Spaghettino alle vongole fujute
Spaghetti with the clams that got away
The clams have escaped, but their place at the table remains. Vongole fujute is a Campanian joke with a good dinner behind it: pasta dressed with the garlic, olive oil, tomato and parsley that might surround clams, with none of the shellfish themselves.
The old story gives the invention to the Neapolitan playwright Eduardo De Filippo, improvising from a spare cupboard. The attribution remains a story, not a settled origin. Other versions put sea stones into the pan to suggest the shore. What matters on the plate is the generous parsley: some briefly perfumes the warm oil, and more goes in at the end so the sauce stays fresh and green.
Ingredients
- 320 gthin spaghetti or spaghettini
- 320 gripe cherry or small plum tomatoes, halved
- 60 ml(¼ cup)extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little for finishing
- 2garlic cloves, lightly crushed
- 1small fresh red chile, slit lengthwise (or less, to taste)
- 25 gflat-leaf parsley, leaves and tender stems separately chopped
- fine salt
Kitchen notes
- Parsley
- Use fresh flat-leaf parsley generously; its green scent is central to the dish. Reserve most of it for the finish. Dried parsley will not provide the same effect.
- Tomatoes
- Small, flavorful tomatoes work best. Campanian cooks may use local corbarini or piennolo tomatoes; ripe cherry or small plum tomatoes are a sound choice when those are unavailable.
Method
Build the sauce
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. In a wide skillet, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat with the garlic, chile and chopped parsley stems. Let them sizzle gently for 2–3 minutes, until the garlic is pale gold and the oil fragrant; do not brown it. Add the tomatoes and a pinch of salt. Raise the heat to medium and cook for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they slump and release their juices but still taste lively. Discard the garlic and chile.
Finish the pasta
- Salt the boiling water and cook the spaghetti until about 2 minutes short of al dente. Reserve at least 250 ml (1 cup) of cooking water, then transfer the pasta to the skillet. Add a small ladle of the water and toss over medium heat, adding more a little at a time, until the strands are cooked and coated by a loose, glossy tomato-and-oil sauce. There should be no dry clumps or watery pool.
- Take the pan off the heat and fold in the parsley leaves with a small drizzle of raw olive oil. Taste for salt and serve at once. The parsley should smell fresh, rather than cooked down into the tomato.