in its own delicious liquor. The top is just an empty shell. That gets twisted off and thrown out. Unless you can think of a better use for them. In the past I’ve considered grinding them up and giving them to the chickens, or planting them with my tomatoes, but haven’t gotten around to either. Feel free to do so yourself if you’re so inclined. On top of each clam is placed a good scoop of the topping made previously, carefully spread out to cover all. If any part of the clam’s left showing, it’s likely to get dried out. Not good. And just to make sure that doesn’t happen (and because it’s delicious), each clam is given a good dousing of melted butter before the pan’s set into a preheated three-hundred-and-fifty-degree oven. They’re baked for twenty minutes or so, or until they sizzle a bit and the tops have a good crunch to them. In the summer, these are set right on the grill—but in that case we go for a slightly larger clam—it would be a real shame to lose one of these to the fire. We enjoy them best eaten hot, alongside an ice cold beer—preferably a Corona with lime—but hey—to each their own.