Red Clam Sauce

[TheNoodleIncident]

I make a pretty good, but fairly standard red clam sauce. No real measurements, but it usually includes onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, wine, oregano, parsley, red pepper, and lots of clams w/ some of the juice. I'll add fresh basil when I have it and tomato puree to thicken it a bit. Sometimes a splash of balsamic.

Any simple ways to kick this up a bit? I'm not looking to reinterpret the dish, but instead just wondering if I'm missing some fantastic addition or trick? Like I said, it's good, but could definitely be better.

[weinoo]

Pancetta? Guanciale?

[TheNoodleIncident]

Pancetta? Guanciale?

I had considered bacon (standard recipe improvement logic), but decided against it because I thought the smokey flavor would be too much, or just contrast with my idea of a good clam sauce. This might be a better idea.

[sculptor]

Maybe a little lemon zest???

[SobaAddict70]

my tastes are fairly pedestrian, so take from it what you will...

when I make a clam sauce, if it's white or red, the predominant flavor that I'm looking for is clams. for that, they have to be fresh and preferably not from a can.

since you asked for red, I would do: garlic, olive oil, clams (and lots of them!) chopped up -- and previously steamed with just a little white wine, garlic and shallots, the resulting juice which has been strained to remove impurities, and 1-2 cups homemade tomato sauce. sometimes one or two dried red peppers or a bay leaf, which get discarded before service.

homemade tomato sauce consists of: battuto -- onion, carrot and celery (sometimes 1/2 celery, 1/2 fennel) cooked in olive oil, tomatoes (either canned, in-season or Pomi), salt, pepper, herbs. sometimes white wine if I feel like it. I like my sauce on the smooth side, so it usually gets its turn in a food mill or immersion blender before I continue using it in a recipe.

no cheese, but that's personal preference, as with so many other things in life and food...

ps. I have been known (on occasion mind you) to whisk in 1 T. unsalted butter at the last minute. never done it with a red sauce though, but that trick works with a white sauce...

Edited February 23, 2012 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[piracer]

^ was gonna say, finishing with butter is always a nice rich touch.

[TheNoodleIncident]

I agree that a good clam sauce needs to be extra CLAM-Y! Last night's was one of my better ones, though it was still the fairly standard recipe. Like I said, I never really measure, and it seems that I would up with a higher proportion of puree to crushed tomatoes, so the resulting sauce was much thicker and richer of tomato flavor. The downside is that I didn't have as many clams as I originally thought, so it turned out to be a very good red sauce with clams in it, as opposed to a truly good red clam sauce (which a few guests loved, but I prefer the opposite).