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In the past, children fished razor clams with coarse salt.
The same salt that is placed on bird's tail feathers to catch them, but with a more reliable result: a pinch makes the clam come out of its hole.
This type of fishing is rarely practised any more.
It's a shame: razor clams have an amazingly delicate flesh.
They pair well with the crunch of spring vegetables, which we begin to hunger for as soon as the weather turns sunny.
Serves 4
Ingredients
24 razor clams - Vegetables: 8 spring carrots, 8 spring onions, 8 spring leeks, 8 spring artichokes, 200 g broad beans (8 oz), 200 g fresh peas (8 oz), 200 g green beans (8 oz), 8 small new potatoes, 4 cherry tomatoes, 50 g small wild mushrooms (2 oz) - 1 egg yolk - A few drops rose water - Seasonal herbs (basil, chervil, chives, oregano, parsley, marjoram) - Juice of 1 lemon - Vegetable juice: 2 marrow bones, 1 carrot, 1 leek, 1 onion, 1 small piece of fennel and 1 of celery, 20 g (2/3 oz) ginger, 1 garlic clove.
Spice mix:
0.5 cm cinnamon stick (1/4 inch) - 2 ml pepper (1/4 tsp) - 3 ml cumin (1/2 tsp) - 2 green cardamom pods - 3 ml Sichuan pepper (1/2 tsp) - 1/2 star anise
Easy - To be prepared in several stages - Last stage is quick
Basic preparation
24 hours beforehand : heat all of the spices in a dry pan, grind them in a coffee grinder and store them in an airtight jar.
Break the marrow bones and saok the marrow overnight, in water, in the refrigerator. Then poach the marrow for 10 minutes in salted water and cut it into dice.
2 hours beforehand : prepare the vegetable juice. Cut the carrot, onion, leek, fennel, celery and ginger into small cubes. Sweat them in butter and add the diced marrow, then the garlic. Add water to cover; cook over low heat for 1 hour. At the last moment, add the herb stems, wait 5 minutes and strain through a fine strainer. The result is a juice which must be reduced to a syrupy consistency, adding 3 mL (1/2 tsp) of spice mix and a squeeze of lemon, before adjusting the seasoning with salt and pepper.
Let the flavours blend for 1 hour at room temperature.
Meanwhile, separate the egg white from the yolk. Set aside the yolk in a ramekin with a few drops of water to stop it from drying out.
Cook each of the spring vegetables separately in salted water. To preserve their fresh appearance, refresh them in ice water. Prepare the artichokes by trimming them down to the hearts. Cook the hearts in salted water with lemon juice. Peel the cherry tomatoes.
1 hour beforehand : soak the razor clams in water with a handful of coarse salt so that they release their impurities. Open them, raw, with a thin, poin ted knive. Shell them. Keep 16 half-shells.
Last minute
Quickly saute the mushrooms in a little butter. Heat, simultaneously, the syrupy vegetable juice perfumed with a little rose water, the spring vegetables in a knob of butter with salt, pepper and a little of the spice mix, and, again with a knob of butter, the shelled razor clams.
To serve, warm the empty razor clam shells, fill each one with its "fish," arrange the vegetables prettily, coat with the syrupy jus, drizzle a little egg yolk over the vegetables and sprinkle with garden herbs.
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© Olivier Roellinger - Maisons de Bricourt.
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