Razor Clams

A few weeks ago, Husband, Toddler & I met up with some friends and their kids to go clamming near Gearhart. I don't have a license (necessary!) so I looked for clam holes & hung out with the kids. Low tide was at a pretty comfortable hour and we got a late start (easy-to-do when you're trying to get out of the house with a child) but the three people with licenses, including Husband, all came away with their legal limit in about an hour or so. I'm thinking I need to get a license for next time! How to dig for clams (instructions).

Before we left for the coast, I emailed a friend to get her recipe. Problem was, neither Husband or I had ever cleaned the things before. I found this blog, with a pretty good description of how to clean them. Still, convincing Husband he needed to do this after reading instructions off of my iPhone, wasn't easy. Thankfully, a friend came over just in time to help. He'd learned earlier in the day how to clean razors and was more than happy to show us.

We did do a couple of things differently than in the blog. Our clamming friends told us that when we arrived home, we should stick the clams in cold water and let them purge. A friend later told me that kills them. I don't know whether that's true or not but they didn't do a lot of moving so why not?

With the help of Friend, we cleaned. Well, I watched while the boys did the work. We boiled water (same as blog) except rather than pouring the boiling water over the clams, we gently dropped a few at a time, into the boiling water, keeping them there until the shells popped open and the flesh started to move from the shells. From there, cleaning pretty much followed the blog.

Side story: While the clams were soaking in the cold water, Daughter wanted a look. Keep in mind, she's 2.5 yrs old and fast. Husband lifted her to get a good look at the clams in the sink but that wasn't sufficient. She wanted to touch one. Okay. By this time the clam had its neck and foot fully extended out of the shell. Husband grabs one from the pot and offers it to Daughter, who promptly BIT the clam. Ah, yes, I have a child who will try nearly anything. Definitely a positive but I'm not sure that raw razors are something she should be eating. Talking about it STILL makes Husband and I laugh.

The Recipe (courtesy of KMH):
Rinse clams and dry them with paper towels. One of the keys to success is to pound the clams thin using a heavy bottom pan, put them between two pieces of wax paper. Pay particular attention to the square tail end, it is thicker.

Set up three separate dredging stations, first flour, then eggs (beaten), then a mixture of fine bread crumbs (japanese panko works well) and bacon crumbles. If you can find smoked bacon that works well. To make the bacon crumbles from scratch, bake on a cookie sheet until mostly crisp, then finely dice.

Fry in a mixture of canola and butter (we used duck fat, so you'll not be able to replicate the flavor exactly unless you have a tub of duck fat in your fridge).
** I used Land O Lakes® Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil with bacon drippings because it was convenient at the time but I think using actual canola oil with the butter is probably a good idea even though the Spreadable Butter w/Canola worked.

Fry clams in hot oil for about 30 sec on each side and lay onto a crumpled brown paper bag to absorb the oil.
Sprinkle with sea salt and plate.
Serve w. aioli.

The recipe turned out great. Yum!