A creamy spaghetti and clams recipe with a kick of fresh chilli
- Dish Type: Main
- Serves: 2
- Preparation time: 10 mins
- Cooking time: 25 mins
- Difficulty: Medium
Ingredients:
- 1 Large Shallot
- 20g Butter
- Butternut Squash
- Small bunch of thyme
- 1 Garlic Cloves
- 1 Small Red Chilli
- 50ml Double Cream
- 40g Parmesan (grated)
- 500g Clams
- 100ml White Wine
- 180g Dried Spaghetti
- Lemon (juice)
- 15g Fresh Parsley
- Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper
Clean Clams
- Wash and scrub the clams thoroughly under running cold water. Discard any that are open or damaged.
- Keep them in the fridge until you are ready to cook them.
Make Squash Sauce
- Peel and finely dice the shallot.
- Heat a large saucepan and add the butter. Sweat the shallot in the butter for 5 minutes until it has softened.
- Slice the butternut squash in half lengthways, peel it and dice into 2cm cubes.
- Add the squash to the softened shallot and a splash of water and cover the pan with a lid. Cook for 15 minutes until the squash is soft. Stir the squash every 5 minutes and the water will evaporate.
- Pick the thyme leaves and finely chop them. Peel and crush the garlic clove. Slice the red chilli in half lengthways, remove the seeds and finely dice it.
- Add the chopped thyme, crushed garlic clove and diced chilli to the softened butternut squash and cook for 2 minutes.
- Put the pan on a low heat, add the double cream and stir to combine it with the squash mix. You can roughly mash the softened squash with the wooden spoon to make it into a puree.
- Add the grated parmesan and stir to combine the sauce. Keep the sauce warm on a low heat as you cook the spaghetti and clams.
Cook Spaghetti & Clams
- Cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions. Add 2 tbsp of table salt to the boiling water that you are cooking the spaghetti in.
- Wash and pick the leaves of the parsley and roughly chop them.
- Set the chopped leaves aside for later.
- Whist the spaghetti is cooking, cook the clams. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large frying pan and heat to a high heat. Add the clams and white wine, keep the pan on a high heat and put the lid on. Shake the pan until the clams have opened (about 2 minutes). Discard any clams that remain closed. Strain the clam cooking juices with a sieve and into the butternut squash sauce.
- Take the clams off the heat and put the lid on keeping clams warm until you are ready to plate up.
- Put the squash sauce with the strained clam cooking liquid on a medium-high heat and reduce it down until you have a thickened sauce.
- When the spaghetti is cooked lift it from the cooking liquid and into the squash saucepan. Keep the pasta cooking liquid!
- Combine the spaghetti with the warm sauce and the lemon juice.
- Toss to combine it.
- Add a little of the pasta cooking liquid if you want to make the sauce creamier.
- Season with salt and pepper and add the chopped parsley.
- Add half of the clams to two serving plates, top with the squash spaghetti and the rest of the clams.
- Drizzle with extra olive oil and season with black pepper.