The other day I realized that even though we live in what must be the shellfish capital of the world, I’ve never done a piece on our different types of clams. I know that for some people, knowing how to cook with a quahog versus a sea clam is second nature. But for others, bringing home clams can be a little intimidating. So the other day I sat down with clam cooking veteran Brian Reeves of P.J.’s restaurant in Wellfleet for a Cape Cod clam primer.
"he soft shell clam, which is also the steamer is steamed, but then if you shuck it, it's what they are for the fried whole belly clams," explains Brian.
Soft-shell clams live buried in muddy and sandy areas on our tidal flats. They’re oval shaped and the shells are thin and break easily, which is how they got their name—and they’re the ones that when you order steamers, you pry them open and sort of pull off the top part of the neck before dipping them bellies and all into broth or melted butter. They’re also amazing fried—they are the classic whole belly fried clam and if I had to pick a favorite clam dish, it would definitely be these fried up and dipped in fresh tartar sauce. And while you might imagine these fried whole belly clams would be the same species that we also make into fried clam strips, they’re not. Those are actually cut up Atlantic surf clams also known as the sea clam—a species so big you could never eat the whole belly. In fact, that part of this clam is considered unpalatable.
"The sea clams, they get processed and parts of it are the clamp strip and then like the neck and all that stuff is what is for clam chowder, stuffed clams, clam pie, stuff of that nature."
Sea clams are found offshore. They’re brought in by boats that dredge them up from the ocean bottom and the shells are the big ones that wash up all the time on beaches and people are always collecting for soap dishes—and Brian says their size also makes them excellent for stuffing:
"So basically take the, what is called minced clams or chopped clams, which is, the sea clam or a surf clam that is stripped down. And then we, sauté the onions and garlic and then with some butter and add the clams with some Ritz crackers and the Portuguese sausage, and we mix it up with some of the herbs and spices and let that sit for about 24 hours. And then we pack the clams and then we bake them off."
Stuffed clams are one of my favorites and as it turns out you can also make them with another local species—the hard-shelled quahog. But confusingly, though it is one type of clam the quahog has lots of different names depending on its size:
Brian listed them: Count Neck, Little Neck, Top Neck, Cherry Stone, Quahog.
That’s in order from smallest to biggest. Count necks are generally used whole in pasta dishes, and then come littlenecks, which are about an inch and a half wide and often eaten steamed or raw on the half shell. Cherry stones are a little bit bigger still, about two and a half inches wide, also good on the half shell, but big enough to be stuffed or chopped up and made into a garlicky white wine pasta sauce. Last but not least are the biggest hard shell clams of all, known as either just quahogs or chowders, and as the name implies these are best cut up and thrown into a pot. But no matter which size hard shell clam you’re working with, they all need to be shucked to be eaten and this is a job that I admitted to Brian I’ve always found especially hard.
"It's tough. Just don't give up. Once you commit you’ve gotta go through because they get tight after you start messing with them too much."
They respond. That makes sense, but I actually hadn’t thought about that.
"Yeah, they do respond, they’re like, ‘Hey, you're not getting in here!’ so once you if you pick them up or you drop it they knock up, they tighten up. So once you pick em up, you’ve just gotta go for it. I always put the knife in my hand and squeeze my hand in and go in straight then get it in there and work it around and pop the hinge a little bit and or cut the abductor muscles that hold the clams together, and then you can slice off the meat, then down the hatch."
Down the hatch with a little bit of lemon or cocktail sauce or my favorite—a sherry vinegar mignonette. By the way, Brian told me just because a clam stays shut doesn’t mean it’s bad—in fact, it more likely means the opposite—it’s the strongest mollusk in the pot. And I realized talking with Brian that this must be why we say people who go quiet clam up.
"Yeah, they clam right up, and that's no pun intended. They just clam up."
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Find a link to a guide to different types of clams and how to cook them HERE.
