If you've tasted Razor Clams, you know what a treat this picture represents.
Razor clams seem to be made from the very best ingredients in the ocean. They taste fresh and clean, like any great seafood, but also buttery and rich with their own unique flavor that invariably causes people to close their eyes, tilt their heads back slightly, and moan softly while chewing. I love crab and salmon, calamari, halibut, and lobster, but razor clams just seem to have what all those have and then something extra that sends them into a flavor realm all their own. Even though they have long been my favorite seafood, every time I eat razor clams I’m surprised at how good they taste. How many foods can you say that about?
Mixing the ingredients for the butter clam fritters.
Going clamming is like getting a present with a present inside. First you get to spend time at the ocean in the sand amid the waves in the fresh salt air surrounded by incomparable ocean vistas, then you get to come home and have clams for dinner. To me, Razor Clams prepared any other way than with a quick breading and a light sauté is an adulteration of their delicate flavor. Butter clams are another story, though. Clam chowder, clam strips, linguini and clam sauce, cioppino, clam fritters, clams casino and many other recipes will all be terrific with fresh butter clams from Netarts Bay.
For our clam dinner we chose lightly sautéed razor clams, of course, with an accompaniment of butter clam fritters. A salad and a couple of artichokes fresh from the garden, along with an nice Oregon chardonnay, rounded things out.
Clam fritter batter drops into hot oil for frying.
We prepared the fritters first because we could keep them warm without impacting their quality while we quick sautéed our Razor Clams. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, “Don’t spoil your dinner, now!” as I popped one after another of the crisp, hot, and delicious fritters into my mouth while waiting for the razor clams to brown up in the sauté pan. After my third fritter I reclassified them as hors d’oeuvres to assuage my guilt, and that did the trick.
It takes a little finesse to cook a razor clam just right. They need to be cooked completely and not a single bit more. Anything beyond just enough will start to make them tough. Just enough and they melt in your mouth.
The fritters are ready!
On a business trip years ago a group of us went to a restaurant serving exotic foods. I had never eaten buffalo before so I ordered a buffalo steak. The waitress looked at me and asked how long I planned to be in town. Though slightly nonplused by the possible implications of the question, I managed to tell her that we were leaving the next morning. She said, “You might be able to finish chewing that steak by then.” I decided to order something different, but it’s the same issue with razor clams cooked too long.
Flour first, then egg, then panko for the final coat before frying.
Clam fritters are basically a simple dough leavened with baking powder and infused with ground clam (the recipe is at the end of this post). Measured scoops of the mixture are dropped into hot oil to fry until golden crispy brown. The only real challenge with the whole process is clam cleaning, and it begins upon opening the clam shell. Logic dictates that some of the stuff in that shell is food and some of the stuff isn’t, but it’s all organized haphazardly with no clear boundaries between the two. Trial and error and a dollop or two of previous experience, prevailed, though, as it tends to do, with the result being over a pound of delicious clam meat. The grinder attachment on the mixer fitted with a coarse grinding plate transformed it into the perfect fritter ingredient. Plop a drop in the hot oil and, voila!, piping hot, delicious hors d’oeuvres (or dinner, depending on your self control).
Sautéed completely, and not a second more is the secret to "melt in your mouth".
Razor clams are even easier to prepare. A cleaned razor clam is a thin, flat piece of clam meat that needs only a light breading before it hits a sauté pan heated with butter and a table spoon or two of grape seed oil. We dredged our clams in flour, then egg, and then panko before sliding them into the pan. A couple of minutes and they were ready and absolutely delicious.
Give me any excuse to go to the ocean and I’m gone. Razor clamming is one of the best excuses on a very long list. Another extremely low tide lurks in the forecast for this coming weekend. It looks like the moon and the sun and gravity and inertial forces within the Earth have all conspired to send George and I once again to the Razor’s Edge of the Ocean.
Clam Fritters
1 c. clams, coarsely ground
1 egg
1 T. onion, diced
1 T. parsley, minced
1 c. flour
1/2 t. celery salt
1/4 t. red pepper
1/2 c. milk
1 T. green pepper, diced
1 t. baking powder
vegetable oil for frying
