Time for More Tapas
So another dish was on the BBQ as part of the amazing challenge going on from @thesmokinelk who is cooking a BBQ dish from every country around the world. This was all part of a Spanish themed week he arranged.
Almejas en Salsa Verde (Clams in Green Sauce) is a dish traditionally found in the Basque region of Spain. It basically is clams cooked in white wine, garlic and parsley but is very simple to put together.
The Preparation and Cook
For this cook, I used Australian Heat Beads, as I was planning to do a few tapas plates and know the heat beads will give me around 3 hours cook time. The BBQ was set up with 2 zones – a direct and indirect area.
Unfortunately, I could only find some frozen clams that are pre-cooked so had to adjust the method a little.
I used the medium size Lodge cast-iron skillet, initially placing the empty skillet on the direct area of the BBQ. Once it had heated through I added the oil. When the oil was bubbling, I moved it to the indirect section of the BBQ and added the chopped onion and garlic, followed by the flour, wine, and clams. The clams opened very quickly so I gave them a good stir around to cover them in the liquid.
Finally, I added the chopped parsley and mixed it well with the other ingredients.
The Verdict
This was my least favourite dish of the ones I cooked as part of the Spanish themed week. I think it was impacted by the fact that I used frozen clams which opened almost immediately so the sauce did not have as long as it should have had cooking. You could taste the alcohol in the dish, which I wasn’t overly keen on. A nice dish and definitely worth trying with some fresh(er) clams.
BBQ Almejas en Salsa Verde
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 500 g Clams (in the shell)
- 250 ml White Wine
- 2 Garlic Cloves (crushed)
- ½ Onion (diced)
- 2 tbsp Plain Flour
- 2 sprigs Flat Leaf Parsley (finely chopped)
Instructions
- Finely dice the onion and when the cast-iron skillet has come up to cooking temperature, add the olive oil.
- Once the olive oil heats up move the skillet to the indirect area of the BBQ and add the diced onions followed by the crushed garlic 2-3 minutes later. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes and then add the flour and stir well.
- Next slowly pour in the white wine and make sure all of the ingredients mix well. Slowly but surely a creamy sauce will develop.
- Add the clams and mix well. When the shells start to open (it was also immediate for me) add the parley and again mix all of the ingredients well and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- Remove the clams from the BBQ and plate up serving with some toasted Sourdough.
