Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (14 page)
—Dana Bowen
They’ve got a way with shellfish in Rhode Island, a state that surely has more roadside clam shacks per capita than any other. An all-time Ocean State favorite is stuffed quahogs—the biggest of the Atlantic hardshell clams—affectionately known as stuffies. The garlicky linguiça sausage in the stuffing is a legacy of Rhode Island’s Portuguese immigrants. (Pictured, a Rhode Island clam fisherman in the 1940s.)
15 slices white sandwich bread
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
¾ lb. linguiça (Portuguese sausage), minced
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 ribs celery, minced
1 small yellow onion, minced
1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and minced
2¼ cups chopped clam meat, preferably quahogs
¾ cup clam juice or strained clam liquor
6 tbsp. minced flat-leaf parsley
3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1½ tbsp. Tabasco
1½ tbsp. Worcestershire
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
16 empty large quahog half shells Paprika, to taste Lemon wedges, for serving
Serves 6–8
1. Heat the oven to 275°F. Pulse the bread in a food processor into fine crumbs. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake, tossing often, until dried, 15–20 minutes; set aside.
2. Raise the oven heat to 425°F. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage, garlic, celery, onions, and peppers and cook until soft, 12–15 minutes. Add the clams, clam juice, parsley, lemon juice, Tabasco, and Worcestershire and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the butter. Add the bread crumbs and salt and pepper; stir.
3. Divide the stuffing between the shells and place on a baking sheet. Bake until browned, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle with paprika and serve with lemon wedges.
With their sweet, briny flavor, clams are at the heart of some of New England’s best cooking. The most common species in the United States belong to the hardshell variety, which is native to the Eastern seaboard; its classification, Mercenaria mercenaria, derives from the Latin word for money, and refers to the clam shells Native Americans used to polish into beads for wampum. At one time, the names for different clams reflected a place of origin—littlenecks
See Clam 1
came from Little Neck, Long Island; cherry-stones
See Clam 2
came from Cherrystone Creek in Virginia. But nowadays, hardshell clams’ names distinguish size, not origin. The East Coast is arguably home to the country’s most fervent clam culture, from the smallest to the largest: there are countnecks (1–1½ inches), littlenecks (1½ –2 inches), topnecks (2–2½ inches), cherrystones (2½ –3 inches), and quahogs (3 inches or more
See Clam 4
). Usually, the smaller the hard clam, the more it costs, since its meat is tenderer and delicately flavored, and ideal for eating raw. Larger quahogs or “chowdah” clams, as they’re called in New England, are firmer and more emphatically flavored; they’re often chopped and then simmered, stewed, fried, or used for stuffing. Delicate softshell clams
See Clam 3
or steamers—or as the old-timers say, pissers—are another species entirely (Mya arenaria). These clams, with their fragile shells and a necklike siphon, are always cooked. Traditionalists steam them in their shells in a couple of inches of seawater, or shuck them for that quintessential summer specialty, fried clams.
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Pescado a la Veracruzana
The Caribbean-inflected cuisine of the coastal city of Veracruz, in southeastern Mexico, is one of bright flavors and abundant seafood; ingredients like capers and olives are a legacy of the Spanish, who imported products from Europe into Mexico via this port throughout the colonial period. Cooks in Veracruz often bake fish filets together with a sauce of tomatoes, capers, olives, and jalapeños. We’ve found that searing the fish separately preserves its firm texture, and the same skillet can then be used to make a quick and flavorful pan sauce.
4 6- to 8-oz. skin-on boneless filets of red snapper, striped bass, or redfish Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup flour
6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 small white onion, minced
2 pickled jalapeños, minced
3 tbsp. liquid from a jar of pickled jalapeños
2 tbsp. salt-packed capers, soaked, drained, and minced
½ tsp. dried oregano
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
¼ cup fish or chicken stock
¼ cup fresh lime juice
8 large green olives, such as manzanitas, pitted and roughly chopped
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped (or one 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped)
2 tbsp. roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tbsp. roughly chopped fresh cilantro
Serves 4
1. Heat the oven to 200°F. Season the snapper filets with salt and pepper. Put the flour on a plate and dredge the fish in the flour, shaking off the excess. Heat 2 tbsp. oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 fish filets and cook, pressing down with a spatula (to prevent the filet from curling up) and flipping once, until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Transfer the fish to a baking sheet and repeat with 2 more tbsp. oil and the remaining fish filets. Transfer baking sheet to the oven to keep fish warm.
2. Return the skillet to medium-high heat with the remaining oil. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the pickled jalapeños, jalapeño liquid, capers, oregano, garlic, and bay leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is soft, about 3 minutes. Add the stock, limejuice, olives, tomatoes, parsley, and cilantro and cook, stirring occasionally, until the flavors meld, about 5 minutes. Season the sauce with salt and pepper. Transfer the fish to a platter, spoon the sauce over the fish, and serve.