So I went clamming today at Tillamook Bay. Caught a nice catch of the daily limit of 20. About half steamers, half larger varieties.
Sautéed garlic in olive oil, added white wine and steamed the clams. Removed once popped, added diced tomatoes, jalapeño, onion, celery and cooked. Once done tossed the cleaned and sliced clam meat in along with some butter and Parmesan cheese. Mixed in cooked pasta and served.
It’s delicious.
How could you make that awesome pork thing and not take a picture of it cut so we can see the insides?!
Three back to back posts that left me drooling. Truly, this is why I read this thread.
@Fishbreath that is the finest looking pork tenderloin I’ve seen in quite some time, no joke. And the description sounds like something I’ve not had but truly want to.
@ArmandoPenblade your continuation into cuisines is pretty awesome to watch in pictures. Like a light dish in something new, then more and more until truly it looks like restaurant quality, every time. I’m moving in, I hope that’s okay. I’m bringing my herb plants, peppers and tomatoes.
And @CraigM, I’ve never caught clams but looove them, especially with pasta or in an Italian dish. Linguine, clams, wine based sauce … molto buono. Magnifico!
@Fishbreath So what is that gorgeous loin stuffed with, cheese and figs? Looks amazing!
@CraigM It’s hard to see scale, but how big are those clams?
The bigger ones are the size of my hand. The smaller ones the same diameter as a tennis ball maybe
The big ones are called Gaper Clams, and they live about 3’ deep. Digging them out is a challenge, and they can move surprisingly fast.
How does one find and get them? I’m intrigued. I’ve been crabbing (smaller, blues and Virginia crabs) but that’s so easy and to be almost too easy.
So this was my first time clamming.
The trick is look for a ‘show’, basically the hole the clam sticks it’s filter through. You’ll see little pockmarks in the sand, that’s where they are. Sometimes you can also see them squirt. If you see a jet of water shoot a foot in the air? There’s a clam there. Find the hole and dig.
Now some of the smaller clams, like cockles, can be, essentially, raked up. Clams are pretty dense on the beach, a single 3’ deep hole that is 1-2’ in diameter can pull half a dozen clams or more.
Those are huge! Wow!
I’m only familiar with manila clams here. I’ve seen larger ones in restaurants, but have never been able to find those in the stores.
That would have been smart, wouldn’t it?
Figs soaked in bourbon, gorgonzola, and roasted garlic.
Go for it. It has a lot of moving parts, but it isn’t a hard recipe.
Your rent is scrubbing out the bottom of my oven so it doesn’t catch fire anymore. Other than that, we’re all clear!
Easy peesy. No cleaning cycle on it? It’s always a PITA to clean those things.
No, although apparently whatever that is (I’m 99% sure it’s bacon grease from last month) has an autoignition point of around 500F. . .
Most things smoke around then, so if not bacon grease, some other oil or oily/food mixture. Warning for if you use a cleaning cycle on any oven: open your windows. Everything gets high temp burned off.
Easy Off works fairly well if you don’t mind the fumes from it.
So what’s that first picture of?
Shrimp Etouffee
I have a long, negative history with shrimp dishes but this one turned out great. I was skeptical of the shrimp stock, especially since I couldn’t find any shrimp with heads on but the final product still had a lot of flavor. Just cooking the stock was more work than I expected, but it also smelled amazing. Did not expect the ‘holy trinity’ of Louisiana cooking to produce aromas like that.
Active time 2 hours! Phew, that’s some dedication. It looks awesome though.
More like 3 hours since you have to peel 2-3 lbs of shrimp. I wanted smaller shrimp but decided I didn’t want to spend 4 hours peeling and deveining. Plus because it takes me so long to peel and devein I have to set up cold stations for the shrimp and shells or risk food safety issues.
I’d love to smell that, no joke. You nailed the presentation for sure.
And I hear you about the holy trinity. I honestly had the same experience with mirepoix when first trying to cook more with veggies.
I then understood more about the term, “depth of flavor.”
Most my local stores have deveined, tail on easy peel shrimp. It takes a few seconds to remove the remaining shell/tail. I can do 2lbs in about 10-20 minutes.
