Steamed Clams with Chilli and Yellow Bean Sauce (辣椒黃醬蒸蜆)

This is the possibly the laziest dish I have ever made. I haven't been to the fishmonger for ages, and it was a real pleasure to visit him today. The display is always bursting with attractive looking seafood on a Saturday morning, it is hard to narrow my choices down! My friend, May, got 5 salmon heads for £1, which are wonderful stir-fried with plenty of ginger, garlic, black-bean sauce and fresh coriander, but also quite fiddly to eat. The children are still young and impressionable, so maybe I will get them used to seeing such food on the table now.

I bought two rainbow trout for tomorrow's dinner, 5 large salmon fillets for the freezer, then I was torn between the clams, mussels and prawns. I settled on half a kilo of clams, the eldest was brave enough to try one, the middle child just wanted the shells for castanets and the youngest declared "yacky! Di-gusting!"..., then proceeded to eat a dipping bowl-ful of tomato ketchup, before dropping it and smashing it on the floor. The children had baked pollock in breadcrumbs (3 boxes (12 fillets) for £10 in Sainsbury's at the moment), so we all got our seafood fix this evening.

I am knackered at the moment, with a very temperamental hob, so I was looking for an easy way of cooking the clams. I don't think it could possibly have got much easier!

 

Ingredients

• 500g fresh clams
• 1 tbsp yellow bean sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
• A pinch of ground white pepper
• A good shake of sesame oil
• 1 spring onion, cut into 4cm lengths and finely sliced
• 2 slices of raw ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1/2 red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced

Serves 2

 

Instructions

• Place the clams in a large bowl and cover with water. Drain and repeat a couple of times to get rid of any sand
• Place the yellow bean sauce, light soy saice, Shaoxing rice wine, pepper and sesame oil into a bowl and mix well to combine
• Drain the clams and discard any which do not close when tapped sharply on the surface. Arrange in a dish and pour over the sauce. Add the sliced ginger and chilli, then mix well
• Steam for 10 minutes (I put these in a steaming basket in the rice cooker just before the button popped up, then left them for 10-15 minutes)
• When the clams are cooked, garnish with the spring onion and serve immediately with boiled rice and other dishes (we had stir-fried mangetout and mushrooms in oyster sauce, and baked breaded pollock)

Steamed Clams with Chilli and Yellow Bean Sauce (辣椒黃醬蒸蜆)