Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Clams and Arugula

My mother bought some clams so we thought: spaghetti vongole. That's always a big hit. But, of course, we had no white wine in the house!

So, this is not a traditional vongole, just "spaghetti with clams".




Look at the pretty babies!



First thing, putting a pot of water to boil. Of course, we salted it until it was "like the Mediterranean sea" (as Mario puts it). We used whole wheat spaghetti this time.





We've done vongole a few times before, so we knew that it would take about the same amount of time to cook the pasta and the sauce.

We are a garlic people, so the more garlic, the merrier. (I don't get people who don't like garlic!) We didn't have chile flakes, but we had fresh peppers. So I prepped the two ingredients and I also zested a lemon and reserved the halves to juice later.





I started the pan cold and added olive oil and the aromatics. Starting cold makes sure that the olive oil becomes infused with the garlic and chile peppers. The olive oil is so nice and golden below.



A bit of waiting for it to heat up. When it was hot...



...I added the lemon juice.



When the pot and its contents were very hot, the clams went in.



I covered the pot to let them steam, then added the pasta and tossed to mix. After it came the arugula.









Of course, we saved some of the pasta water. We added some to thicken the liquid in the sauce. Finally, we stirred in the lemon zest.



There it is!

It's definitely not a vongole as it was missing the heady aroma of white wine. But, it was still addictive and delicious all the same.