Linguine with White Clam Sauce
Serves 4 to 6

Yesterday my friend and website designer, Denise Taawab, our friend, Carmen, and I found ourselves at Biaggi’s Restaurant in Cary, NC. The food was wonderful and the waiter was very entertaining! People kept looking at our table (perhaps we were too loud…me? Certainly not!) What happens at Biaggi’s stays at Biaggi’s girls!

We had a very nice time and the authentic Italian cuisine was superb. There are only 42 of these restaurants in the country and only one in North Carolina. I love going out to lunch with these women. At our age, we don’t pretend… no salads for us… oh no! We cracked open our menus and ordered pasta…all three of us…that’s right!) Denise ordered Calamari Fritti, tender calamari lightly breaded, fried and served with fresh tomato sauce and Italian salsa for an appetizer. Not able to get past the tentacles on the plate (now that’s authentic) I took their word for it and they loved it!

For Denise’s main dish she ordered Fettucchini with Lobster. We all gasped as the waiter approached our table with a beautiful dish of black fettuccini tossed with lobster, wild mushrooms and a homemade lobster-cream sauce. A dish of perfectly cooked pasta layered with a hearty Bolognese sauce and a three-cheese cream sauce was placed in front of Carmen. You could smell my dish a mile away! The Linguine with Clam was magnificent. The flavors were absolute perfection and I enjoyed every bite of it. The pasts was cooked perfectly al-dente and the sauce was very light and wonderfully flavorful! It was perfection in a bowl! I especially enjoyed the addition of asparagus which still had a little bite.

None of us could finish our meal, but we did save room for dessert! Hey, we don’t need to pretend we’re twenty! At twenty-nine, we were old enough to order what we felt like! I worked out yesterday after all! Denise ordered Bananas Foster, and based her expression, I’d say it was really good! Carmen and I both ordered Tiramisu. Carmen joked that we should have split one. Crazy woman! Oh no, don’t you even THINK about touching my Tiramisu!

So, of course I did my usual and wrote up a recipe as soon as I got home trying to replicate the flavors of this amazing dish. I think I came very close. Here’s Cooking with Elise’s version of Linguine with Clam… Enjoy!

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 cup good dry white wine
1 cup bottled clam stock (I use Snow’s)
Zest and Juice of one lemon
1½ pounds littleneck clams, scrubbed
3 asparagus spears, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound linguine, cooked to al dente
Handful of chopped flat leaf parsley (about 1/4 cup)

Heat oil in a medium stockpot over high heat. Add garlic and cook for a minute.

Add crushed red pepper and cook for a few seconds.

Add white wine and clam stock and cook until the mixture reduces by half, about 3 minutes.

Add the clams and asparagus, cover the pot and cook until the clams open. Any clams that do not open should be discarded.

Remove the clams and asparagus with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Bring the liquid that the clams have cooked in to a boil over high heat and cook until reduced by half. Add the butter and cook until melted, season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the pasta and parsley until combined. Return the clams to the pasta. Plate in large shallow bowls.