Geoduck Clam Recipe

After a long, long wait, it's finally time to clam up | WHIDBEY RECIPES

I’ve been eating Puget Sound clams since my earliest memories, so it’s easy for me to forget that there are people out there who are new not only to cooking and eating clams, but particularly to digging them. I’ve had several requests recently for information about both the digging and the cooking, so perhaps it’s time, once again, for “the clam column.”

Because of the very low tides typical in June, July and into August, many clam diggers are out on the tide flats looking for these tasty mollusks. I wonder, as I watch them industriously digging into the fragrant muck, how many are disappointed in the results when they put their pot of cooked clams on the table.

For the typical and, in my estimation, most desirable clam feast, you’ll want to have littleneck clams (aka “steamers”), always recognizable by their concentric growth rings crossing radiating ribs on the shells. You’ll also hear these referred to as “manilas” or “Japanese,” which is one variety of littleneck, and which are distinguishable from our native littlenecks by their darker shell markings and usually darker necks. In the same sandy, water-filled hole where you’re diligently digging for littlenecks, you may also be turning up butter clams, usually larger, white and without the double set of ridges on the shell. Butter clams have only the growth lines that follow the shell contour. They are also edible and tasty, but unless they’re quite small, they’re very chewy if steamed. Considerably larger, with a more oblong-shaped shell, you can always tell a “horse” (aka “gaper”) by the protruding neck that can never fully retract into the shell, unlike littlenecks and butters, which completely “clam up” when disturbed.  Horse clams make excellent bait in crab traps, but are very chewy for typical clam feast consumption. They are strongly flavored, however, and if properly cleaned and chopped or ground up, stand up well in chowder. Next to a steaming pot of fresh littlenecks, however, geoduck is my personal favorite. Difficult to spot (people often dig horse clams thinking they’re harvesting geoduck), and even harder to dig, geoducks are prized by dedicated clam diggers. Read the horse clam description above and imagine the beast doubled, even tripled in size, and you have a geoduck. Where to begin — I think most readers probably already know how to deal with putting those littlenecks on the table. They are fragrant, delicate and a major treat (and don’t forget the resulting broth which is jokingly referred to as an aphrodisiac). But if you’re really new to it all, and need some suggestions for steamed clams, email me and I’ll get them to you. Today, let’s consider some other clammy delights.

Fat of the Land: Geoduck Recipes

Even with various friends on the dole, four 'ducks was just too much clam for three meals. We ended up freezing a couple. The necks of the other two got eaten as sashimi and the body meat was stir-fried for Geoduck with Snow Peas and Cashews . That night we also fried up some razor clams Pan-Asian style with a reduction of sake, aji-mirin, garlic, and ginger. Cameal - Use the siphon for sashimi. Cut it off where it joins the body, butterfly open with scissors (like a razor clam, a geoduck has a double-barreled siphon, so you'll need to cut through both), rinse off any sand or grit, and then slice thin on an angle. The body meat is great for stir-fry. It plumps up nicely after a minute or two of cooking over high heat in a wok. I'll try to post some photos that explain the cleaning & prepping process.

Cooking

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