Little Neck Clams and Mussels with Spanish Chorizo and Fennel

Have you scratched the surface lately? I seem to scratch my head a lot, but if I’m completely honest I’ll confess that I don’t dig very deep sometimes when it comes to the politics of food. I’m just a simple fellow doing the best I can. Life throws enough complications our way.Day to day, I tend to simply focus on the elements of food that make me happiest: the smell of fresh produce, sharpening my knives, the sound of diced onions as they come into contact with a hot buttered pan.If you choose to burden yourself with every issue that hits the table then invariably you won’t be able to enjoy the simple act of eating. You become a victim of hot air. The deep fried evangelists want you to feel bad about not “doing the right thing.” Sometimes the pleasure has been sucked out of the act of consuming food and it really gets my goat!

To me there’s a much bigger picture to focus on. Food is about community, romance and laughter. It’s social first, political second. Yes, we’re human and there is much to worry about in life but I find it sad that the social experience of eating has become diluted.Somewhere along the road, we took a serious wrong turn. The big RV lost its way in Kalamazoo. Time to get back on track, wouldn’t you say?

So that’s where this story takes a turn. Instead of focusing on surface level semantics, I thought that it would help to get connected. Forget for a moment that food is a function of patronizing a farmer’s market or a shrink wrapped product on a shelf. To know food, you really need to know nature. Plug in and the light will turn on. Trust me. So, a bunch of us packed up the trucks and headed up the coast for a weekend at a lodge on the Sonoma coast, about 40 miles north of Jenner beach.The weekend really brought me back to a place I forgot existed. A place where the simple elements of nature and the company of friends are enough.

On the property was a garden thick with fava beans, kale, tomatoes and herbs. There were chickens, peacocks and doves walking the grounds. Standing on the cliff, you could inhale the intoxicating aroma of kelp, pine and earth.During the day, we scratched, burrowed and shoveled into the mud to hunt for clams. Ha! Then after getting cold and muddy we headed back to the ranch for hot showers, beer and cooking. At dinner time, there was a profound silence, a thanksgiving-like peace that made me feel all right with the world.After dinner, we stayed up late playing board games and laughed into the night. The food, while delicious, was secondary to what unfolded under the lodge’s broken down roof. It was a connection.

And that is where the story ends. It isn’t complicated at all. Enjoying life, like food, is one part laughter, one part good ingredients and a pinch of the ability to let go.In the end, we all dug a little deeper that day, both for our clams and into ourselves.

Little Neck Clams and Mussels with Spanish Chorizo and Fennel
Serves 8-10 people

Ingredients
1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1 tablespoon honey
splash of dry white wine or brandy
3 cups chicken or fish stock
1 cup of heavy cream
1 pound Spanish chorizo, diced
2 pounds little neck clams, soaked
2 pounds black mussels, cleaned, soaked, beards removed
1 sweet baguette, sliced on the diagonal about _ thick
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Special Equipment
Grill, grill plate
2 good thick bottom sauce pots

Instructions
Drizzle baguette with oil, salt and pepper and grill. Serve alongside for soping up the rich sweet sauce!

Throw one of the sauté pots on a medium high flame. After it gets hot add some vegetable oil. Then add the onions, fennel and garlic, making sure to stir frequently. Once the mixture has turned a nice rich brown color add the honey and stir. Add a splash of booze and cook for another 5 minutes. To finish, add stock, cream and seasonings.In another large sauté pan or sauce pot, get a tablespoon of vegetable oil nice and hot. Throw in the chorizo and cook until nice and crispy! Then throw in the clams and mussels. Sauté for about 2 minutes. Pour the stock mixture over the mussels, clams and chorizo and cover with a lid to circulate the heat. The mussels and clams should open up in about 5 minutes or so. Take them off the heat immediately once they have opened to prevent over cooking. Throw the mussels in a bowl and serve.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Food Experiences, Main Dishes , chorizo, clams, fennel, mussels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.