Day 61: Soft-shelled clams

World famous Maritime clams. Do you love clams? I do. I love them manila clams, razor clams, savoury clams, cherry clams. All of them very different. All of them taste best when they're in season. All of them need to be prepared well well. And these soft-shelled clams are beautiful fried.

I usually like the smaller ones because they are softer in texture and sweeter in flavour. These ones, pictured, are from the Hilton Garden Inn hotel right outside the Halifax International Airport, and it's a regular stop over the last few years when we go back to Nova Scotia - and I go straight for the clams. I don't know what it is about it there, but they do clams SO well. Maybe they source the small ones? Maybe they have a secret recipe? But it comes out tasting so sweet, and the batter is perfect... not too bready, not too salty, not too hard. Rather it's all still super nice and moist when you eat them. Nothing worse than perfectly good seafood that gets overly salted, then frozen for years, then mummified in bread crumbs, then refrozen, then deep fried and sold to you at an overpriced family restaurant for $20 a plate (including a leaf of kale, just to make it authentic!)

On Soft-shelled clams

Soft-shell clams, scientific name Mya arenaria, popularly called "steamers", "softshells", "longnecks", "piss clams", "Ipswich clams", or "Essex clams" are a species of edible saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Myidae.

These clams live buried in the mud on tidal mudflats. They are well-known as a food item on the coast of New England in the Western Atlantic Ocean, however the range extends much farther north to Canada and south to the Southern states. They are also found in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, for example in the UK, as well as in the North Sea's Wadden Sea (where they are the dominant large clam).

Soft-shell clams are edible and can be enjoyed in a variety of dishes. Before cooking, it is generally recommended that clams be stored in saltwater for a few days to facilitate the expulsion of sand from their digestive tracts. Some recommend that cornmeal be added to the water to give the clams something to filter from it.

Soft-shell clams can be eaten steamed, fried, or in clam chowder. "Steamers" (steamed soft-shell clams) are an integral part of the New England clam bake, where they are served steamed whole in the shell, then pulled from the shell at the table and dipped, first in the clam broth in which they were cooked, to rinse away sand, and then in melted butter.