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Authentic Italian Calamarata Pasta with Clams

This delicious pasta with clam sauce is made with clams olive oil, tomatoes and garlic. It's quick and easy to make!, a true masterpiece of the Italian cuisine.
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Authentic Italian Calamarata Pasta with Clams
  • Difficulty Easy
  • Prep 40 minutes
  • Servings 4 people

This Pasta with Clams (Paste alle Vongole, in Italian) is so simple and quick that it is perfect even for those who are novices in the kitchen, allowing them to serve a fine-tasting dish, but without going crazy behind a thousand difficult steps. You’ll love this Spaghetti With Clams, even if you are not so fond of fish because of its delicate and light flavor.

To prepare the Clams Pasta with Tomatoes the only note that might create some insecurity is to make clean the clams. But fear not, among our tips you will find two foolproof tricks for getting a clean and sand-free condiment.

You’ll notice that we haven’t used spaghetti in our recipe. This kind of pasta it’s actually called Calamarata, a Southern Italian (Neapolitan) pasta that takes its name from calamari (squid) rings, and that is usually served with fish like squid (or clams, in this case). This calamari shaped pasta it’s really popular in Italy but not so much abroad, so you should switch to another short or long pasta (like classics linguine or spaghetti) or try to buy it online.

Ingredients

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Instructions

  1. To prepare Pasta with Clams, start by soaking the clams in water and salt for at least an hour so that they purge, then open them in a pan with a clump of parsley and covering them with a lid.

    Ricetta Calamarata Con Le Vongole Step 1
  2. Once they have opened, strain the resulting liquid and keep the clams aside. Bring the water to a boil to cook the pasta, and in the meantime in a large frying pan prepare a sauté with the chili pepper and garlic clove. When this is well browned, add the cherry tomatoes cut into 4, adjust the salt and pepper and let it cook for about ten minutes.

    Ricetta Calamarata Con Le Vongole Step 2
  3. After this time, remove the garlic and add the clam liquid and clams to the pan. Drain the pasta al dente directly into the pan and continue sauteing, adding a few ladles of the cooking water to lightly risotto it. Your Calamarata alle Vongole is ready to serve, decorating the dish with chopped fresh parsley.

    Ricetta Calamarata Con Le Vongole 35

Alternatives

A tasty variant of the recipe involves making Calamarata alle Vongole in white (perhaps blending the clams with half a glass of white wine) and completing the dish by adding some tasty Tomato Confit. Try it, you will be pleasantly impressed!

Tips

To clean the clams effectively, soak them in water and salt but inside a colander, this way they will avoid getting sand back from the bottom of the bowl. To speed up the process you can also transfer them to the freezer (again soaking) for about 5-10 minutes.

Storage

The Pasta with Clams will keep in the refrigerator, inside an airtight container, for 1 day. When ready to eat, reheat it in a frying pan along with a drizzle of Olive oil.