Clams make quick, hassle-free meal for busy Hongkongers

It’s hard to make a clam taste bad. The bivalves, which come in many varieties, have so much inherent flavour that all the cook has to do is enhance it – and not overcook the meat, which makes it rubbery.

It used to be that you’d have to soak clams in salted water with a little cornmeal, which would make them spit out any sand they had ingested. I no longer bother with this because I can’t remember the last time I ate a gritty clam, but if you don’t know where the clams came from, or if you harvested them yourself in the wild, it’s wise to let them purge.

Clams with garlic, chillies and Thai sweet basil

1kg fresh clams, with shells about 3cm long
4 garlic cloves
2-4 red bird’s-eye chillies
2 red banana chillies
20ml Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce, or to taste
10 grams oyster sauce, or to taste
2 tsp granulated sugar, or to taste
A large handful of Thai sweet basil leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
About 20ml cooking oil

Rinse the clams under cool running water, then drain in a colander. Thinly slice the garlic. Cut the bird’s-eye chillies in half lengthwise and scrape out and discard the seeds. Slice the chillies about 3mm thick. Slice the banana chillies on the diagonal into 5mm-thick pieces. In a bowl, combine the fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar, and stir thoroughly.

Heat 20ml of cooking oil in a wok placed over a high flame. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and both types of chillies. Stir fry for about 30 seconds, then add the clams. Add the fish sauce mixture, stir well and bring to the boil. Lower the heat, cover the wok with the lid and simmer for a few minutes, stirring often. Cook until most of the clams open, then taste the sauce and correct the seasonings, as necessary. Add some black pepper and the Thai sweet basil. Stir until the basil wilts, then serve immediately with steamed white rice. Serves four to six as part of a Thai meal.

If you don’t eat all these clams in one meal, make the leftovers into a quick and easy pasta dish. Take the cooked clam meat from the shells and put the pieces in the sauce before refrigerating for no more than a couple of days. Boil some spaghetti (enough for the leftover clams, counting on 100 grams of pasta per person) in salted water, and when the pasta is al dente, ladle off about 100ml of the cooking water. Put the spaghetti in a skillet and mix in the clams, clam sauce and about half the pasta water. Simmer until the pasta is lightly coated with the sauce. If it seems dry, add a little more pasta water. Adjust the seasonings as necessary, then serve.