Giada De Laurentiis' Spaghetti With Clams Is 'Easier Than You Think'
What is it about clams that make those little guys so intimidating? Great British Chefs says that the clam is part of the "bivalve mollusc" group and with a name that scary, a hard shell, and some dangerous sounding varietals (hello, razor clams), many home chefs may prefer to steer clear of cooking with clams. Pasta alle vongole, usually made with linguine or another long, skinny pasta and clams, is a popular dish at many Italian restaurants. The meal allows one to slurp down spaghetti and scoop shells doused in butter, garlic, and parsley, invoking a feeling of shelling sea shells by a seashore in Sicily. But buying a bag of molluscs, bringing them into your own kitchen, and cooking them yourself? It's enough to make your hands go clammy.
The strong, silent type, the clam may seem like a hard nut to crack and if you've braved a recipe at home, chances are you've been cooking clams wrong all along. Luckily, we have Giada De Laurentiis who takes to TikTok suggesting that with a little charm, some steam, and the right soundtrack, there's nothing to fear when approaching a spaghetti vongole. In the video, De Laurentiis and trusty taste-tester, her daughter Jade, show fans how to cook a simple spaghetti with clams. She captions the post "it's easier than you think!"
De Laurentiis' TikTok followers clamor for more clam content
Set to a peppy song called "Love You So," De Laurentiis starts her TikTok tutorial with a shot of her daughter, Jade, happily eating a bowl of pasta with clams. Then she walks us through the "before," when the dish was nothing more than a boiling pot of water and some intimidating-looking clams. You can see the chef cheerfully throwing a handful of spaghetti into some heavily salted water and tossing garlic and chopped shallots, which are different than onions, into a heavy-bottomed pot, shimmering with golden olive oil.
Then comes the scary bit, only, it's not so scary when the celebrity cook does it. Into the cooked shallots go a bowlful of closed clams, which, thanks to the magic of TikTok, emerge one second later in a billow of steam, opened, and delicious-looking. De Laurentiis adds the pasta to the pot, tosses in a bit of lemon zest, et voila: Salty, sweet, and definitely non-scary spaghetti and clams.
With over 260 comments and 34,000 likes, it looks like the mother/daughter team might not be the only ones craving pasta alle vongole tonight. Fans didn't hesitate to comment with a few clam-charming tricks of their own, like adding red pepper flakes or using vodka or white wine to cook with. And if you're still feeling nervous, those ingredients might also give you the liquid courage you need to try a clam pasta dish of your own.