members recipes

This is a dish I used to have with my parents on a Sunday afternoon. As a special treat we would go to an Italian restaurant in Chelsea which did \'spaghetti in a bag\'. It was always a magical moment when the bag was opened on the table and all the hot steam poured out...

Ingredients
shallots
flat leaf parsley
garlic
white wine
olive oil
Good spaghetti or linguine (this is essential as you don\'t want it to be over-cooked, so 11 minute cooking time pasta needed)
Clams (palourdes preferably fresh but can be canned if stuck)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Greaseproof paper

Method
Keep your vongole in salted water to rinse them of sand. Change the water several times. Just before cooking rinse them in fresh water. Any that don\'t shut under the tap, discard. Any that are very broken, chuck. You really don\'t want to take risks with shellfish.
Finely chop your shallots and cook them in olive oil
Add plenty of crushed garlic (I mean plenty)
Roughly chop your flat leaf parsley, not too fine, you want to see the shape of the leaf, add.
Add a couple of glasses of white wine.

In another pot, boil and salt your water, adding your pasta(approximately 150g per person), cook it for 7 or 8 minutes.
Be really careful not to go over this amount of time.
Immediately remove from the heat and pour it into a colander.
Add some olive oil to your pasta so it doesn\'t stick. Set aside.

Cut out half metre squares of greaseproof paper, enough for each person.

Then add your vongole to your garlic/shallot/parsley mix.
The shells should start to open very quickly. If any remain shut discard.
Stir so that the shells have some of the lovely oily garlicky mix in them.

Lay a handful of your partly cooked pasta in the middle of your square of greaseproof paper. Dump a scoop of the vongole sauce on top.

Bring the ends of the paper together, twist together.

Put all your bundles of spaghetti in a bag on a baking tray and bake for 5 minutes.

Serve one on each plate....spectacular and delicious!