Fregola con arselle — Sardinian pasta with clams

Keep the clams chilled as advised by the seller and prepare them just before cooking. Rinse them under cold running water and scrub the shells with a brush. Discard damaged clams and any open ones that do not close when lightly tapped. Use clams already purged of sand by the seller, without an additional long soak at home. Finely chop the tomatoes with their skin and seeds, keeping all the juice. Finely chop the garlic and parsley separately.

Put all the prepared clams in a wide pot with a lid and pour in their allocated 50 g water. Cover and heat over fairly high heat. Once plenty of steam has formed in the pot, cook covered for about 5–7 minutes, shaking the pot by its handles several times. Open the lid carefully, protecting your hands from the steam. After cooking, discard any clams whose shells are still closed; keep all the liquid in the pot.

When the shells are cool enough to handle safely, remove all the meat from every open clam and put it in a small bowl. Discard the empty shells. Pour all the liquid from the pot through a fine-mesh sieve lined with clean, dense-weave cheesecloth into another container. Keep all the filtered broth and discard the trapped sand and sediment. Cover the bowl of clam meat and refrigerate briefly while preparing the tomato base and pasta.

Heat all the measured olive oil in a clean pot with a capacity of about 3–4 liters. Add all the chopped garlic and heat over medium heat for about a minute, stirring. The garlic should release its aroma without browning; leave it in the pot.

Add all the tomatoes along with their collected juice. Cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften and partly break down. Meanwhile, heat the remaining measured 850 g water in a separate small covered pot so that it is hot when added to the fregola.

Add all the dry fregola to the tomatoes and stir. Pour in all the filtered clam broth and, initially, about half the hot water allocated to the pasta. Bring to a gentle boil and cook uncovered, stirring frequently. Add the remaining hot water gradually, using all the measured 850 g by the end of cooking. Medium fregola usually needs about 8–10 minutes after returning to a boil; also check the time on the package. If it is still hard in the center, cook a little longer over low heat. The dish should remain clearly brothy, with pasta that is tender but keeps a slight bite. Do not drain it.

Add all the reserved clam meat and all the juice from its bowl to the cooked fregola. Stir gently and heat for about 2 minutes so that the clams are hot throughout the dish. Add all the salt, pepper and chopped parsley. Stir briefly to combine and take the pot off the heat, avoiding prolonged cooking of the clams.

Divide all the fregola, clam meat and remaining broth among four deep plates or bowls. Serve immediately while it still has the consistency of a thick soup. Do not leave the pot on a warm stovetop for long: the pasta will keep absorbing liquid and the clams may become tough.