pitchfork diaries

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ovember

Technique Tuesday: How to Clean Clams

Not just for summer fetes on the beach, clams and other bivalves are a spectacular, and traditional, addition to the holiday table, and perhaps even more importantly, the holiday cocktail hour.

A few critical steps can help insure a grit-free mouthful, and will dramatically reduce your chances of getting that one bad clam.

Buying

Buying the freshest seafood you can get is always the most important place to start, and the best way to help with this is to get to know the people at the seafood counter.

If picking them out yourself, look for clams that are not chipped, cracked, or have a damaged shell in anyway. If buying them already bundled, discard any that are broken. Always buy a few more than you need in case of broken shells or clams that don’t open.

Storing

Store clams in a bowl in the refrigerator covered with a damp cloth. They can keep for a day or two, but the sooner you use them the better for all.

Cleaning

The day you want to cook them again go through all of the clams and discard any that have a damaged shell. (when in doubt…throw it out.). Scrub the outside of each shell thoroughly to remove any dirt.

As you are going through, one by one, if you find a clam that is open, gently tap it on the counter. If it doesn’t close within a minute or two, it is dead and should be thrown out. This is a critical step, as it will look like all the others that have also opened, after they all cook, and yet could potentially make you sick. Any that are dead at the start need to go.

Place all of the scrubbed clams in a large bowl, or the sink, and cover with cold water by an inch or two. Allow the clams to sit for twenty minutes in the water. The clams will spit out any grit they have inside their shell. Don’t leave them in the water for much longer than twenty minutes, or they will die.

Remove the clams gently, by hand, from the bowl, leaving the dirt and sand behind at the bottom. Pouring them into a colander or scooping them out abruptly could stir up the grit and get it back in the shells.

Cook as desired (more on this later this week.). And discard any clams that have not opened during the cooking process.

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ctober

Pumpkin Seed Brittle

If you are going to rot your teeth out with sweets on this Halloween, why not do it with a sweet, savory, nutty, homemade confection, that also makes use of the often discarded remnants of jack-o-lantern carving??

There are many recipes for pumpkin seed brittle out there, but most use the raw, hulled seeds (or pepitas). Really wanting to use the seeds from my own carved pumpkin, instead of buying additional ones at the health food store, I did track down instructions to try to hull my own. It can be done, but was not wildly successful, or worth the effort, in my opinion.

First you rinse off the seeds and thoroughly dry them out, which I did in a 250 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Then crack and smash the outer part of the seeds with a rolling pin, or in my case, a meat tenderizer. Then, place all of the seeds in a bowl, fill with water, swish them around vigorously, and theoretically, the inner seed kernels will sink and the outer shells will float to the top. Which did happen in my case, for about six of the seeds. The rest didn’t really get smashed effectively or broke in half completely, and I found myself picking each seed from its shell—not practical when I needed at least a half cup.

So then, why not make brittle using the entire seed, which we eat anyway when making roasted pumpkin seeds? Success! And still getting to use our own seeds. And much easier. And the added bonus of ending up with a flavor almost identical to caramel corn, with some nutty seeds thrown in. Cracker Jack!

So wishing you a very happy Halloween, and treat yourself to this treat very soon. (and all winter long with any winter squash seeds.) (more…)

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ctober

Pumpkins: More than a pretty face.

Dame Paula Deen, amid mass fan hysteria (hysteria!), posing next to a pumpkin of her likeness (and Cat Cora's) at the Food Network festival at Chelsea Market a few years back. We were completely unsuspecting shoppers, caught, literally, in the swell. (Not unlike that terrified-looking couple coming out of the fish market behind her.)

I am as big a fan of pumpkin carving and jack-o-lanterns as anyone, and definitely considered finally having a porch to put one on, one of the bigger perks of moving out of NYC. But I am equally as big a fan of pumpkins themselves, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin flesh, pumpkin vines, all of it.

This time of year it is easy just to see said pumpkins as holiday flare. But particularly with tons (and tons!) of them at the markets right now, it is time to stock up and revel in all things orange and round.

Seed Saving

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ctober

Leek Bacon and Gruyere Tart

This frenchy-french-french tart has the lusciousness of fall written all over it. Spectacular for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, it is also glorious with a crisp green salad. And it freezes really well. So with it almost taking as much work to make one as to make two, do just that and stock yourself with a fast food gift in your freezer for some bleak mid-winter eve.

This can of course be made vegetarian, and equally good, by omitting the bacon, and substituting two tablespoons of butter, for the bacon fat, for sauteing the leeks.

Leek Bacon and Gruyere Tart
by Catie Schwalb

makes one 9" tart.

(more…)

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ctober

Technique Tuesday: How to Clean Leeks

[caption id="attachment_3026" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

http://www.pitchforkdiaries.com/2011/10/18/technique-tues…o-clean-a-leek/[/caption]

Giant Musselburgh leeks from our garden.

Though the few nights of just dipping down to a frost have demolished most of the delicate summer produce in our gardens, this time of year signals that our leeks are starting to reach their sweetest.

Cousins of the onion, leeks too are many-layered, and because almost half of the plant grows underground, they have practically spoonfuls of dirt trapped in said layers. Cleaning them, to avoid an off-putting little bite of grit in your meal, is critical and a bit of a trick. However, it is also super simple and well worth the time for the reward of this gorgeous flavor-bomb available long into the winter.

HOW TO CLEAN A LEEK

(more…)

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Catie Baumer Schwalb is a chef, food writer and photographer, who splits her life between the city and the country. Not too long ago Catie was a New York City based actress and playwright for more than a decade. She has her Master of Fine Arts from the National Theater Conservatory, and her Grand Diplôme in classic culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York City. ... Read More ≫

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