Bigoli alle Vongole

You'll need

300g 00 flour
3 eggs
4 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 red chilli
2 anchovies
1½ cups white wine
500g cleaned vongole (google how to purge)
50g butter
Salt and pepp
Piacentinu Ennese DOP (a VERY good saffron and pepper pecorino made for seafood) otherwise you can try a pecorino.

Make It

For the pasta, add the flour to a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and mix with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour into the egg. Once it’s formed a dough, knead on the bench for 10 mins. Wrap in clingfilm and rest for 30 mins. Once rested, cut the ball of dough in half and work each section through the pasta machine. I used the mercato bigoli attachment, but you can use whatever you’ve got. Dust the cut pasta with semolina and set aside. Dried pasta is also excellent, at times, I prefer it! So use whatever you like here. Regardless of what you use, you’ll need a large pot of boiling salted water ready when you start the sauce.

For the sauce, add the oil to a large frypan on low. Add the garlic, chilli and anchovies with a pinch of salt to prevent the garlic from browning. Cook slowly for a couple of mins, letting the garlic sweat and the anchovies dissolve. Crank up the heat and add the vongole and wine. Pop a lid on the pan and let the clams pop open. Once they do, remove them from the pan and place them in a bowl on the side. They’ll open at different times so standby and pluck them out as they’re ready.

At this point, add your bigoli to the boiling salted water, it’ll take a few mins to cook as it’s quite thick. Allow the sauce to simmer down on medium heat while the pasta is cooking. Add the butter and a little pasta water and stir vigorously to get the emulsification started. When the pasta is about a minute from being ready, drag it with tongs from the saucepan into the frypan and get it all moving. Toss until the sauce starts to thicken (a few mins), adding more pasta water if it’s drying up a bit.

When it’s all good to go. Serve the pasta on a large platter and top with all the cooked vongole (I don’t like tossing them together because you can risk breaking the shells). Shave as much of the peppery saffron cheese on top as you want and serve.

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