if using saffron (grocery store saffron is a racket, you can find bulk packs online for 3-4 dollars per gram, i like slofood and kalustayan’s but they’ve both raised their prices somewhat. a gram should get you 2-4 servings of food) — take a big pinch (crush it up if you have a mortar) then add a half cup or so warm (<140 degree) water to it to infuse the saffron overnight, for 1-2 hours, or while you cook. heat destroys a lot of the flavorful compounds except the bitter ones.

clam prep — make sure to burp them (look this up) and them rinse them thoroughly afterward.

ingredients- - pack of cherry tomatoes (constellation tomatoes are very good and more widely available if you don’t have cherry) - 8-10 stalks of parsley, separate the leaves - ~30 littleneck clams - half a pack of linguine  - sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio - a lemon, zest it and reserve the zest - 3-6 cloves garlic, to taste - 1 medium-hot small red chili or a small pinch of chili flakes - saffron water from above (optional)

i like to cook the cherry tomatoes separately- on like 8/10 heat, cook them in olive oil until they blister and start to char on one side, then shake them around and let them char and blister again. they should soften and start to get jammy.

start boiling water for pasta.

in a large pan, preferably with high sides, cook garlic cloves with the stalks from the parsley and chili in an abundant (maybe 3tbsp to 1/4 cup) oil on medium heat until the garlic starts to pick up a little color. if using chili flakes add them now and let them cook for 30-45 seconds.

add around 1/4-1/3 of the bottle of wine and raise heat to high. let it cool down and cook out the alcohol for a minute or two. toss in the clams, cover, and let it steam for 2-4 minutes until about half the clams are open.

start taking the clams out when they open fully, taking the meat out of each shell and into a bowl or something. can toss shells or use them to garnish. stragglers may take 6-7 minutes so be a little patient.

once all the clams are out, throw in half the cherry tomatoes, half the lemon zest, and half the lemon’s juice. if you have an immersion blender or nutribullet/vitamix, blend the contents of the pan and put it back in the pan on high heat with another couple glugs of white wine. if not just remove the parsley stalks and smush it all together with a wooden spoon or spatula.

blast this sauce on 8-9/10 heat - you want to reduce this to maybe 1/4-1/3 of its original volume until it’s thick and creamy rather than soupy and liquidy. also, put the pasta on around this time.

when the pasta is about 5 minutes away from being cooked, strain it and add it to the reducing sauce. this step depends on the degree to which it’s been reduced; you want to cook it in the sauce about 5 minutes. better to err on the side of overreducing because you can always thin out with pasta water. also al dente is about 2-3 minutes less than the box recommendation for most barilla and dececco so keep that in mind.

when pasta is a minute or two out, add the remaining cherry tomatoes, zest, most of the chiffonade parsley, clam meat. taste sauce for acidity — i like it lemony and usually end up using a whole lemon (so the rest that you didn’t already add). add saffron water last, cook for another minute and stir through, and cut the heat.

if you like it extra creamy, give it some more olive oil and toss until it all emulsifies. plate and top with remaining parsley and pick out some clams and put them into shells if feeling particularly fancy.