Stir Fry Clams is one of my favorite seafood dishes! We like to stir fry with Rice Wine, Soy Sauce, Basil, Ginger and Scallions – we find that too much sauce takes away the natural flavors of the clams, while basil, ginger and scallions add to it!

About the Ingredients

Here’s some information and tips on some of the main ingredients we are using:

Clams

The best clams are fresh live clams. I recommend cooking them as soon as possible (within two days). To store them, place in a single layer covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator – this will allow them to breathe and stay alive.

You will want to clean the clams before you cook with them. This involves cleaning the outside, as well as soaking it in salt water for 20 mins to 2 hours so that the clams rids itself of sand.

Often times I get the question – How to know when clams are cooked? Clams will open when they are cooked all of the way through!

If you cook the clams and most are open but a few of them have not opened, they may be bad and should be discarded.

However, some of them will not open all the way, because the muscle / ligaments that usually release the shell due to heat is just not letting go.

Basil

Unsurprisingly, this recipe calls for Thai Basil, and that is the recommended type of basil to use for this dish. However, if you can’t find any Thai Basil, you can use other types of basil.

A popular basil substitute for Thai basil is the Italian basil. This will give you the most similar basil flavor.

Ginger

Ginger is a tasty and healthy ingredient! It contains lots of antioxidants and may help your body fight off high blood pressure, heart disease, and diseases of the lungs, plus promote healthy aging.

I do recommend using fresh ginger, and not ground ginger – it would take away too much of the flavor in my opinion.

We are going to peel and cut the ginger in to thin strips in this recipe, also called julienne.

To do so you will first want to remove the outer skin/peel – you can do this with a paring knife and just either scraping or cutting off the skin. Then, slice ginger thinly lengthwise. Stack the slices and then cut in to thin strips.

Scallions / Green Onions

Scallions (or aka green onions) is great way to flavor your food. It’s healthy too! One cup of scallions contains twice the daily recommended amount for adults of vitamin K and about 25% of your daily value for vitamin C!

We are going to cut our scallions in to 1 inch length for this recipe.

How to make Stir Fry Clams with Basil, Ginger, Scallions

First gather your ingredients:

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 inch ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips
• 1 lb Clams, cleaned
• 1 stalk of green onions, cut in 1 inch length
• 1/2 cup rice wine (we use Taiwanese michiu)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 bunch fresh Thai Basil (tough stems removed)

In a cooking pan or wok, heat vegetable oil. Add ginger in the oil and stir fry until aromatic.

Add clams in to the pan/wok and green onions in to pan/wok and stir to combine.

Add rice wine and stir to combine.

Clams will start opening, during this time, add soy sauce.

When almost all the the clams are open add Thai Basil, and then stir to combine. The Basil doesn’t need to cook very long.

Remove from heat and serve!

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