We had a long road trip yesterday with my high school friends. That’s from Pasig to Infanta, Quezon via Sierra Madre. What’s the occassion you may ask? Our friend Nico, which I fondly called Babs, has a new car. It’s our group’s tradition to have a road trip whenever one of our friend got a new car.
We went off from Pasig at 10 in the morning going to Tanay, Rizal. We had a not so quick stop over at Regina Rica to have our lunch and see the giant statue of Mary and child Jesus. The vegetarians will enjoy their foods because of the no meat menu. I heard their vegetables are also organic. We had a couple of order of pancit canton which can already feed 3 persons and an order of 5 pieces of fried lumpiang togue, which is good.
At around 1:30 in the afternoon we went off had our very long drive to Sierra Madre. Lots of curved roads I must say. Funny thing I experienced their was this people and even children who has a rope stretched on the opposite side of the road blocking your way and asking for money. The children is acceptable but the adults asking for money or donation because of a town fest is something that would raise your eye brows.
We arrived at Infanta, Quezon fish port at around 5:30 to in the afternoon. We were supposed to buy some shellfish their but we were to late and found none. So we decided just to buy in the local market. We went to town proper and had a meal to lightly fill our stomach before going back to Pasig.
It’s around 6:30 or so when we finished our meal and prepared to search for their local market. It’s a bit small and we did not see lots of fish vendors selling shellfish. We bought 2 kilos of big clams for a mere price of Php20.00 per kilo and the vendors are nice to tell us what recipe we can do with it.
The next day, I haven’t figure out what to do with the clams I bought. I thought of cooking it tinola-style but I heard my mom suggested baked garlic buttered clams and so I did. I dropped the clams in a boiling seasoned water and scoop it out when the shells opened. I removed the top shell and simply scoop some melted garlic butter and season with salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Baked garlic buttered clams for lunch!
Ingredients
2 kilos Clams
3 cups Water
1 thumb-sized Ginger
2 cloves Garlic
1/4 cup Butter
1 teaspoon Olive Oil
3 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
salt
pepper
Parmesan cheese
Procedure
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Clean clams and soak in water overnight and let the clams spit sands.
Boil water, ginger and garlic for 5 minutes. Drop clams and scoop out when the shell opens. Remove the top shell of the clams and arrange the clams in a baking tray.
Melt together butter, olive oil and garlic. Remove from heat when you smell the fragrance of cooked garlic. Do not burn the garlic. You don’t want a bitter burnt garlic in your clams, right?
Scoop melted garlic butter over the clams. Season with salt and pepper. Add about a pinch of Parmesan cheese over each clams. You may also add some chopped parsley over the clams. Baked for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.
Baked garlic buttered clams can be served as your appetizer or your main course.
