Skip to main content

Clams with Chorizo, Leeks, Tomato, and White Wine

5.0

(1)

A bowl on cement floor piled so high with clams that several have fallen to the floor along with red greasy dribbles of...
Photo by Bobby Fisher

You need the fresh, soft, fiery red version of chorizo for this dish, the kind that bleeds out bright red-orange grease into the pot when you heat it.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    4 servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 ounces best-quality fresh chorizo, thinly sliced
1 or 2 medium leeks (white parts only), trimmed and sliced (about 2 1/2 cups)
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped, plus 2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup dry white wine
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
4 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
4 thick slices crusty sourdough bread

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat, then add the chorizo and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the chorizo has rendered its fat and is crisp and browned at the edges, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, the leeks, and chopped garlic and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil. Season with salt and pepper and continue to cook until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the wine, increase the heat to high, and cook until the wine is reduced by half. Add the tomatoes and let the mixture come to a high boil. Add the clams, working in batches if necessary to ensure that they’re in a single layer. Cover the pan and cook until the clams have opened. Discard any unopened clams.

    Step 2

    While the clams cook, toast the bread, then rub the surface of each piece of bread with the cut side of one of the remaining garlic cloves.

    Step 3

    Serve the hot clam mixture in a shallow serving bowl with the garlic toast alongside.

Image may contain: Advertisement, Poster, Richard Séguin, Text, and Collage
From Appetites © 2016 by Anthony Bourdain. Reprinted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Buy the full book from HarperCollins or from Amazon.
Read More
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
This sauce is slightly magical. The texture cloaks pasta much like a traditional meat sauce does, and the flavors are deep and rich, but it’s actually vegan!
An ex-boyfriend’s mom—who emigrated from Colombia—made the best meat sauce—she would fry sofrito for the base and simply add cooked ground beef, sazón, and jarred tomato sauce. My version is a bit more bougie—it calls for caramelized tomato paste and white wine—but the result is just as good.
Spaghetti is a common variation in modern Thai cooking. It’s so easy to work with and absorbs the garlicky, spicy notes of pad kee mao well.
Kewpie Mayonnaise is the ultimate secret ingredient to creating a perfect oven-baked battered-and-fried crunch without a deep fryer.
The clams’ natural briny sweetness serves as a surprising foil for the tender fritter batter—just be sure to pull off the tough outer coating of the siphon.
This marinara sauce is great tossed with any pasta for a quick and easy weeknight dinner that will leave you thinking, “Why didn’t anyone try this sooner?”
The mussels here add their beautiful, briny juices into the curry, which turn this into a stunning and spectacular dish.