The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern_ Knockout Dishes With Down-Home Flavor - Matt Lee [13]
4 Divide the dressed salad greens evenly among 4 small bowls or plates. Mound a quarter of the crab-salad mixture in the center of each bowl. Serve immediately, with saltines if desired.
NOTE We use crab claw meat because it’s an inexpensive grade of crabmeat with rich crab flavor and because it holds up well when marinated. But if you prefer higher-class lump crabmeat, this dish won’t suffer for it!
CLAMS WITH SWEET POTATO, SMOKED SAUSAGE, AND WATERCRESS
serves 4 as a small plate or 2 as a main dish • TIME: 10 minutes preparation, 20 minutes cooking
Where we’re from, oysters get more attention than clams do, and we’re guessing it’s because they’re simply easier to see. Hard-shell clams develop beneath the mud, whereas oysters grow up and out of the mud banks in clusters, so you just can’t miss them after the tide’s gone out. But there is, in fact, a sizable commercial trade in hard-shell clams from South Carolina, even if they tend to get shipped to large wholesale markets in Baltimore, New York, and Boston.
Away from the commercial clam beds, the bivalves are rarely molested by recreational fishermen, so they tend to grow very large, the size of a fist, with meats as large as hamburgers. These large clams—or any clams 3½ inches across or larger, called chowders—are not as desirable as smaller cherrystones (about 2½ inches across) or the even more valuable 1½-inch littlenecks, which are tender, sweet, and easy to eat. Still, if we’re gathering oysters for a roast and we find a few chowder clams, we’re always thrilled to roast them up the same way we do our oysters: on a hot griddle over a wood fire with nothing more than a drop of pepper vinegar.
This clam recipe has a few more elements than that, but it’s even simpler than roasting because there’s no wood to gather and no fire to build. And the synergy of briny clam, smoky sausage, soft sweet potato, and crunchy-bitter watercress is otherworldly; it has become as popular a weeknight dish on our dinner table as our Skirt Steak with Parsley Sauce. Every bite, you think: This is just way too easy to be this satisfying.
3 ounces smoked sausage, such as Cajun andouille, Polish kielbasa, or cured (fully cooked) chorizo, sliced thinly or diced
2 cups full-flavored dry white wine, such as unoaked Chardonnay, Grüner Veltliner, or Viognier
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¾ pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice (about 3 cups)
24 littleneck clams, or 16 cherrystone clams (see Clam Shopping Notes)
1 bunch watercress (4 to 5 ounces), stems trimmed
1 In a 3-quart Dutch oven or saucepan, sauté the sausage over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the pieces are just beginning to brown and have rendered their fat, 5 to 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer about half the sausage pieces to a double thickness of paper towel to drain. Leave the rest in the pan.
2 Add 2 cups water, the wine, and the salt, cover, and bring to a boil. Then add the sweet potatoes, and when the liquid returns to a boil, continue to cook for 3 minutes. Add the clams, and continue to cook until all the clams have opened and the sweet potatoes are tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Discard any clams that don’t open.
3 Arrange a tangle of watercress (about 2 sprigs) in the bottom of each of 4 soup bowls. Divide the clams, sweet potatoes, sausage, and broth evenly among the bowls, and garnish with the reserved sausage and another tangle of watercress. Serve immediately.
garnish it bright
•••
With wedges of lemon.
VARIATION
hot and spicy clams with sweet potato, smoked sausage, and watercress If you enjoy the heat of dried red chiles and the aromatic twinge of garlic, add ½ teaspoon crushed dried red chile flakes and 3 cloves chopped fresh garlic to the pot just after transferring half the sausage from the pot to the paper towel. Stir the garlic and crushed chile around in the sausage fat until the garlic is translucent and golden (but not brown)—about 30 seconds