Wayne Gisslen

Opening Clams

Appears in
Professional Cooking: 10th Edition
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

  • About
  1. Scrub shells thoroughly before opening.
  2. Hard-shell clams are sometimes sandy inside, and soft-shell clams nearly always are. They can be flushed as follows:

    • Make a salt brine, using ⅓ cup salt per gallon of water (20 mL salt per liter).
    • Soak the clams in the brine 20 minutes.
    • Drain and repeat until the clams are free of sand.
    • Some chefs put cornmeal in the water and refrigerate the clams in it for a day. The clams eat the cornmeal and expel the sand.
    • Rinse in fresh water before using.

  3. Opening hard-shell clams is different from opening oysters. This technique is illustrated in Figure 20.9.

  4. Like oysters, clams to be cooked may be opened by spreading on sheet pans and placing in a hot oven just until the shells open. Discard any that do not open because they were likely dead before cooking.