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Clam Sauce with Tomatoes

ITALIAN CLAMS, particularly the common, small round ones from the Adriatic are very savory, and little or nothing needs to be done to build up their flavor. Clams from other seas are blander, and you must look for help from external sources to approximate the natural spiciness of a clam sauce you’d be likely to experience in Italy. That explains the presence in the recipe that follows of anchovies and chili pepper.

For 4 servings

1 dozen small littleneck clams

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus a little more for the pasta

1½ teaspoons garlic chopped fine

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice, OR fresh, ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1 flat anchovy fillet (preferably the kind prepared at home), chopped very fine

Salt

Chopped hot red chili pepper, to taste

1 pound pasta

Recommended pasta Spaghettini thin spaghetti, takes to clam sauces more successfully than other shapes. A close enough second is spaghetti.

1. Wash and scrub the clams. Discard those that stay open when handled. Put them in a pan broad enough so that the clams don’t need to be piled up more than 3 deep, cover the pan, and turn on the heat to high. Check the clams frequently, turning them over, and remove them from the pan as they open their shells.

2. When all the clams have opened up, detach their meat from the shells, and gently swish each clam in its own juices in the pan to rinse off any sand. Unless they are exceptionally small, cut them up in 2 or even 3 pieces. Put them aside in a small bowl.

3. Line a strainer with paper towels, and filter the clam juices in the pan through the paper into a bowl. Spoon some of the filtered juice over the clam meat to keep it moist.

4. Put the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan, turn on the heat to medium, and cook until the garlic has become colored a pale gold. Add the parsley, stir once or twice, then add the cut up tomatoes, their juice, the chopped anchovy, and the filtered clam juices. Stir thoroughly for a minute or two, then adjust heat to cook at a gentle, but steady simmer for 25 minutes, or until the oil floats free from the tomatoes.

5. Taste and correct for salt, add the chopped chili pepper, stir two or three times, then remove the pan from heat. Add the cut-up clams, stirring them into the sauce to coat them well. Toss thoroughly with cooked, drained spaghettini or spaghetti. Drizzle a few drops of raw olive oil over the pasta and serve at once.

Ahead-of-time note The sauce may be prepared several hours in advance up to this point. Reheat gently when preparing to toss it with pasta.

White Clam Sauce

EVERYWHERE in Venice—or in Italy for that matter—one can eat spaghetti with clams, but none tastes like the dish Cesare Benelli makes at Al Covo, the restaurant he owns with his Texan wife, Diane. Cesare’s genial variation on this timeless theme consists of holding back the natural juices of the just-opened clams, draining the pasta while it is still underdone, then finishing the cooking of it in a skillet together with the clam juice. The pasta, by the time it becomes fully cooked, drinks up all the fresh clam juices, achieving a density and richness of flavor no other version of the dish can match.

For 4 servings

1½ dozen littleneck clams

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced paper thin

1½ tablespoons chopped parsley

Chopped fresh hot chili pepper, 2 teaspoons, or to taste

1 fresh, ripe, firm plum tomato, cut into ½-inch dice with its skin on, but drained of juice and all seeds removed

½ cup dry white wine

1 pound dry pasta

6 fresh basil leaves, torn into 2 or 3 pieces

Recommended pasta The recommendations for Clam Sauce with Tomatoes are equally valid here. If you should want to use fresh, homemade fettuccine instead of the recommended spaghettini, bear in mind that it will cook much faster than boxed, dry factory pasta. Before cooking it, put the clam juice in