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Easy Shellfish

One of the great culinary prizes of summer is shellfish. In all its iterations, whether bivalves or crustaceans, Seafood is King, in the summer!

The easiest types of seafood to make are clams and mussels. Buy them fresh from your supermarket, and make sure you trust the people behind the seafood counter. That doesn't mean you need to have a long-standing merchant relationship with them, but if you bought seafood or shellfish from them in the past and they've done a great job, they'll be your go-to fishmongers.

Bring mussels and clams home and keep them cool. Before you cook them, let them sit in several changes of cold water, for about an hour. This will encourage them to take water in and spit sand out, so you'll have a grit free meal.

In a stainless steel or enamel pot, put about half an inch of water and bring it to the boil. If you have a mixture of clams and mussels as we often do, put the clams in first. Clams have thicker shells and are more reluctant to open. When the clams have opened a little in the steam, add the mussels and cover the pot. When the mussels are all open, remove clams and mussels from the heat and you're ready to eat.

At the bottom of the pot you'll find a wonderful shellfish broth. If you like something to go with that, you can add a couple of ears of corn on the cob and cook them in the broth until the corn is done. Or, you can serve the broth hot, with crisp toasted bread.

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned seasoning or butter, because my wife and I use neither. The only thing we will do however, is spray the shellfish with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil just before we eat them but we use no pepper, salt, spices or anything else and we do not - repeat do not - use a seafood boil. It's like eating salt right out of the salt box.

Leftover shellfish broth? Use it to cook rice or as,a starter, for seafood chowder. Either way, refrigerate or freeze broth.

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