Fusilli with Clams and White Wine Sauce - Feb 14, 2011

Fusilli Pasta with Littleneck Clams and Tomato-White Wine Sauce

This was Valentine's Day's main course, although in all honesty, after that big bowl of delicious French onion soup, I could hardly eat any of this because I was so full. As most of you know, Nick is a big fan of seafood, and because we live in a land-locked* state with limited sea access, we rarely prepare it. We do, however, tend to pull it out on special occasions and celebrations. Nick found a few different recipe suggestions and I took one and used it as a rough outline. I purchased the littleneck clams in addition to some chopped clam meat at the store. And, while working my way to the check out, I spied this fun long fusilli in the pasta aisle. Even though the recipe called for linguini, I thought this might work better to catch and hold all the tasty bits in the sauce. To prepare the recipe, I simply followed directions, but omitted the Pernod and scallions, because we didn't have any, and added the chopped clam meat to boost the clam flavor. It was quite tasty, even re-heated a couple days later.

*Technically Minnesota has the fresh water port of Duluth, which is, in fact, connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the St. Lawrence Seaway. While, as a Minnesotan, I'm proud of this fact and often tout the benefits of living on America's 'North Coast,' this still doesn't help us significantly with access to fresh-off-the-boat seafood. It may, however, help you at your next trivia night.