How To Rake For Clams | BEST Stuffed Baked Clams Recipe

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What is going on, guys? We’re here on the North Fork of Long Island. I’m with my friend Cheryl and we are hunting down some by valves. Okay, I’m going to have Cheryl tell you all about her experience that she offers here on the North Fork. Calamity James. We’re a group of North Fork uh female clamming enthusiasts who take people out to experience the North Fork. We take you out clamming. You’ll learn all about the ponic estuary, the role of different marine species that we see. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to clam. It’s really not that difficult. The clamming part might not be difficult, but finding out where you can clam, if you need a permit, if the water so you have to be able to read the shellfish mapper, you have to know a spot that’s legal for you to go. And that’s the joy and the greatest thing about Cheryl’s business is that she’s done all of that work for you that you just need to show up and it took years, right? So, you can’t say it’s not hard. Climbing itself isn’t hard, but yes, getting getting the equipment, getting the permits, finding the places, kind of knowing what to look for. Yes, that’s hard. [Music] So, for all you South Carolina guys, that’s uh hundreds of dollars worth of uh sheep’s head bait right there. Cheryl is going to walk us through basically how to clam. So, we’ll start with what we’re using. Okay, so we have got our clam rig and what you’re going to be doing in the water is you’re just basically going to drop your rake into the sand. Pull towards yourself about 18 in. The tops of their shells are going to be about 3 or 4 in under the sand. If you hit a rock or a shell, a rock will roll. A shell will roll. But if you hit a clam, your rake will kind of stick. So if you feel that, you need to go deep and underneath. And then you’re going to pull and twist your basket. And then you’re going to shake to see what you got. A keeper clam is, from my understanding, it’s an inch and a half high. Okay. So an inch and a half high. So, I provide everybody a clam gauge. So, if the clam passes through this, it’s a baby and it needs to go back. Okay. You see a lot of whelk, those are actually clam predators. Ah, okay. They eat clams. So, if you find a lot of welk, you’re in a good spot. If we pull up a whelk, I’ll show you. It looks like a tiny conchk. And I didn’t know that that they eat the I didn’t know shellfish eat other shellfish. Yes. The other name for them, carnivorous gastropod. There you go. They’re gonna be kind of grouped up, right? Yeah. In general, when you find one, you’re gonna find a few. Oh. Oh. Okay. That didn’t move. Okay. Let’s see. No. So, when I take people out. Hey. Oh my gosh. All right. Did it pull your rake at all? Did you I I felt it. I felt it the first time and then I felt it again and I didn’t want to get too excited. Yeah. Good job. But here you go, guys. A nice size one. This is a long island. This would be considered in between a top neck and a little neck. This would still be a little neck. If you went to a restaurant, this is what you would get raw. But so yeah, let’s gauge them. Make sure. Okay. And we’re good. You’re good. He’s a keeper. Nice. Amazing. Oh, hey, there’s a friend. All right. Now, this would be top neck to cherry stone. That would be the size of that one. I We’re off to a tremendous start. As Cheryl said, when you find one, they tend to be grouped together. So, maybe we’re in a good spot. You know, all that yard work that I had to do as a kid raking leaves is really I feel like the crowded kid after he waxed all the cars. I was I was preparing for this moment, Cheryl. Nice little color to it. Yeah. So, tell me tell me about the color because I know I’ve seen clams with a white shell. I’ve seen clams with a brown kind of zigzag pattern on them. What is giving these clams this black? So, this is in some sediment that is a little bit darker. So, it therefore is a darker clam. Yeah. I’ve seen some light brown ones that are in very like loose sediment. Yeah. If you find one with stripes on it, you’re like you’re either got a one in a million. Yeah. Or more likely, it’s a product of a hatchery program. Ah, okay. Usually, if you have an unhealthy area of water, the first thing you do is plant clams and oysters. and it actually will help filter the water to where you are now affecting all of the sea life. If you’re someone that fishes and enjoys fishing and that’s your thing, well, guess what? Clams and oysters are very important. Usually in November, for the past 3 years, we’ve been going out with CC Marine and planting upwards to 740,000 babies, baby clams back into the waters. And those clams are really there to help one, you know, keep the water clean as you were just mentioning, but two, also reproduce and sort of augment the existing wild population. So, we’re standing in the botanic estuary. And the Bconic estuary is a very uh nutrientrich body of water. An estuary is just basically a body of water where fresh water and saltwater meet and mix and it produces an incredibly nutritious environment for fish. And something like 80% of all fish and shellfish at some point in their life will use an estuary to breed or um or raise their young. Now that what I just ran over felt like a clam. Let’s see. Where was I? Hey. Hey. So, would you put this clam back? I would take that clam. You would take this clam. Okay. That one. So, I’ve seen I’ve seen bigger. Okay. And you’ll when you you pull a monster out, you’re like, “Wow.” Got you. So, the bigger ones tend to be the females. So they’re important to the ecosystem. Okay. That’s when they start growing a foot. Ah, okay. Okay. And when about the time they grow a foot, they’re getting heavy enough. Not too pretty. Look at the color on that. It’s like a black and white cookie. And this one’s still You would take this one. Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. You’ll know when you get a really big a really big Yeah. [Music] You know, [Music] they just are absolutely beautiful. There you go. It’s not what what you usually see like on a menu. You see that kind of grayish white, but this is uh it’s gorgeous. Hey, there you go. And much lighter. That would be typically more so what you see. So, um I think I got a good one here. I either have a good one or a rock. Oh, it’s a good one. That is pretty. That is a giant welk. Now, what is there regulation on these? Are you allowed to You’re allowed to collect those. Yeah. Interesting. Well, that we’re focused on clams today. This will have to be for for another day. Make my grandfather proud and make some red sauce. This is a Sicilian delicacy right here. Big one. That’s a big one. Yeah. Yeah. So, now the chances are that that’s going to be a female. Yes. Okay. That has such a nice weight to it. Um, that’s incredible. I found bigger, but yeah, that’s all right. That’s a beauty. We’re going to put her back. Yeah, we’ll let her dig back in. Yeah. Amazing. Hey, it’s been a minute. I won’t lie, the excitement I know maybe on the other end of watching this it’s not that exciting, but as you’re dragging your rake and you feel the little thump, it really is exciting. And then to pull it up and come up with a clam is this is awesome. I think we got we got a juicy one here. That’s a pretty big one. We’re going to put We’re going to put that one back, too. That’s a little bit on the on the larger side. So, you can kind of see the seasons of growth on a clam. So this is probably first year, second year, third year, fourth year, fifth year, sixth year. So like the rings of a tree. Yeah. But in in groupings, right? Mhm. And sometimes they’ll be skinnier and sometimes they’ll be wider. And that might depend on the the water quality that year. So for me, the quintessential clam recipe is is a a baked clam or a stuffy. And that is just that is a long island. That’s as long island as you can get. It is. It’s just one of the more perfect ways to eat a clam. It was probably one of my first experiences with a clam as a kid. So, that is exactly what we’re doing. We’re going to make some baked clams or as they call them, stuffies. So, here is something we were talking about. As you can see, that little brown um like zigzag shape. And you were saying that these are farmed. Yes. So this is likely comes from a hatchery program. Okay. So that little zigzag, it’s called nata. It occurs in less than 1% of wild clams. So this is probably from a hatchery that was thrown out as a little teeny baby size of your like pinky finger and has grown to full size. That’s the prettiest one of the day. We’re going to grab one other ingredient and I’m going to have Cheryl explain it to you. So, I know it as seab beans and it looks like grass, but she’s gonna give you a more technical explanation. Well, I believe it’s called salicornia. So, we’ve heard seans and sea asparagus and it’s this vegetation that grows in this inner tidal zone. Um, and it is out here um during this time of year that you can get it. And it just it tastes like salt. That’s what it tastes like. Yeah. It’s like a salty bean. That So if you’ve ever eaten a green bean before cooking, if you just take a raw green bean, it tastes like that with like a punch of salt inside of it. It’s amazing. Yeah. All right, we got another ingredient. Take the umbbo. Put in your umbbo right there. Use your thumb to hold it in place. Okay. Now, a clam knife is different than an oyster knife. It’s got a dull edge and a sharp edge. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to line the sharp edge along the line of the clam. And you’re going to use these fingers and this pressure to push it all the way through. And that’s how you’re going to open it. So, let’s see. Just like that. There you go. Now, you made that look easy to release it from the top. Mhm. And then you can twist the shell. And because we’re on a beach, we get to throw it over there. Then you scrape the bottom to release it. I also brought my shotgun sauce. Now we’re talking. Yeah. So, this is a hot sauce based minionette. Mhm. That that we make for pop-ups. Inspired by the old old men. Old men who eat clams with hot sauce and drink a beer. That’s it. I am one of those old men. The beauty about eating on a beach, it’s like be a little messy. [Music] If you get them iced down, they’re not they’re not fighting as hard. You’ve kind of, you know, weakened them a bit. You’ve kind of put them to sleep. Yeah. They’re in like a stasis somewhat. So, you want to get in there like that. And then if you I might have flubbed it already, but you kind of want to ride the top of the clam there. Yeah. See, if you ride the top of the clam, you don’t you don’t have to you don’t mangle it so much. But all right, [Music] come around the back. Separate the two adductor muscles. [Music] And there you go. All right. I will happily take Hit it with a little of shotgun sauce. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Sorry. Oh, that’s okay. That’s delicious. I’m in a good place right now. I’m in a very happy place. So, also I just want to give a shout out to my friends over at Jetum for the clamp knife. This one actually says Calamity James on it. Uh if you guys remember in my scallop episode, I actually used one of the Jetsum uh clam knives to chuck open the uh scallops, but as you see, they work really well. If anyone has trouble opening clams, going to show you a trick. So, if you come to the back, if you come to the back here and get in that hinge, you can actually get your clam knife in there a little bit easier. So, now it’s in there. And all you do is turn upward. And what that does is offsets the shell so that you have this opening right here like that. And now you don’t even have to use pressure. Just go right in like that. There you go. If there is ever a setting to just shut clams and eat them, I’ll tell you what, this is it. You know, like traditional like, you know, you just drink a beer and you put the hot sauce and the clams and that’s awesome. Beer chaser. Cheers, guys. If anyone on the island or visiting the island or in Connecticut or if you travel to the island, please hit up Cheryl. And I’m also going to put some other information for what she does with the receding. And if you guys feel so inclined to give a donation to that to keep our waters healthy, please do. That would be amazing. Cheers. Cheers. This is my This is a portrait of Calamity Jane, the original Calamity Jane that the Calamity Janes were named after. She was an American frontiers woman. Believe she was born in 1852 and she spent her time out in the Wild West and is basically our namesake. We um like to call her a true non-conforming spirit. As a woman at a time when you were only able to be school teachers and mothers and nurses, she decided to like go out west and be with the big guys um while Bill Hickok was uh this is portrait of him was uh somebody who she admired and she hung out with. So she was a frontiers woman. She rode horses. She wore pants. Women were not allowed to wear pants, but she wore pants. She gambled. She cursed. She drank booze. And she did everything she just damn well pleased. She lived her life by her own set of rules. And for that, we salute her. What a beautiful experience. We are going to put all of Cheryl’s information because this is something you can bring kids to, you can bring the family to. Doesn’t take that long. It’s not that much traveling and it is very fulfilling. And at the end, you get to eat clams. So, all right. So, you know how you get crab cakes and they have hardly any crabs in them? Well, the same thing I feel like with uh clams. Like, I’ll I’ll get stuffed clams and it’ll have like two pieces of clam in it. So, we’re going to go super clam heavy. I’m going to shuck all the largest ones cuz we’re going to reserve the shells to uh to use. And that there, the purple, that’s the uh the wampom. That’s what they made jewelry out of. Absolutely absolutely beautiful. So, I also want the liquid. I’m going to put it through a strainer to catch any stray shell or anything. And then we’re going to reserve the clams. So, I’m going to open up all these Now, we’re going to run this right here through a cheesecloth just to make sure no shell, no debris, and we just have only the clam juice. So, we’re going to take our clams. So, like if that’s one whole clam, I’m not going to cut it up too much because I really want want you to get a nice bite of clam. So, about like that. So, another thing I’m going to point out is that the reason why a lot of the times when you get stuffed clams, the clams are chopped up into tiny little pieces. It’s to camouflage the fact that they’re pieces of rubber. And if you’re dealing with fresh clams, you can put nice big chunks in there that aren’t going to be overcooked, horrible pieces of tire. [Music] I’m also cutting these individual to kind of try to feel with my finger if there’s any shell cuz there’s nothing worse than getting a bite of something with some shell in it. Okay, now everything else that we put in I’m going to chop up pretty fine. So, I have some finger chilies. These are not on the crazy spicy side, just a little bit. But we’re going to take the seeds out just so that you don’t get a seed in there. Then I have here the seab beans. So these guys I just did a quick blanch of and then an ice bath. And this is going to pack a nice little punch of salt and also add texture. Then we’re going to do one shallot. We came back under the tree. It started raining just a little too hard. So, next ingredient, parsley into the bowl. So, next I’m actually going to put in one beaten egg and half of one lemon. So, now that I have all the chopping and everything done, we’ll move on to seasoning. We got cracked black pepper. Couple of shots of hot sauce. I like something like Crystal. I’m actually using my Ashbies from uh South Carolina. Couple of shots of whooes. And even though we got all these salty things going on, just a touch of sea salt. We’re going to go a little bit of mayo because I want fat in there to protect the clams from overcooking. So about a tablespoon of mayo. Little bit of our clam broth. And I know this will this will make somebody out there angry, but we’re going to go Parmesan cheese in there as well. Not too much, just enough. Going to start adding breadcrumbs, mixing them together. So, I have here panko. And they’re they’re Italian style because this is a nostalgic dish for me. And uh I’m pretty sure every big clam that I had was made with 4C uh breadcrumbs. So, going to add those. And we want this to be a little bit on the wet side, the mixture, but we want it to bind. You want to give those breadcrumbs a minute to kind of soak up everything in there and get soft. But that’s about where I want it to where you can form it and it’ll stick together. Now, the best thing about these, too, is that you can make them ahead of time. You can freeze them. They’re uh they’re good for about, I would say, four or five days in the fridge before you bake them. So, we are actually going to cook these tomorrow. All right, going to cover these up and I will see you guys tomorrow. We’re going to load up a couple of these guys. And on them, I’m just going to put some fresh bread crumbs [Music] to get those nice and crispy. And these are going to go into the oven at 400°. [Music] All right, let’s eat. So, what more proper way to invite some people to Long Island than giving them some Long Island stuffed clams. Wow, look who we got here. What a welcome. Stuffed. Oh my gosh, this is like they’re going to be hot. Should be careful. Take a bite right now. Yeah. And hang on. We got Mama Clams over here filling the bird bath. Yeah. Tell us about your bird bath. Yeah. Not as clean as I’d like it to be, but Oh, no one’s judging. Come eat a clam. Okay. They’re ripping hot. So, as you guys know, if if you don’t know who those two people are, that’s Aaron and Meline. I think you know. And one of Aaron’s favorite pastimes is to uh burn his mouth. So, we’ll let him. I’m on vacation and I can’t even do what I want. Hot shell’s hot. Got to open them up. Let Let him Let him breathe a little bit. Here. You want to sit here? No. Yeah. Careful, Mom. It’s going to be very, very hot. Grab a seat. Grab a seat. I’m going to open mine up. Got a little lemon. You guys burn your fingers. I do. I also brought some hot sauce. Keep keep that napkins. Napkins. Sure. I wanted to I wanted to give them a proper Long Island. That’s the That’s That’s the Long Island way. All right, dude. Feel like Okay. Smell smell is an A+ visuals five stars. I’m not going to do any hot sauce, though. M. All right. Nice big chunk of clam. These are large clams. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is a good time. Nice big chunk. I would say it’s full. Oh my goodness. Okay, those are good. Yeah, those are banging. So, what’s also in there? We foraged sea beans. Really? It’s like little uh sea. Sea beans. Sea beans. Sea beans. sea beans. It’s little grass-like and it just is like little bursts of salt. Oh my gosh, man. We should have had these for breakfast. That was tangy. Oh, it has a tang to it already, even without putting the hot sauce on it. Well, the hot sauce is actually already in there. Okay. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah, cuz I taste it. Very nice, though. Wow. This is so good. All right. Well, welcome back to Long Island. We’re very excited. Huge thank you to Cheryl. Thank you for taking me out. Thank you for teaching me everything about clamming. Um really educational and just amazing and the importance of protecting a lesser than species, meaning starts at the bottom. If you don’t protect them, the rest of the fishery is going to suffer. And in the process, we have a very delicious meal. And we have another dozen. I want to thank Cheryl, too. Yeah. Go on. I’m just I’m thrilled. We’re going to actually meet Cheryl later. She’s going to come Yeah. Cheryl’s going to come meet us for a uh a drink. Yep. Nice. Well, all right, guys. Thanks for coming along and I will see you on the next one. [Laughter] This is so good. I’m making a mess. Good.