Sweet, plump Manila clams are at their peak now

It’s midwinter, and Manila clams are at their plumpest and sweetest right now. Last summer’s spawning that left them depleted is over. They spent the fall and early winter filter feeding and growing fat. Their time has arrived.

Clamming is done at low tide, when the mud banks and sandy margins of the sea are exposed, along with the telltale signs of the clams that inhabit them. “High water” is high tide, when the clams are deep underwater and the clam diggers can’t get at them. So, the phrase “happy as a clam,” which comes from 19th century New England, means to be safe and content.

Remember Howard Johnson restaurants? There were over a thousand of them across the country in the 1960s and 1970s and their big featured item — developed by Jacques Pepin and Pierre Franey — was fried clam strips. These were made from quahogs, the most common clam on the Eastern Seaboard. The name is pronounced “co-hog” and is derived from the Narragansett word poquauhock.

Have you ever enjoyed a New England clambake? If so, you’ve had soft-shell clams, also called Ipswich or steamer clams, that are extra-sweet and tender and are a different genus and species from hard-shell quahogs.

These soft-shell clams were brought to the West Coast and are now established from British Columbia to California, where they’ve become invasive. Sounds scary, but maybe it’s not, since sea otters love nothing more than a soft-shell clam, and marine biologists are working hard to reestablish sea otters along our West Coast. They are also a tasty treat for seagulls and humans.

Another visitor from the western Pacific that is the most commonly farmed clam along the Pacific Northwest and Northern California coast is the Manila clam.

Although Manila is in the Philippines, the clam is from Japan. Go figure. It came here in the early 20th century, when it hitchhiked along with shipments of Japanese Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) and found our region much to its liking. It especially loved those inlets of Puget Sound from Olympia to Seattle, where a great deal of them are farmed today.

We can get them fresh from the farm at the Hog Island Oyster Co.’s stores around the Bay Area. Check hogislandoysters.com for the store nearest you and for its hours of operation.

They’re also available at the Bodega Bay Oyster Co. (bbayoyster.com) at 2830 Valley Ford Road in Petaluma and at Tony’s Seafood (tonysseafoodrestaurant.com) in Marshall. Check the status of all these places online, as pandemic rules still apply. To get fresh, raw Manila clams without leaving Santa Rosa, stop by Santa Rosa Seafood at 946 Santa Rosa Ave. Call 707-579-2085 for hours of operation.

Manila clams are the sweetest, meatiest and most tender of the small West Coast clams, although other more exotic kinds, such as abalone, razor clams and geoducks, have their partisans. Manilas are low in fat and high in protein. They’re an excellent source of magnesium, zinc, selenium and iron. A 3.5-ounce serving of Manila clam meat has just 75 calories, so these clams are a proper part of a healthy diet.

If you have traveled to Rhode Island, Cape Cod or thereabouts, you might have noticed most restaurant menus list “clams casino” as an appetizer. Along with deep-fried calamari, it’s pretty much the state snack in Rhode Island, for good reason. It’s hard to beat the combination of clams, butter, breadcrumbs and bacon. But clams casino is just as delicious on the Pacific coast as on the Atlantic, and maybe better, because we can use Manila clams while those poor Rhode Islanders are stuck with rubbery quahogs.

You can whip up these appetizers in 30 minutes with a food processor. Prepping by hand will take 60 to 90 minutes. Each is a morsel of goodness, so each diner gets six.

Clams Casino

Makes 4 servings

24 Manila clams

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ cup minced red bell pepper

⅓ cup minced shallot

¼ cup dry white wine

½ cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs or panko

¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

¼ cup minced fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

3 slices bacon, sliced crosswise into ¼-inch wide strips

Lemon wedges, for serving

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the broiler to high.

Arrange the clams on a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet. Broil until they open, 5 to 7 minutes, removing each clam with tongs as it opens and transferring it to a clean rimmed baking sheet to cool. Once all the clams have opened, collect any spilled clam juice from the first baking sheet in a measuring cup.

When the clams are cool enough to handle, tear off and set aside the top shells. Arrange the opened clams in their bottom shells on the baking sheet. Run a knife underneath each clam to separate the adductor muscle from its bottom shell. Distribute the reserved clam juice among the clams.

Melt the butter in an 8-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the bell pepper and shallot and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the wine and cook until the liquid is reduced by half, about 2 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs, Parmigiano, parsley and a few grinds of black pepper. (Do not season with salt.)

Spoon some of the breadcrumb mixture onto each clam. Top each with a tangle of bacon strips. Broil the clams until the topping is just browned, about 5 minutes.

Serve with the lemon wedges or squeeze the wedges over the clams before serving.

Jeff Cox is a food and garden writer based in Kenwood. Reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net