Clams, etc in soups

Pangaea Ron wrote:
Wear a bib. It's not always pretty, and keep a napkin handy as fingers are involved.

In my experience, the best meals are the ones needing bibs and rolls of paper towels. Yowza.:R

Escargot wrote:

Francesca Knowles wrote:
A couple of questions for ya, Ron:

-Where, exactly, is your beach?
And
-When's the next time you'll be leaving it unattended?

:B

X2!!!

Heck with leaving it unattended. When is the next time you will be cooking for company? For that harvest I would be willing to help and bring the Skagit sweet corn and red potatoes.

Francesca Knowles wrote:
A couple of questions for ya, Ron:

-Where, exactly, is your beach?
And
-When's the next time you'll be leaving it unattended?

:B

X2!!!

In dishes like bouillabaisse, yes, you leave clams and mussels in the shell. A separate bowl for shells is needed.

Francesca

My neighbors are let's say "well protected".

We have a great neighborhood. Last night we were all bringing in our Dungeness crab pots... it's a great social time with four rowboats out in the bay. When we're back on shore we compare our catches and share with each other as needed, fire up a couple of pots and sip a bit of wine until the crab is cooked. It's a nice way to end the day, and tasty too.

When live mussel or clams are cooked it the shell the recipe is important. I'm not a fan when they are simply steamed, but when they are accompanied by a sauce they are very tasty.

A couple of questions for ya, Ron:

-Where, exactly, is your beach?
And
-When's the next time you'll be leaving it unattended?

:B

Wear a bib. It's not always pretty, and keep a napkin handy as fingers are involved. Use a small bowl of warm water with a bit of lemon to rinse your fingers.

Usually they will easily scoop out of the shell with your spoon if they are properly cooked.

Or with mussels, use 1/2 of the shell to scoop with.

On my beach I grow: 12,000 manila clams, 3,500 Pacific oysters, 50 geoducks, and many (uncountable) thousand Mediterranean mussels, that grow on all my cages.

When we had clam soup (in the shell), they gave us a spoon for the broth and a small 2 tine fork for the clams...

We dug the clams out of their shell and ate them, then reached in with my fingers and removed the empty shell. (my wife used her spoon and gave me dirty looks for using my fingers.)

I had trouble eating the clam without picking them up...just like I do when I eat steamers.
Anyway, it worked.