Clambake pizza — a delight for Leos!

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My interest in astrology has always been one of curiosity. I’ve never been fully invested in the idea that my personality was pre-determined by the stars or whatever phase the moon was in when I took my first breath at the exact latitude and longitude where I was born. I mean, for starters, if I were to ask all-knowing AI for a general description of Leo, this is what I get. Honestly, does this sound like me? 

OK, I’m guilty as charged. 😂

I want to say that it’s all a bunch of hooey, but the Leo description is very much on point. Ahead of my milestone birthday recently, I looked up Leo traits and another related prompt came up in my search: “the best foods for Leos.” This oughta be good, I thought, given that I can count on one hand the foods that I don’t like. The first site that popped up was Harry & David— you know, the mail order fruit basket company— and here’s what it suggested:

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Corn, clams, spinach, and mozzarella are some of the foods to which this fire sign is drawn. This is due in part to some — such as tomatoes — being in season during the sunny summer months when Leos are born.

The moment I read that, I knew exactly what to do.

Behold, the clambake pizza!

The clambake connection

Clambakes are not exactly “native” to North Carolina, but we did have a fun one associated with the Crosby pro-am golf tournaments that used to be held around here. This was a charity tournament that Bing Crosby started at Pebble Beach many moons ago, and his widow, Kathryn, moved it in the mid-1980s to Bermuda Run just outside Winston-Salem, where it stayed for 15 years. 

The golf tournament was unsanctioned, so we didn’t always see big-name pros, but there were plenty of stars from the stage and screen and it was always an exciting week in our small city. Anyone could go to the tournament, but tickets to the clambake were highly coveted— I was only able to get in because I dated a guy who worked for Cadillac, one of the sponsors.  It’s where I first fell in love with the music of a barely known country artist named Vince Gill, and everyone who saw him at Groves Stadium knew in an instant that he would become a huge star. Let’s enjoy his breakout song while we talk about this pizza, shall we?

Press play for an enjoyable musical accompaniment!

Ingredients for a clambake pizza

A typical clambake is outdoor cooking at its finest yet most humble. Simple ingredients, cooked over a smoldering fire until the natural flavors of ocean and earth reach their peak. Clams, corn, potatoes, onions, fresh herbs and lemon are the basic ingredients, and my list of “Leo-approved” foods was already overlapped quite a bit. Spinach would be great on this pizza, and baby tomatoes would add a nice pop of color and acidity to balance the richness of the clams. Potatoes may seem like an odd topping for pizza, but it worked really well on my steak and potato pizza a few years ago, so why not? I parboiled cubed Yukon golds and then fried them up in butter with the shallots. 

A pinch of baking soda in the potato water roughs up the texture for crispy frying.

My littleneck clams came from my favorite local seafood shop— fresh from the Atlantic, already cleaned, shucked and chopped. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t go onto the pizza in their shells. After the potatoes were crisped up, I poured the flavorful clam “liquor” into the pan, and swirled in some butter with fresh parsley to dollop on the pizza before baking. I stripped an ear of grilled corn and chopped up the baby spinach, and we were ready to rock and roll.

Roxie has become my new kitchen helper!

Cooking pizza on the grill

My pizzas are usually done in my home oven, outfitted with a 3/8”-thick slab of steel, preheated to 550° F for at least an hour. In other words, hot! For this one, though, my husband and I did the baking outdoors (clambake style!) on our Napoleon gas grill, which gets even hotter than the oven. We purchased a Weber pizza stone that works great for summer baking when we don’t care to heat up the house. Les handled all of that while I prepped inside, beginning with shaping my dough into a 14-inch round and laying it on a flour- and cornmeal-dusted bamboo peel.

Cheese on the bottom, always! Wetter ingredients on top, finishing with the clam liquor-infused herb butter.

The toppings are straightforward, and I’ve put the wettest ingredients— the corn, tomatoes and clams— on top of the drier ingredients. I want them to get the benefit of the heat without creating too much steam underneath, which would wreck my crust. The clam liquor-butter mixture was laid on last in dollops and this was ready for the bake!

OF COURSE, my toppings flew off the peel onto the grill. Such a Leo thing to do!

One minor shortcoming of our grill for pizza is that the top of the pizza doesn’t have a chance to brown as it would in the oven. Solution? Easy— we just slide the finished pie under the high broiler in the oven for 30 to 60 seconds. Voila! Blistered crust and perfectly browned toppings, but without heating up the whole house for hours in the dead heat of summer. 

It even smells like a clambake!

So how was this lovely creation, made of Leo-favored ingredients and served up on this last day of my zodiac sign? Delicious! My husband and I have both come to love clams on pizza, ever since our trip to New Haven and our own adventures with white clam pie, which I’m now Jonesing to do again soon. This fun interpretation brought plenty of other tasty ingredients into play, and we could taste each of them. The tomatoes were a good addition, and the trick of reducing the clam liquor with the buttered onions really added a great finishing note of ocean flavor. Would I make it again? Definitely! And I probably won’t wait until Leo season rolls back around. 

Tomorrow is the first day of Virgo. Now, I wonder what they like to eat? 😉

Clambake Pizza

  • Servings: 6 slices
  • Difficulty: Average
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Apparently, my zodiac sign (Leo) loves clams, corn, spinach and mozzarella. What else could I do with this information but make a clambake pizza?


Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp. salted butter (half for cooking onions, half for clam-herb butter)
  • 1 small shallot, minced
  • 1 medium Yukon gold potato, cubed and boiled to al denté tenderness
  • A pinch of baking soda in the potato cooking water
  • 11 oz. pizza dough ball, at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup favorite pizza sauce
  • 3/4 cup freshly grated firm mozzarella
  • 1 ear of grilled corn, stripped from cob
  • A handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved and salted
  • A fat handful (about 2 cups) fresh baby spinach, rough chopped
  • A few shakes of crushed red pepper, if you like heat
  • About 1 cup fresh chopped littleneck clam meats (reserve some of the liquor for the herb butter)

Notes: My pizzas are baked on an oven steel, preheated to 550° F for one hour. Alternatively, bake on a pizza stone designed for a gas grill, following temperature instructions for your stone and adjusting time as needed. Either setup will help you achieve a brick oven-style pizza at home.

Directions

  1. Heat a small sauté pan over medium heat with a tablespoon of butter. Sauté the shallots for a few minutes until slightly softened. Drain the potatoes and add to the pan, tossing to crisp up the sides.
  2. Transfer the cooked potatoes to a small bowl. Pour some of the clam liquor into the sauté pan with the shallots and butter and simmer to reduce the liquid. Remove from heat and swirl in the other tablespoon of butter, along with the fresh parsley. Set this aside as a final topper to the pizza.
  3. Shape pizza dough into a 14-inch round and place it on a flour- and cornmeal-dusted peel. Swirl sauce over the pizza and scatter the mozzarella all over it.
  4. Layer toppings on, beginning with the spinach, pepper flakes and corn, then the tomatoes, potatoes and clams. Finally, arrange dollops of the clam liquor-infused herb butter all over the pizza, emphasizing the clams as much as possible.
  5. Transfer to the pizza to the preheated steel (or stone) and bake for 6 to 7 minutes, using peel to turn pizza at the 4-minute mark. If baking on the grill, transfer finished pizza to a heatproof pan and slide it under the high broiler of your oven for up to 60 seconds, to get the roasted appearance of an oven-baked pie.
  6. Wrap any leftover slices individually in aluminum foil. Reheat on a preheated griddle or skillet, loosely tented with foil. This preserves the crispy texture of the crust while allowing the cheesy topping to melt.

Just for fun…

A few famous Leos: 😎 Looks like I’m in excellent company!

Jennifer Lopez
Barack Obama
Mick Jagger
Helen Mirren
Antonio Banderas
Sandra Bullock

Charlize Theron

Steve Carell
Meghan Markle
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Halle Berry

Madonna
Steve Martin
Tony Bennett
Martha Stewart

Clams Casino Pizza

11 Comments

Call me sentimental, but I’ve been digging some of the retro standards lately. Nostalgia hits heavy during the holidays, and my recent tradition of reimagining some old-school favorites on top of a pizza for New Year’s continues with this combination of clams, bacon, pepper, shallots and garlic— it’s a clams casino pizza!

It even has crisp, bacon-y panko crumbs on top!

The literal translation of “casino” from Italian is “big mess,” and I find that more fitting of the dazzling Las Vegas strip than the flavors of the dish that that was first created in 1917 at  Narragansett Pier Casino in Rhode Island— or was it 1900 in New York’s Central Park Casino? As usual with recipe history, the details are murky, but with such a delectable combination of flavors, I can understand why people would fight to lay claim to it.

Transforming these flavors onto a pizza was actually pretty simple. As with my other fancy New Year’s Eve pies, there is no red sauce; only cheese as the base layer, followed by freshly shucked littleneck clams and then the casino flavors that go on by the spoonful. How did I pack all that flavor into one delicious pizza topping? Let’s get into it!

I’m always ready to make pizza!

Clam Prep 101

First, you want smallish clams for this recipe; littlenecks are ideal. To prep fresh clams for cooking, you want to clean them, inside and out. Cleaning the outside is straightforward, but how do you check the insides for grit and sand? This is called “purging.”

Place the clams in a bowl with cold water and a teaspoon of salt. Sprinkle a hefty spoonful of flour over the clams, to give them a reason to open and flush out the water they take in. After 30 minutes or so, lift the clams out into a colander and check the bowl for sand and grit. Repeat this process until water appears clear, and then empty the water and give each clam a quick scrub with a stiff-bristled brush, such as a potato brush. Do this purging process right before you plan to cook the clams, and keep them cold throughout.

This process can take more than an hour, so build in some time for this important step.

Clams casino butter

Moment of truth here, this stuff is where the magic happens. I was inspired to make my clams casino pizza when I was scrolling through my search results for “classic seafood appetizers,” and this article by Daniel Gritzer at Serious Eats caught my eye. I have loads of respect for Daniel’s approach to food, and I share his passion for finding better outcomes with less work. The moment I saw that he was making a compound butter for Clams Casino (the appetizer, not a pizza), I knew exactly what to do. 

Layers of flavor happening here!

After crisping up some small cubes of really good bacon, I cooked panko crumbs in the grease (they get sprinkled on the pie after baking), and added finely minced red bell pepper, shallots and garlic and cooked them together until the bacon was crispy and the veggies were softened. Next came the clams, and I tossed the lot of them right into the pot with the bacon-veggie mixture and poured in about two ounces (a quarter cup) of dry vermouth— the same thing I use in my martinis. If you wish, you could use pinot grigio or any other dry white wine you like. I just happen to have vermouth open more often than wine, and I love the savory edge it adds when I cook with it.

Between the vermouth and the spilled-out clam liquid, this stuff packs a serious flavor punch!

After just a couple minutes of steaming, the clams open up and spill out that glorious, briny liquid. Use tongs to lift them up, and empty that liquid right into the pan. As it reduces with the rest of the pan ingredients, it melds into an intensely flavored mixture that will turn my clams— and my pizza— into something really special. When this mixture cools, I stir in a bit of softened butter and fresh parsley, and chill it until it’s time to build the pizza. 

All of the above can be done ahead, but for sure, you want to take care of the clams so that they remain fresh and tasty, so I wouldn’t recommend working ahead more than one day. Get the clam meats removed from their shells and protect them with layers of damp paper towel or parchment paper so that they don’t dry out. 

What if you don’t eat bacon?

Substitutions are always possible! The main assets of bacon are the smokiness and the deep umami flavor, so a good understudy would be able to do both, but there’s no harm in making up those flavors with more than one addition. I brainstormed about this with my pal, Dorothy, from New Vintage Kitchen because she is mainly pescatarian and she knows all the tricks. We came up with a short list of suitable step-ins, including soy bacon or turkey bacon (both of which I’m sure have the smoke and umami), smoked paprika (never a bad idea in anything, as far as I’m concerned), or a dash of liquid smoke in the veggies, and some chopped up crisp mushrooms, which you can likely find in the snacks section of a larger supermarket. And I thought of one more, just in the last 10
seconds— one so obvious, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of it immediately. Anchovies! Bobby Flay even calls them “bacon of the sea.” They are potent, so use them sparingly, and for sure, include one in the toasted panko crumbs that will finish the pizza.

Time to build the clams casino pizza!

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that I do a long preheat on a baking steel, and all my pizzas all begin with sourdough. The flavor imparted to pizza from the long, cold ferment is amazing, but if you already have a favorite dough recipe, or if you prefer the convenience of buying ready-made dough at your nearby deli or supermarket, have at it. These toppings will work, regardless. If you don’t have a steel, a sturdy baking stone will work, but you may need to dial back the temperature a bit and cook an extra few minutes.

No sauce is necessary here, just go straight to the mozzarella.

Shape the dough by hand, rather than rolling it out, as this ensures some of the air pockets will remain in the dough for an airy texture after baking. Scatter mozzarella all over the dough, then arrange the clams and top each one with a bit of the clams casino compound butter. Sprinkle a bit of Parm-Romano blend cheese over the top, and slide that gorgeous thing into the oven.

The pizza looked fantastic even before the bacon panko crumbs, but that crunchy accent elevates it, big time.

Six to seven minutes is all it takes on a 550° F preheated steel. When it comes out of the oven, scatter the bacon-scented panko crumbs over the top and serve at once. 

Clams Casino Pizza

  • Servings: 6 slices
  • Difficulty: Average
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An easy compound butter is what makes this classic appetizer-inspired pizza special enough for New Year's Eve. Use the freshest clams you can get, and don't skip the bacon-scented panko crumbs on top!


Prep for this pizza should happen earlier in the day, or perhaps even the day before, so that the clams casino compound butter only needs to be divvied out onto the clams when you build the pizza. Note that parsley appears twice in this list; there are different purposes for each amount. You will want to use a heavy-bottomed pan to cook the compound butter ingredients, preferably one that is more wide than high. This will make it easier to steam the clams in a single layer.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup cubed thick-cut smoked bacon
  • 1/3 cup Italian seasoned panko bread crumbs
  • 1 Tbsp. finely chopped Italian parsley (for the panko topping)
  • 1/3 cup minced shallot
  • 1/3 cup minced red bell pepper
  • 2 large cloves garlic, minced (about 1 Tbsp)
  • A few shakes red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup dry vermouth or white wine + 1/4 cup water
  • 24 littleneck clams, purged of sand and grit (see first step of directions)
  • 2 Tbsp. finely chopped Italian parsley (for the compound butter)
  • 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, halfway softened

Directions

  1. Purge the clams by placing them in a large bowl of salted cold water. Sprinkle a generous spoonful of flour over the clams and swirl gently to mix it in. Allow to rest 30 minutes, and then scoop out the clams to a platter. Empty and rinse the bowl, inspecting the water for grit and/or sand. Repeat as many times as needed, until water is clear.
  2. Cook bacon to render the fat. Remove the crispy bacon bits with slotted spoon, reserving fat in skillet. Toss panko crumbs in bacon fat. Cook until crumbs are golden and crispy. Set aside to top pizza after baking.
  3. Put half of the bacon bits back into the pot, along with shallots, bell peppers and garlic, and sauté until vegetables are translucent and tender. Shake in red pepper flakes.
  4. Add clams to the pot and pour in the vermouth and water. Cover with a lid for about 90 seconds, then remove lid. Use tongs to remove clams as they open, and pour off clam liquid into the pot as you remove them. Set the clams in a bowl filled with crushed ice; this will abruptly stop the cooking so that they don’t get tough during baking.
  5. When all clams have been removed from the pot, simmer until liquid is evaporated and only the soft vegetable-bacon mixture remains. Transfer mixture to a bowl to cool, then blend in the butter and chopped parsley. Refrigerate butter until you’re ready to build the pizza.
  6. Slide a knife under the clam meat to remove them from their shells. Refrigerate clam meats until you’re ready to make the pizza. Discard the shells.

Remove the compound butter and clam meats from the fridge a few minutes ahead so that the butter is manageable and can easily be spooned. I bake my pizzas on a steel, which is preheated for an hour at 550° F. If you are using a stone or regular pizza pan, reduce heat and adjust baking time accordingly.

Ingredients

  • 11 oz. pizza dough ball, at room temperature
  • Semolina flour for shaping dough
  • 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • Kosher salt and black pepper
  • 1/2 freshly shredded low-moisture mozzarella
  • Reserved clams
  • Clams casino compound butter
  • 2 Tbsp. grated Parm-Romano blend cheese
  • Reserved panko crumbs

Directions

  1. Shape pizza dough by hand (not by rolling), into a 14-inch round. Transfer round to a flour- and cornmeal-rubbed pizza peel for easy transfer into the oven.
  2. Drizzle olive oil all over dough, then season with salt and pepper. Scatter mozzarella evenly over dough.
  3. Arrange clam meats on dough, and then place a small dollop of the clams casino compound butter over each clam. If you have extra butter, place smaller dollops in between the clams.
  4. Slide onto pizza steel and bake for 6 minutes or until crust is blistered and browned and toppings are bubbly. Sprinkle with bacon panko crumbs and serve immediately.

Hatteras-style Clam Chowder

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There are days that I go looking for a good inspiration recipe, and then there are days when they pop up out of nowhere while I’m looking for something else. This recipe, I suppose, was somewhere in between. 

I’ve been wanting to make a clam chowder with the fresh chopped clams that always tempt me from the case at my local seafood shop, but I didn’t want either of the classic chowder options that you always hear about. New England style, of course, is the creamy, white version that uses potatoes, clams, onions and loads of heavy cream. It’s luxurious and comforting, but high on the saturated fat scale. And then there’s Manhattan style, with its light tomato broth, onions, big chunks of potato and chewy clams. It’s a lovely light bite, but some people (my New York-born-and-raised husband included) don’t find brothy soups as satisfying. 

A perfect in-between

As I pondered how to find a happy medium between the lighter, tomato brothy chowder I craved and the creamy but bland version my husband favored, I got to thinking maybe it would fun to create something altogether new— a chowder with more texture and maybe some autumn ingredients. That’s when my search for “autumn clam chowder” turned up a terrific inspiration recipe on the Southern Living website— they called it Hatteras Chowder.

How in the world this dish escaped my eye after the 37+ years I’ve lived in North Carolina is beyond me, and I am taking it as my sign that I need to finally visit the Outer Banks, where Hatteras Island graces the Atlantic coastline with the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States. 

Hatteras Lightstation
Photo by Shalom Shore on Pexels.com

It was lucky that I stumbled on this inspiration, because I had been wrestling with what to make to honor my state on North Carolina Day. I’ll share my own version of this recipe in a moment, but first, I want to brag on my state a little bit. After all, I have called it home for nearly four decades! 

I love living in North Carolina. I drove into town in my little white Pontiac (that had no A/C), with my cat, my clothes, a big stereo system and $800 in my pocket. This place gave me hope for achieving my dream, and I found more than I had imagined, personally and career-wise. We have the coast just a few hours east and the mountains two hours west. We get to enjoy all four seasons, though we haven’t seen much snow in recent winters in my neck of the woods.

The city of Winston-Salem, where Les and I met and live, boasts a vibrant arts and innovation culture— a big step up from the days when Winston-Salem was only about tobacco. We have terrific indoor and outdoor venues nearby for live music, great food and drink, and our city is proud of the diversity of its citizens. Yes, we have our share of unfortunate political embarrassments (you’ve probably read about one of them even this week, but we will take care of that in November), and our coastline frequently bears the brunt of tropical storms and hurricanes, but the good in North Carolina truly outweighs the bad or we wouldn’t still be here!

Our state is also well known for many foods, including pulled pork bbq, collard greens and pimento cheese, but this Hatteras chowder that I’ve just learned about is made with fresh-from-the-Atlantic clams, red potatoes, bacon, onion, celery, carrot, white wine, herbs and clam juice. As written, the recipe sounds delicious. But you know me, I have to make it my own.

Twisting up a classic

I didn’t have carrots on hand, but butternut squash stood in nicely. A jalapeño in the produce drawer promised to add a subtle layer of heat, which Les would never argue against. I sautéed those in the fat rendered from the bacon. To add a little extra body to the chowder, I cooked in a bit of flour just before deglazing the pot with white vermouth (because I never have wine on hand anymore).

Believe it or not, I did have two bottles of clam juice in the pantry, because I’ve been jonesing to make chowder for over a year. The recipe called for three, but I didn’t mind keeping this on the thicker side. To bring a tiny bit of “Manhattan” into it, I tossed in a can of Rotel tomatoes which also brought another layer of heat, and that touch of acidity was perfect for balancing the flavors. Finally, my sliced Yukon gold potatoes (I didn’t have red), fresh thyme sprigs and dried bay leaves, and then it was time to simmer this hearty, chock-full-of-flavor autumn soup.

Here comes the big shortcut I took with this recipe. The Southern Living article said that only fresh whole clams were appropriate for this chowder—not chopped— and it included steps for purging the grit and then cooking the clams separately. I’m sure that canned chopped clams would come up short here, but the fresh chopped clams from my favorite local seafood chop were sweet, slightly chewy and so fresh; I’d put them up against the fussy whole-clam process any day of the week. These sweet little gems and their liquid get stirred in just at the end, along with the crisped-up bacon that started this whole thing.

This chowder was satisfying in every way— it had the hearty, chunky texture that Les wanted without the heavy cream that I didn’t want. The jalapeño and Rotel put a slight south-of-the-border spin on it, and I’ll add that this chowder reheated as leftovers very well. The only thing I’d do differently next time is make a double batch. 

So this is a new “North Carolina” recipe that I will most definitely add to my repertoire, and it was a perfect way to celebrate all things Tar Heel on North Carolina Day. Click to print recipe is below; I hope you enjoy it.

For a fun little sendoff today, I’ve also prepared a Spotify playlist of artists that call North Carolina home. Some of these names will be instantly familiar; others will be new. I hope you find something fun among them. 

Cheers, y’all!

Hatteras-style Clam Chowder

  • Servings: About 6
  • Difficulty: Average
  • Print

Somehow, I've missed this delicious coastal North Carolina dish, despite having lived in the state more than 30 years. My version swaps in winter squash for carrots and adds jalapeño and spicy tomatoes for a little extra pizzazz.


Ingredients

  • 4 slices thick bacon, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 3 ribs celery, strings removed and sliced
  • 1 cup butternut squash cubes
  • Kosher salt and black pepper
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine (I used dry vermouth)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 can original Rotel
  • 2 bottles clam juice
  • 2 cups Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and diced
  • 2 dried bay leaves and 3 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 1 lb. fresh chopped clam meat (with liquor)

I found this chowder recipe very versatile to accept substitutions, based on what you like or have on hand. I’m sure that you could swap in shrimp or whitefish for the clams, and seafood or veggie broth in place of the clam juice. My inspiration recipe used carrots rather than butternut squash and it did not include flour for thickening. The tomatoes and jalapeño were my additions, and a fun twist!

Directions

  1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, cook bacon over medium heat until crispy and then remove to a separate bowl.
  2. Add onion, celery, butternut squash and jalapeños (season with salt and pepper)and sauté until softened. Add flour and stir until foamy. Add wine (or vermouth) and water, Rotel and clam juice. Add potatoes, bay leaves and thyme and reduce heat to low. Simmer for about 30 minutes.
  3. Gently stir clams (including liquid) into the pot. Add bacon and heat through. Serve right away with hot sauce and saltine or butter crackers.

White Clam Pizza

8 Comments

Of all the New Year’s Eve traditions my husband, Les, and I have established together, this pizza is the most eagerly anticipated. We start talking about it weeks in advance of the holidays, and build our entire holiday meal plan around it. Our recipe is drawn from Les’s memories of living nearly two decades in the New Haven, Connecticut area, where Modern Apizza and Frank Pepe’s reign supreme. The region is home to great pizza as well as fresh seafood, and the white clam pie is a terrific mashup of the two.

Topped with salty, slightly chewy littleneck clams and accented with fresh oregano, garlic and a copious amount of fluffy shredded Pecorino-Romano cheese, the white clam pizza meets every expectation for a casual meal, but with special ingredients and festive occasion flavor.

Our first white clam pizza, New Year’s Eve 2018.
In 2019, the crust was soft and puffy.
This year’s pizza was golden and crispy.

Les and I began this ritual of serving white clam pizza on New Year’s Eve 2018, only three years after we officially became “a couple.” Although we had been dating seven months by the end of 2015, I had been in stubborn denial about my feelings and held onto deep fears about being in this (or any) relationship. I’ll spare you the personal drama (which feels a little silly to me in hindsight) but share that it was a “When Harry Met Sally” movie finale kind of moment that turned it all around for me on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. I had broken up with Les, for at least the fifth time, and when I came to my senses—only about 15 hours later—he had already committed to plans with a friend for New Year’s Eve. It was too late for us to spend the holiday together, but there was great comfort in knowing that the first day of 2016 would be a real and new beginning. He proposed the next summer, and the rest is our history in the making.

Today, New Year’s Eve still feels more like an anniversary to us than our actual wedding anniversary, and because we both enjoy being creative with food, it makes perfect sense that we would build that into our annual celebration. We love pizza in all shapes and forms, so much so that I gave Les a pizza ornament this year for our “Christmukkah” tree, which is also decorated with ornaments representing wine, Star of David, bourbon, bacon and a chocolate-covered strawberry. Oh, and billiard balls. What else can I say? This is us. 😊

Why wouldn’t we have pizza on our tree? ❤

This pizza does not have a red sauce, nor mozzarella or sausage. It is an amazingly short and simple list of ingredients that amounts to spectacular flavor. Use deli-quality cheese and shred it yourself. Get the freshest littleneck clams you can find, or choose another quahog type of clam, as close to littleneck size as possible. Follow the fishmonger’s recommendations for keeping them fresh, and the rest is easy.

As with any good pizza, the crust is crucial. If you don’t already make your own dough, I hope you’ll give my recipe a try, not just for this pizza but for all your pizzas. There is something very satisfying about making the dough by hand, and mine is achieved with the help of my beloved sourdough starter though I offer a yeasted option, too. Either way, the dough is easy enough to make but does require a few days advance, as the ferment takes place in the refrigerator. Let the dough come to room temperature before proceeding and have fun with it!

Ingredients

1 ball of N.Y. pizza dough (or use your favorite store-bought dough)

About 20 littleneck clams (fresh, in-shell)

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves, chopped (or 1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves)

2 cups very finely shredded Pecorino-Romano cheese (preferably grated at home)

Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling before baking

Instructions

The photos tell the story, or keep scrolling for written steps as well as a downloadable PDF for your recipe files.

  • We bought 25 clams, expecting that a few might not work out, but all of them were perfect!
  • I shave the Pecorino-Romano by hand with a microplane for super-fluffy shreds. Use a box grater or food processor if you prefer.
  • Don’t use a rolling pin, which will crush all the wonderful air pockets in the dough ball. Use your hands to shape it on a floured board or counter. Manhattan cocktail is optional, but recommended.
  • I move it to the peel with the back of my hands to prevent poking my fingers through the delicate dough.
  • Sprinkle a small amount of cheese, then raw garlic over the dough. Next, the oregano and the clams.
  • Lavishly cover the entire pizza with the fluffy shredded pecorino.
  • Give the whole pie a quick drizzle of extra virgin olive oil just before baking.
  • We do all our pizzas on a steel by Dough-Joe. Best purchase ever.
  • The Pecorino-Romano was golden and crispy in places, which added even more savory flavor to this year’s pizza.
  1. Preheat oven and pizza stone or steel to 550° F for at least one hour. Place rack about 8 inches from the top heat element.
  2. Bring a medium-sized pot of water to boil over medium-high heat. You don’t need a lot of water in the pot; enough to just cover the clams.
  3. When water boils, carefully add clams to the pot. Boil 2 to 3 minutes, until clams pop open. Immediately drain clams into a colander, rinse with cold water and cool until shells are easy to handle.
  4. Use the tip of a sturdy knife to pry the clams all the way open and remove them from the shells. Drain clam meats on a paper towel until ready to make the pizza. If you’re working ahead, I’d recommend covering the clams on a plate in the fridge.
  5. Shape pizza dough to a 14-inch round and place it on a floured pizza peel.
  6. Spray or brush pizza dough with olive oil, then season it with salt and freshly ground pepper. Scatter a small handful of Pecorino-Romano on the dough, and then sprinkle the garlic and oregano over the entire dough.
  7. Arrange the drained clam meats over the dough. Toss the remaining Pecorino-Romano over the entire pie, covering the clams and allowing the cheese to get right up on the edges of the dough.
  8. Drizzle the pizza with extra virgin olive oil.
  9. Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone or steel and bake about 6 minutes, until crust is golden brown on the edges and cheese is bubbling.
The crust was very thin in the center of this pizza, so the cheese was more golden in those spots. But oh, those perfectly chewy edges!

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