Alle Vongole
The sea served on pasta. Clams, white wine, garlic, parsley, nothing added, nothing covered up.
Born in Naples. The dish comes white (in bianco) or red (in rosso), though the white version is the one that established vongole as a serious dish.
Only a few ingredients
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Into a wide pan, wide enough that the clams will have room. Medium heat. It needs to be hot before the garlic goes in.
Garlic
Sliced thin, low heat. Golden but not dark. If you don't want to find pieces of it later, pull it out before the clams go in.
Chili Pepper
One dried peperoncino, crumbled in. Takes the edge off the sweetness of the clams. Optional, but correct.
optionalVongole
Scrubbed, live, cold from soaking. High heat, lid on. They open in two or three minutes. Any that don't open by then. Discard them.
live onlyDry White Wine
The moment the clams go in, before they open. A full glass. It steams them and becomes the sauce.
Parsley
Flat-leaf, chopped. Off the flame. Stir it through and serve immediately. This is not a dish that waits.
In bianco, not in rosso.
The white version, clams, oil, wine, garlic, is the one that requires skill and the one worth learning. Tomato is not a correction or an upgrade; it produces a different dish. Start with bianco. The rosso can wait.
Spaghetti
The Neapolitan standard. The sauce coats every strand.
Linguine
A common alternative. The flat surface holds the sauce differently.
Ready to cook?
These sources we trust. Each one makes it correctly.
Other sauces from the same region
Marinara
A Neapolitan sauce with no pretensions. Tomato, garlic, oil, basil, oregano, done in the time it takes to boil the pasta. Simplicity is not the same as easy.
Puttanesca
A bold, pungent sauce of Neapolitan street food. Built on tomatoes, olives, capers, and anchovies, complex, salty, assertive, and unapologetic.
La Genovese
A Neapolitan ragù built on time and onions. The beef is there, but the onions are the sauce, slow-cooked until they collapse entirely into something sweet, dark, and unlike anything else in Campania.
Colatura di Alici
Colatura from Cetara, the direct descendant of Roman garum. Added raw at the end. The anchovy does all the work.
Alla Carrettiera
Garlic, chili, parsley, and oil, with cherry tomatoes to distinguish it from aglio e olio. A cart-driver's sauce from Campania, designed to be made on the road.
Al Limone
Butter, lemon, and Parmigiano. From the Amalfi Coast, where the lemons are so fragrant they define the landscape. Three ingredients, and every one of them must be excellent.
Alla Nerano
Fried zucchini, aged provolone, basil, and starchy pasta water, a creamy sauce that contains no cream. From the fishing village of Nerano on the Amalfi Coast, made famous by Stanley Tucci.
Alla Natalina
Spaghetti from the Neapolitan countryside, anchovies melted into the oil, walnuts, pine nuts, sultanas, olives, and tomato. Salty, sweet, and completely surprising. The anchovies disappear. Their flavour stays.