Friday Night Cockles

I still remember a mystifying conversation with a friend, a boy maybe eight or nine and one of the middle children of a large Catholic family, about his not being allowed to eat a hot dog on a Friday, and what would happen to him if he did. And remember equally mystifying Friday lunch menus, like fishcakes and spaghetti. In the same way that Christmas and Easter were part of the fabric of our public school, so was “fish on Friday.”

Which may be why we so often default to linguine with clam sauce when nothing else is doing on a Friday night, and all you want, after a long week, is to sip a cocktail while whipping up something quick, tasty, a little different and a little—just a little—decadent. Save the fancy stuff for Saturday. Friday is for collapsing, and there’s nothing like pasta for pure comfort.

Pound for pound, littlenecks offer a lot more clam than cockles. But cockles bring a special briny sweetness to the sauce, and isn’t it about the sauce?

Traditionally, a cockle is a heart-shaped bivalve, eaten raw or cooked—and sold on the street corner of Dublin’s fair city by Molly Malone, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh.” But the cockle most commonly available at our seafood counters is a smallish, ridged member of a different family, from New Zealand. It has a green tinge on the outside shell, purple within, and holds a tiny prize: a sweet and succulent morsel of a meat no bigger than your thumbnail.

Though not traditional, in the Italian sense, and certainly forbidden if you abstain from fish on Friday, cockles, like all clams, marry well with pork, particularly pork fat. We use pancetta. Treat cockles as you would any other shellfish: buy from a source that you trust. If choosing yourself, look for cockles that are tightly closed. Whisk home, preferably kept in a cool bag. Store loosely covered in the refrigerator, over ice if keeping for more than a day (though do not put directly on ice; use a towel or something else between the cockles and the ice). Scrub scrupulously. And toss any open shells that don’t close when rapped or knocked together.

Linguine with Cockles

Here’s a pretty basic recipe, serving two to four depending on appetite. The ingredients: two pounds fresh cockles; one pound lingine fini; 4-6 cloves garlic (or more); 1/4 pound pancetta; 4 TB extra virgin olive oil; crushed red pepper; a few ounces of white wine; salt and pepper to taste. The steps: Bring a large pot of water to the boil, and salt generously. In the meantime, scrub the cockles well, discarding those that are open and won’t close. Mince the garlic. Slice the pancetta into 1/4-inch batons (I use less than the 1/4 pound). Mince the parlsey. Now that everything is prepped, heat 1 TB of the olive oil in a deep 14 inch skillet that has a lid, and saute the pancetta until browned. Remove pancetta, discard some of the rendered fat, to taste, then—timed for when the pasta water comes to a boil— add rest of olive oil to pan and, when hot, add garlic. Start to cook the garlic and add up to a TB of crushed pepper, and toss in a 1/4 cup of white wine or white vermouth. Reduce wine a bit, then you’re ready: Put up to the full pound of pasta into the boiling water, then add clams to the pan, raise the heat, put on the lid, and cook the clams, shaking the pan occasionally, while the pasta cooks. The clams and pasta should finish almost simultaneously—the pasta al dente, the clams uniformly opened. Drain pasta, and add to the pan of clams, water still clinging to the noodles. Toss in minced parsley and reserved pancetta, stir, and check for seasoning. Serve immediately. Don’t forget an empty bowl for the shells.