- Now forget everything you probably know about spaghetti with clams.

This is gonna be the best you've ever had, I promise.

- Perfectly al dente, but so, so flavorful.

- The shrimp are tender, plump, not overcooked at all, and every flavor from those few ingredients has been brought out and amplified.

All that's left is to mangia.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, Venice is known for its gondolas, its wine bars, of course, its seafood.

But it's also a great place to go for simple, quick-cooked pasta dishes.

We start with a classic: spaghetti with clams.

Move on to rigatoni with cherry tomatoes and anchovies.

This was inspired by Chef Claudio Furlanis.

And then a recipe from cookbook author Marika Contaldo Seguso-- spaghetti with shrimp, tomatoes, and white wine.

Please stay tuned.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ - Being on a boat in Venice, you have a total different perspective of the city.

It's a little cliché to say it, but actually when you take a row with your wooden boat in Venice, you don't have to go somewhere.

You just do it because you enjoy doing it.

♪ ♪ It's great to get to live and work in a city like this.

Usually in Venice, you have a lot of bars, osteria, cichetti, a lot of life.

♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter) ♪ ♪ (sizzling loudly) ♪ ♪ FURLANIS (in Italian): (sizzling loudly) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You can put some white wine.

A little.

♪ ♪ (sizzling) Italian cuisine is nothing fancy.

The starting ingredients are very simple.

It's all about freshness, good ingredients.

And nothing else.

(sizzling) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - At Perduto, a canalside restaurant in Venice, the chef taught us a regional specialty, bigoli con vongole, or a dish we probably know better as spaghetti with clams.

Bigoli's just spaghetti's Venetian cousin.

Now forget everything you probably know about spaghetti with clams, because like many Italian recipes we think we know, it comes down to these little details that kind of remind us we probably didn't know it that well at all.

So let's start by making some pasta.

This is bucatini.

This is what we're going to substitute for bigoli, which is really only available regionally in Italy.

So I've got some pasta water boiling.

I'm going to add a tablespoon of salt.

Now, you're probably noticing that there's not that much water in the pot, and that's because we want to make this pasta water really starchy.

We're going to use the juice from the clams to kind of reduce and build our sauce.

And we want this really starchy water to help that really cling to the pasta.

Now we can just drop the pasta.

All right, that's going to cook just until shy of al dente.

I'm going to drain it, and then I'm going to reserve two cups of that pasta water to make the sauce.

All right, so now we can start building the sauce.

I'm going to add some extra-virgin olive oil.

Okay, when that's shimmering, we're going to add a few cloves of smashed garlic.

Okay, now we're going to add a little bit of red pepper flakes.

This is going to just add a little bit of heat to this.

I hate spicy pasta unless it's meant to be spicy pasta, but this adds just the right amount of heat.

So we're going to let that go until that garlic is nice and brown, and then we're going to take it out, and then the garlic will have seasoned the oil.

Okay, the garlic has done its job, it seasoned the oil, so I'm going to take it out.

And now I'm going to add some white wine.

Pinot grigio would be really great here.

(sizzling loudly) Stir.

Okay, I'm going to let that reduce.

It's going to take between six and eight minutes or so.

So, in the meantime, let's talk a little bit about clams.

For this recipe, we're going to use littleneck clams or Manila clams.

So if you can look at these, this is about the size that you're looking for.

A littleneck clam is going to be a little bit bigger than a Manila clam, and they have a little bit more of the clam juice inside, or we call it clam liquor.

And that is really what is going to make this sauce taste like clams, which is what it should taste like.

So to clean clams, which you should probably do when you bring them home, you want to just scrub them on the outside with a little brush, with a little bit of cold water.

They should have been purged by the fish market if you buy it at a reputable place.

But there's a lot of sand on clams, and you want to make sure you get all of that out.

If you want to, you can soak them for a couple of hours in salted cold water if you're really sensitive to the sand.

But make sure to keep them uncovered.

These are living, breathing little creatures, so you don't want them to die before you get to eat them.

All right, it looks like the wine has reduced and really concentrated, so we can add the clams.

And I'm going to cover these, and then we're going to let those steam in there.

And then, as they open, we'll take them out.

You want to kind of grab them as soon as they open up so that they don't overcook.

And it'll kind of take a few minutes for them to start, but once they start going, they'll start opening up really fast.

All right, I can kind of hear them.

They kind of make a little click sound when you know they're opening up.

And they are.

So I'm going to take these out.

It's kind of like popcorn.

You put a couple of kernels in, and they... you're waiting and waiting and waiting, and then finally they start to pop, and then they go nuts.

Okay, so we made sure our pasta water was really nice and starchy.

That was kind of step one of making the best spaghetti with clams.

Step two is reducing this clam liquid down, so it's really nice and concentrated, and you get all of that flavor of that briny, clam, sea-like flavor.

So all of that clam liquid has reduced, and the flavor is really nice and concentrated.

Now we can do kind of step three of the three-step process of these great spaghetti with clams.

Add the pasta.

And toss, and toss, and toss, and toss.

As I do this, I'm going to add a little bit of that pasta water.

And the starchiness from that water is really going to kind of bring all of this together.

It's going to help all that clam liquid really cling to the pasta.

All right, I'm going to see if there's any juice in this bowl, and I'm going to add that-- a little bit.

Do some more tossing.

Gonna take it off the heat.

We're going to add in a healthy amount of parsley.

And then we can add the clams back in.

And there's still some extra clam juice here.

A little bit of a toss.

Don't want to crack any shells or lose any clams.

All right, I can make myself a little bowl here.

So the clams... And this is rustic.

So you serve the clams in the shell.

♪ ♪ Lemon juice on... ♪ ♪ All right, I'm gonna put a little bit of olive oil on the top.

So spaghetti with clams.

You can smell the clam.

It's full of clam flavor.

This is gonna be the best spaghetti with clams you've ever had, I promise.

♪ ♪ - At Osteria ai Promessi Sposi, chef Claudio Furlanis showed us a dish of his own creation-- pasta that's sautéed in cherry tomatoes, sautéed onions, and anchovies.

The umami quotient is ridiculously high thanks to the tomatoes and anchovies.

But the real trick is cooking the pasta in the sauce, so that way each bite is perfectly al dente, but intensely flavorful and satisfying.

So we're going to go ahead and make our little rendition of that recipe right here.

And it all starts with cherry tomatoes.

So here I have a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes that I'll be dressing in some oil as well as some salt and pepper.

And we'll give that a little bit of a toss.

What we're going to be doing with these cherry tomatoes is actually broiling them in the oven.

I have a rack set about six inches away from the heating element.

And broiling these tomatoes is going to achieve three things.

A: it's going to soften up all the tomatoes and make them break down into a sauce a lot easier.

B: it's going to concentrate that flavor of tomato.

And C: it is going to create a little bit of a smoky char.

And that flavor is really, really delicious in the sauce.

So once all of your tomatoes are evenly coated, go ahead and toss them all onto a baking sheet that's lined with a little bit of aluminum foil.

And be sure to get all of that oil into the pan.

That's going to help all these cherry tomatoes kind of break down, and also it'll help create a little bit of caramelization at the bottom.

And then I'll throw them into that broiler for about eight to ten minutes, or until most of the cherry tomatoes have burst and you see some nice charring on the top.

Here I have a 12-inch skillet.

I'm going to set that over medium-high heat.

And to that I'll be throwing in some oil.

Now, as always, we want to heat this oil until it begins to shimmer.

And then we're going to be adding in my favorite ingredient: garlic.

Now, here's an interesting thing.

This garlic is not minced, it's whole.

And what we're going to do with it is we're going to cook it until it's a little bit brown, and then we're going to remove it from the pan.

This is a very gentle, elegant approach to imparting a little bit of that garlic flavor without it becoming too astringent or acrid.

So my garlic is nice and brown.

We want to go ahead and pull those out of the pan before they get too toasty.

Now that the garlic is out of the pan, we could go ahead and add in our onions.

(sizzling) We'll also season it with a little bit of salt.

We're only cooking these until they're softened because we're already working with pretty aggressive flavors like charred tomatoes and anchovies.

So having a nice, clean, simple canvas to work with will really let those flavors shine.

I'm going to go ahead and pop a lid on it and reduce the heat down to medium.

We'll let these onions cook for about ten minutes or until they're buttery soft.

My cherry tomatoes have been broiling for eight minutes.

They're done.

Now our onions have been cooking down nice and soft, and we're going to add in a little bit more excitement in the form of anchovies... as well as some red pepper flake.

And we do want to cook these down until the anchovies begin to break down, and that takes about five minutes.

So while the anchovies break down, let's go ahead and get to cooking our pasta.

We're only cooking with six cups of water, and we're doing that on purpose.

It creates a really starchy pasta water that helps the sauce we create cling to the pasta.

Like any pasta water, we need to go ahead and season it.

So we'll throw in some salt.

And now we can go ahead and throw in our pasta.

Now here I have rigatoni.

It's a little different than the big tubes that we saw back in Italy, but it does the job.

We'll let that pasta cook until it is just shy of al dente.

We actually want it to be a little bit raw in the middle, and that's because we'll finish cooking it in the sauce, which helps it absorb all of the sauce's flavor.

So those anchovies have practically melted into the onions here.

We could go ahead and add in those cherry tomatoes.

Now you can get a little bit of aggression out if some of your tomatoes didn't burst.

Go ahead and give them a little press down.

They'll pop in no time.

So I'm going to let these tomatoes cook down for about three to five minutes, or until all of the tomatoes have released their moisture and a nice sauce is formed.

So my cherry tomatoes have finished cooking, and my favorite way to tell if we're good to move on is if I drag my spatula through the tomatoes they shouldn't leave any juices or trails behind.

It should leave behind a clean pan.

Now that we're done with that, we could go ahead and remove that from heat altogether, and we could look at our pasta.

As you can see, I've drained it off, but I've kept some of that pasta water to use.

And now we add in that cherry tomato sauce we created.

And, again, you want to get every last bit-- oil and all.

And if you happen to have any brown bits in that pan, get them in there.

We want it.

We'll also be adding in that pasta water that we saved.

We'll bring this whole mixture up to medium heat and we'll give this a stir.

We actually want to finish cooking that pasta in this sauce because, again, all of that flavor is going to go right on in and each bite is going to be fantastically savory.

We can go ahead and pop a lid on it and let that cook for about five to seven minutes, or until most of that moisture has absorbed.

So it's been about five minutes and the sauce is beautifully thick.

All there is left is to eat.

Go ahead and serve myself a little bit here.

Look at that.

Even got a little bit of the charred skins in there.

From here, all we got to do is give it one final touch of Parmesan cheese.

And this is a point where you can do as much or as little as you like.

♪ ♪ I'm going to keep going because I really like Parmesan cheese.

Mm!

Perfectly al dente, but so, so flavorful.

And there you have it, only a few ingredients and, honestly, 30 minutes later, you have yourself a delicious rigatoni with cherry tomatoes and anchovies.

Seriously, finish cooking your pasta in the sauce, you'll thank me later.

♪ ♪ - It is a widely known fact about Italian cooks, and one they rightfully boast about, that they are masters at drawing maximum flavor out of few ingredients, and doing so with very simple cooking methods.

This recipe is a shining example of that-- spaghetti with shrimp, white wine, and tomatoes.

The sauce in this dish is known as scampi alla busara, referring to the fact that the shrimp cooked gently in the tomato sauce.

We learned this in Venice when our editorial director, J.M.

Hirsh, traveled to some of the outer islands around the main city and spent time with cookbook author Marika Contaldo Seguso, who lives in Venice, and also teaches cooking classes there.

She showed us the method for this sauce and then she served the sauce on top of spaghetti, which isn't altogether traditional, but we thought that was swell and we did the same thing with our recipe.

So, starting with the shrimp, look for the freshest shrimp you can find and make sure the tails, at the least, are still attached.

So to get the tails off, you simply pinch the ends right there and they come right off, which is great.

And so save all those tails together in a bowl and we'll be using those in a little bit.

Now we're going to get started on this very simple sauce by heating some olive oil in a large skillet.

We want about two tablespoons in here.

We're going to wait for the oil to get fully hot and we'll take our four cloves of garlic and just give them a simple smash.

Very simple prep for this.

That releases the flavor of the garlic and it infuses the oil all the better.

And this is when we use the shrimp tails.

If you have the shells with it, you get even more flavor from that, but we'll add those in.

What we're doing is infusing the oil with both the flavor of the shrimp and the garlic.

So we'll let this go until the garlic gets a light golden brown.

You don't want to go any further than that.

Meanwhile, have at the ready a third-cup of a dry white wine, because when the garlic has turned a little brown, we'll add that wine, and that will prevent the garlic from overcooking.

Got the nice golden... light golden color on the garlic.

The shells are also getting a little crispy golden, which is wonderful.

All right, now we'll deglaze.

(sizzling loudly) We're going to let the wine reduce by about half.

And while that happens, I will finish prepping the tomatoes.

We're using fresh tomatoes for this instead of canned tomatoes because this is a quick cooking, very fresh sauce.

Canned tomatoes, as you know, have been pressure cooked and have very different flavor from a fresh tomato.

So it's time to remove the garlic and shrimp tails.

They've given us everything they have.

Now, to our simmering olive oil and wine, we'll add the tomatoes.

A little bit of red pepper flake just for a little spicy edge.

This doesn't make the entire thing really spicy.

It just sort of boosts the flavor a little bit.

Half teaspoon of salt.

And a little bit of pepper as well.

Something that Marika did in Venice is that she added a little bit of sugar to her tomatoes.

Now, this is not a foreign concept by any means with Italian tomato sauces.

And, of course, it varies depending on the acidity of your tomatoes.

But sugar doesn't add just sweetness.

It actually rounds out the flavor, and it can pull out the natural sweetness in the tomato as well.

So it's a really nice thing to do with a very quick sauce like this.

And we are going to add some fresh basil to this as well.

We'll take the burner to medium high in order to bring this back up to a full rolling simmer.

Then we'll reduce it to a medium and let it cook for about 15 to 18 minutes to let all the juices evaporate from those tomatoes.

Ah, and the water is ready.

Great.

So we'll add the salt to the water now-- always after boiling-- two teaspoons.

Here's a little personal trick that I'm sure I didn't invent, (laughing): but I stir the salt into the water with the spaghetti.

It also gets it a little softer and lets it drop in.

Important tip here: we're cooking a full pound of spaghetti in three quarts of water because we want the water to become starchy.

And the less water you use, the more starchy the water.

That starchy water will be used to help thicken the sauce.

We'll let the spaghetti cook until it's just shy of al dente.

At that point, we'll reserve some of the cooking water, about a cup of it, which is full of that really delicious starch.

We'll drain the spaghetti, and then we will join it together with the sauce.

Okay, in that short amount of time, 12 to 15 minutes, the tomato juices have evaporated, the mixture has become thick and jammy and intensified.

When you do this in a flat skillet, it happens even faster.

We'll add the shrimp to these tomatoes, and this is our alla busara of the sauce, cooking the shrimp very gently in the tomatoes.

In about two minutes, these will have lost some of their opacity and will have become slightly pink.

And, at that point, we will join them with the spaghetti and let those two things cook a little bit further together.

Okay, so looking at our spaghetti.

We've already drained it and returned it to the pot.

Before we did that, we reserved a cup of the starchy cooking water.

You can see how cloudy it is.

That's the starch in it.

We'll set that aside.

The spaghetti is still hot in the pot.

The shrimp are slightly pink on the outside.

They're still raw in the very center, but they are now ready to join with the pasta.

Put this right on top, and we're going to add about a half of the pasta water that we reserved.

There we go.

Now is a good time to add a little more olive oil, about two tablespoons worth, and then we will let this finish cooking, married together, the flavors will meld, the pasta will continue absorbing some of that delicious tomato sauce.

The shrimp will finish cooking, and like magic, we have spaghetti with shrimp, tomatoes, and white wine.

So this is ready to serve.

This is not one of those dishes that can sit around and wait.

You do want to serve it as soon as the shrimp are finished cooking.

And right before serving here's that fresh basil we talked about earlier.

We'll add that to the pot.

Just toss it in very briefly.

You want the flavors to stay fresh and bright and not get too wilted.

And then, all that's left is to mangia.

I'll eat this with gusto.

The last drizzle of olive oil, of course.

Okay.

♪ ♪ Now it's my turn to boast.

(chuckling): Pasta is cooked perfectly.

The shrimp are tender, plump, not overcooked at all.

The basil is bright and fresh.

The tomatoes and the wine have reduced, and simmered, and are beautiful.

And every flavor from those few ingredients has been brought out and amplified.

This is our recipe, inspired by what we learned in Venice of spaghetti with shrimp, tomatoes, and white wine.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from our season at MilkStreetTV.com.

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Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad: for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪