This dish is an alliterative plateful. Thin capellini cooks up fast. Cherrystone clams open up, swimming in beer. Chorizo clumps up as it cooks, making for an intriguing surf and turf combination. Awkward but delicious, I watch a similar preparation on a food show and adapt it to my standards.
Start by chopping chorizo sausage into small bits. Remove the outer casing. As it cooks it tends to clump up. Break up the sausage with a spoon. It should cook till brown and crisp. Brown onions and garlic in the chorizo oil for boosted flavor. Pour in beer. Drop cleaned clams in to the beer. Cover and let the magic happen. A little tomato paste, cooked capellini and browned chorizo make this an unusual meat and seafood pasta. Twirl your fork and relish it.
CAPELLINI WITH CLAMS AND CHORIZO
Adapted from Pati Jinich
Serves 4
4-5 Mexican Chorizo Sausages
3 dozen Clams
2 Onions
6-8 Garlic cloves
2 Chile de Arbol
1 16oz bottle of any Mexican Pilsner Beer
3 tablespoons Tomato Paste
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 pound Capellini or Angel Hair Pasta
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
Fresh ground Black Pepper
Cilantro leaves
Wash clams well. Discard any clams that do not close.
Remove outer casings of chorizo and cut into small pieces.
Heat a dutch oven or deep saucepan over medium heat.
Add oil.
When oil shimmers add chorizo. Break up chorizo with a spoon. Brown, stirring often till chorizo is crispy. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Keep aside.
Chop onions roughly and add to oil. Saute till soft.
Slice garlic.
Add garlic and crumble chile de arbol into the onions. Saute.
Pour beer into the onions and bring to simmer.
Add clams to saucepan. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. The clams should have opened. Discard any that havent.
Boil a quart of salted water. Add capellini to boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Drain. Save some pasta water if you need to thin out the sauce.
Remove clams from the sauce. Take the meat out of 24 clams. Keep the rest of the clams intact.
Add tomato paste to sauce.
Add the clam meat, whole clams and chorizo to sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.
Drop capellini into sauce. Saute for 2 minutes.
Season with salt.
Garnish with cilantro and enjoy.
Mexican style pasta is quite the revelation, clash of cultures that is easy on the eye and taste buds.
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