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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Linguine with White Clam Sauce and Chanterelles

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Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushroomsIf you pick chanterelles you know the excitement that comes with the first buttons of the year, and picking what recipe you’ll make with the first teeny guys is something I really look forward to. Bright egg-yellow, rock hard wine corks that squeak like cheese curds when you chew them whole, giving off whiffs of apricot and mushroom as you eat.
This year I have a great one for you way to show off the little chanterelle buttons whole in all of their glory: classic linguine alle Vongole with baby chants. It’s a great pairing: subtle brine and the ocean and little pops of floral chanterelle goodness. Loosen your belt and peek through your hands: it’s about to get really buttery and delicious up in hyah.
Ingredinets for linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Linguine with clam sauce can be a cheesy cop-out at sub-par Italian joints. Cliches aside, it is really, really good made well. (Great for date night) I learned to make a killer one when I was sous chef of the old Il Vesco Vino in St. Paul with Chef Andy Lilja: my chef, now an old friend and mentor.
Along with crab ravioli, white clam linguine was one of the top sellers at the restaurant, and, coming from saute meant it was on my station. When you multiply say 5-20 orders a day, x 5 days x 52 weeks in a year, x the two years I was there, that’s a range of anywhere from 2,600-10,400 bowls of clam pasta I made. So, you could say I know a thing or two about making a solid linguine con le vongole.

Cook Your Chanterelles Whole

This is a drum I beat every year. Some people say: “Meh, chanterelles are just ok, they don’t taste like a lot”, etc, etc. To be clear: chanterelles are not just ok, they’re one of the best, easily identifiable wild mushrooms you can harvest in quantity, and someone that says anything else probably means they just like being contrarian, or have never eaten chanterelles cooked whole like we’re doing here.
But, if you chop those perfect chants all up into slices, and cook them with a bunch of stuff, you might as well throw them in the garbage, skip eating the mushrooms altogether, and have someone follow you through the streets dinging the shame bell, for wasting your time in the woods and the best chanterelles of the season. The best part of chants is their shape, and texture, and whenever possible, they should be cooked whole.
The first young chanty buttons are only 1 of plenty of mushrooms that would be great here, but keep in mind you want something preferably from the Cantharellaceae. Yellow foot chanterelles, black trumpets cinnabar chants, hedgehogs, fairy rings, or, even diced chicken of the woods would also be great too though.
Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Print Recipe
3.2 from 5 votes

Linguine with White Clam Sauce and Chanterelle Mushrooms 

Classic linguine and clams with chanterelle mushrooms in a white wine-clam sauce
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Chanterelle mushrooms, clams, linguine
Servings: 2

Ingredients

  • 4 ounces dried linguine preferably a nice Italian bronze extruded variety like Rustichella or Masciarelli, but in a pinch, use whatever
  • 16 ounces freshest possible manila clams
  • 4 ounces fresh chanterelle buttons left whole, washed if needed, trimmed and cleaned
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter for the sauce (this is not a typo, it's why it tastes so good, do it and skip dessert already)
  • 3 tablespoons shallot diced 1/4 inch
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil or cooking oil
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • Fresh sliced chives to taste
  • 2 tablespoons light olive oil lard, or high heat cooking oil, like grapeseed
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup nice canned clam juice
  • Dash of fresh lemon juice to taste

Instructions

  • Rinse the clams and inspect them: look over each clam and make sure it's alive, they should be closed, but will occasionally very slowly open and close to respire. Bring a a gallon of lightly salted water to a rolling boil. Add the linguine to the pot and stir to prevent sticking. Meanwhile, heat a 10-12 inch saute pan with the oil, add the shallot and garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
  • Add the clams and chanterelles and stir to coat with the oil, shallots and garlic, turn up the heat to medium-high and cook 4-5 minutes more, deglaze the pan with the wine, reduce by half, then add the clam stock and continue to reduce on medium-high. Drain the pasta, then add directly to the pan along with the butter. Stir the noodles to coat with the sauce, tossing occasionally.
  • Reduce the sauce until the butter has thickened it and it tastes really good, keeping the heat around medium-high, stirring to steal some starch from the noodles that will help the sauce thicken. The sauce should be velvety and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Finally at the end, add a dash of lemon to taste.
  • To plate, remove the pasta to preheated bowls with a tongs, reserving the clams, mushrooms and sauce in the pan. Twist the linguine into a tight mound, then arrange the clams on top of each pasta, drizzle over excess sauce, garnish with the chives and serve immediately (discard any clams that don't open).
  • Plating
  • Plating pasta is one of the most important parts of enjoying this (and all long pasta). First the pasta is removed with tongs and twirled in the bowl into a mound, only afterwords are the ingredients and sauce distributed. Long pasta should always be plated like this.
Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
FIrst twirl the pasta tightly with tongs into a mound.
Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Next arrange the clams
Linguine with white manilla clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Finally pour over the chanterelles and sauce between the two bowls
linguine with white clam sauce and chanterelle mushrooms
Chives and done

Related

Previous Post: « Wild Mushroom Caps Cooked in Embers
Next Post: The Bachelor Farmer, and My First Book »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rodger HAmilton

    July 13, 2019 at 10:04 am

    Just returned from a foray and saw your post! The slugs were pretty bad, but still got a good harvest. I’m conflicted between chanterelle alfredo w/ pasta or candying the little buttons in a simple syrup then made into chanterelle caramel and served over the best vanilla ice cream I can find…

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 14, 2019 at 1:11 pm

      Rodger, I’ve been meaning to candy some young buttons, would be a great experiment. Good luck with the slugs.

      Reply
  2. William Hunter Duncan

    July 13, 2019 at 11:12 am

    That sounds fabulous! Any chance you want to tell us your favorite chanterelle spots? I would settle for a short tutorial on the general rules of hunting them in the Midwest. I have found a great many along the Oregon and California coasts, but few here (though I have not hunted them with as much effort).

    This dish reminds me of the Oregon coast, one of my favorite places in the world. I think one of David Arora’s books mentions, for larger chanterelles, if you have to slice them, flash fry at high heat?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 14, 2019 at 1:10 pm

      Hunter, I’d have to look at the books. The larger chants can be great but C. californicus is waaaay better than C. formosus.

      Reply
  3. Deborah???????? Porter

    July 13, 2019 at 1:24 pm

    Chef Alan, I love this recipe, and the background that goes with. Thank you for sharing the “how-to” for serving!

    Reply
  4. pete hautman

    July 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    This is almost exactly what I do with the first chants, right down to the chive garnish—except your plating is much more stylish than mine. Need to up my game there. Here’s hoping for a great chanterelle season. My local spots aren’t producing much yet, but this coming week I’m gonna hit it hard.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 14, 2019 at 1:09 pm

      Yeah the little buttons are so good. I’m really hoping our season kicks into gear soon, they’re late this year. Last year we were picking in the middle of JUNE! For crying out loud!

      Reply
  5. Mary Ann Costantino

    July 23, 2019 at 6:29 am

    Need to find some sites in the Northeast. Rhode Island. Older mushroom sites have been either developed or picked out

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 26, 2019 at 10:33 am

      I’m so sorry to hear that. Maybe try looking at your local mycological society, and state parks, SNAs and WMAs. Good luck.

      Reply
  6. Jennifer Costantino

    December 31, 2020 at 6:35 pm

    5 stars
    So good, this is now one of my favorite chanterelle dishes! It’s also great with fresh dungeness crab if you don’t have clams.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      January 1, 2021 at 1:36 pm

      I’m glad you liked it. I’m also really glad you mentioned this in the off season here since I forget other people have access to chanterelles in the winter since It’s been so long since I’ve ordered them. I’ll have to make a mention of using crab as a sub–great idea!

      Reply

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Alan Bergo
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
Oh the things I get in the mail. This is my kind Oh the things I get in the mail. 

This is my kind of tip though: a handmade buckskin bag with a note and a handful of bleached snapping turtle claws. 😁😂 

Sent in by Leslie, a reader. 

Smells like woodsmoke and the cat quickly claimed it as her new bed. 

#buckskin #mailsurprise #turtleclaws #thisimylife #cathouse
Bluebell season. Destined for a Ligurian ravioli Bluebell season. 

Destined for a Ligurian ravioli as a replacement for the traditional borage greens. 

#mertensiavirginica #virginiabluebells #spring #foraging
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