Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Linguine vongole, this time it's for real (well, at least part of it)

I was inspired by Rasa Malaysia for this dish. I've wanted to do linguine vongole for some time now. That time, I did not have clams. NOW, I DO! BUT, the remaining white wine sitting in my fridge is not giving me good signals. Though I would usually "save" unfinished wine with a vacuum pump wine saver then let it chill, this method might be good just for 1-2 weeks. BUT, I've forgotten when I left that unfinished bottle in the fridge, so I'm not sure if the wine is still good. Ok, I will label "opened on MM/DD/YY-date" on the bottle in future. BUT......
No more BUTs...you just have to discard the remaining wine NOW! Luckily, the wine was one of those 2 buck chucks from Trader Joes, if not it would have been so wasteful.

BUT, BUT...now I do not have white wine to cook my linguine vongole !!! Here comes Shaoxing cooking wine to the rescue!



Linguine vongole (as side-dish, serves 2)
Ingredients:
-4-6oz linguine (this is a side dish, thus this pasta quantity)
-1lb of manila clams (tips on cleaning clams in which I did step 1. and 2.)
-1 stalks of scallion/spring onions, cut into small pieces
-2tsp crush ginger
-2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
-1tbsp olive oil
-2 cups Shaoxing wine
-1tsp sesame oil
-dashes of black pepper
-pinches of red pepper chilli flakes

Method:
1.Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al dente
2.Meanwhile, heat up Corningware pot with 1tbsp olive oil on medium heat
3.Stir fry ginger and garlic till fragrant
4.Add in the clams, Shaoxing wine, then let it cook and simmer, covered, for 3-5mins
5.Add in scallions, sesame oil, black pepper, chilli flakes, cook and simmer, covered until all shells are opened. When the shells open, the clams are cooked!
6.Add in linguine to the clams and mix well

7. Serve...clams are in the limelight here. If you prefer as a main dish, more pasta can be used.

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