Chatting recently to a Dublin man about the eating habits of his father, I was interested to hear that he regularly dined on clams with samphire. I’ve used samphire in our restaurant for years now, but I was unaware of its consumption on an everyday level. It’s often hard to find out how Irish people ate our indigenous sea herbs throughout the ages.
While samphire may not be in season until June, clams are good to go from this month and they’ll only get better from here on in. The lack of appreciation of this little shellfish is unsurprising, given our general avoidance of all things fishy.
On a recent trip to Boston, I had the most amazing deep fried clams at a seafood bar called Neptune. Why aren't there more seafood bars in Ireland? Of course, we have Klaw in Dublin, but there should be many more, given the fact that we are an island.
We should have oyster shuckers at the corner of every street selling beautiful succulent shellfish. Maybe a little food stand doing deep fried clams with squid ink mayonnaise might be a good idea? It may sound novel, but it’s not.
We need to learn to value our seafood a lot more than we do. I'm amazed at how Boston thrives on its relationship to the sea while in Ireland we struggle to invest in ways that use our coastal bounty.
How to make deep fried clams
Mix 100g rice flour with 100g plain flour. Season the flour with sea salt and a little milled dillisk, if you have some to hand. Steam 2kg of clams open by placing them in a pot with some boiling water and the lid on. Strain and shell them.
Dip the clams into buttermilk and then dredge them in flour. Deep fry in batches in 180 degrees oil. Dry on some kitchen paper and season with sea salt. You can serve the clams with some lemon and, of course, samphire when it’s in season. Until then, I think rocket would do nicely.
