SBS Food Safari is back for another season and this time around, the spotlight is on Italian cuisine. We were sent the first two episodes to preview and I have to say, it is going to be a very interesting and educational season! Italian cuisine is deep in our roots and Food Safari introduces us to the full spectrum of the cuisine and how it has flourished in Australia.
Joined by Melbourne’s Guy Grossi, Maeve O’Meara visits top Italian chefs and producers across Australia, including Armando Percuocco (Buon Riccordo), Lucio Galletto (Lucio’s), Stefano Manfredi (Bells at Killcare), Nino Zoccali (Pendolino), Eugenio Maiale (A Tavola), Giovanni Pilu (Pilu) and Alessandro Pavoni (Ormeggio).
Italian Food Safari premieres this Thursday 18 March at 7:30pm. Don’t miss it!
One particular dish that caught our eye (and taste buds) during the first episode was Eugenio Maiale’s Spaghetti alle Vongole. We couldn’t wait to try it for ourselves!
It was actually quite difficult to find vongole in our local seafood shops, so we opted for pipi’s instead, which have a richer flavour but aren’t as sweet as baby clams.
It really surprised me how easy this dish was to cook (we were in and out of the kitchen in 20 minutes), it’s the perfect meal to whip up after work.
The flavour in the dish was incredible, the juice from the clams mixed with the fresh herbs and pinot grigio was absolutely delicious. It’s a dish we know we’ll make time and time again.
Spaghetti alle Vongole – serves 4
Ingredients
* 1.4kg live vongole
* 100mL white wine, like pinot grigio
* 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil to start
* 5 tspn chopped garlic
* 6 tbsp chopped parsley
* ½ tspn chopped hot red chilli peppers
* 100mL extra virgin olive oil to finish
* Salt
* 450g spaghetti
Preparation
1. Purge vongole in cold water for 12 hours in advance.
2. Wash vongole 3 times.
3. Pour the olive oil into a heavy based, shallow pan over medium high heat. When hot, add the vongole, garlic and chilli and turn the heat to high. Stir once or twice. When approx half of the vongole are open, season to taste and add the white wine. Simmer briefly. Add 100mL of extra virgin olive oil and parsley. Set aside.
4. Drop the spaghetti into a pan of abundant boiling salted water. When barely tender but firm to the bite, drain and toss immediately with the vongole. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately.
And voila!
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13 comments
Remember to chuck out the dead ones!
I love Food Safari, so thanks for the heads up!
And Spaghetti alle Vongole is one of favourite dishes – I like to add anchovies to mine. Yours look really yummy.
This looks really delicious! I love watching Food Safari too.
Really looking forward to another season of Food Safari, as well as making my own spaghetti alle vongole!
that’s actually one of the signature dishes at Il Baretto but yours looks better
What a simple yet tasty dish. I can’t wait for Food Safari to kick off again; loving this Italian cuisine!
Love it we’re all die-hard fans of Food Safari! Mr. Taste’s cousin was featured in one of the earlier episodes (Thai cuisine) and that’s about when we fell in love with it.
Oh wow this dish looks amazing, I love Italian food and will for sure be tuning into Food Safari! Thanks for posting!
I am waiting with excitement for the new series of Food Safari. Every episode in previous seasons have been great.
I like your Vongole. There was a similar recipe to this in Gourmet Traveler about 2 years ago which was great. Strangely my local fish shop sells vongole even though they don’t have regular fare.
Well it’s not so simple, the clams should be left one hour or two in cold salty water to ‘spurgare’, I have to use the italian term because I can’t translate it, it’s essentially to get rid of their poo and sand present in the shell. After that rinse them two or three under cold tap water. You don’t follow that step and you have a very lame dish of pasta. p.s. I am from Rome.
Whenever I’ve tried to cook pippis in the past they’ve STILL had sand in them, despite soaking in fresh water overnight. Any thoughts?
I’d be interested to know as well. We didn’t have the sand problem this time around – maybe because the seafood shop we bought the pipis from had them in a tank of water?
Hi Kerrie, after you let the clams opening in the pan that liquid should be sieved with a cheese cloth. For the sand inside the shell there is not much to do if not buying vongole instead of pipis!