Spirited Cooking: Minimalist dish focuses on clams

New York chef Scott Conant dislikes the taste of wine used in most recipes for linguine with clam sauce. So, he opts for a more minimalist approach to the dish in his recent cookbook, "Bold Italian" (Broadway Books, $19.95). In fact, his recipe calls for little more than pasta and clams, which results in a briny flavor that lets the star ingredient shine.

You can follow Conant's approach in this recipe, if you want to accentuate the clams.

But if you'd like a little more sauce on the pasta, that's where the wine comes in. An ounce or two of pinot grigio or unoaked Italian white in the cooking process brings the rest of the flavors together, causing everything to coalesce. Plus, as you cook it, the alcohol evaporates and the wine reduces, leaving you with a richer, thicker sauce.


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