How To Clean & Purge Clams From Sand

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Do you hate eating clams and biting into sand?

Today I’m going to show you how to clean these beautiful fresh New Zealand cockles from Citarella and to get them to purge out any sand, dirt and poo (all while keeping them fresh and alive by creating clean “sea water” for them).

For this technique- We are going to create a 3.5% salinity solution that emulates sea water for these clams to expel all the impurities.

Fresh clams should be prepared preferably within 24 hours, however, if they are really fresh, they will last a few days.

Here’s what I did:

The first day I I kept mine in the fridge with a damp cloth over 3/4 of the bowl (no water) overnight.

The next day I cleaned them and put them in this salt solution in the fridge overnight and changed the salt solution a couple times so they had fresh oxygenated water. I wouldn’t keep them in the salt water any longer than that (I knew I had at least 2-3 days before cooking these because Citarella is known for their super fresh seafood).

DIRECTIONS

1. Wash and scrub your clams one by one.
2. Mix 4 tbs sea salt with 8 cups of COLD water and pour over clams (make sure all clams are submerged in the brine)
3. Store in fridge for at least a 1-2 hours or even overnight (if they’re super fresh).
4. Rinse and drain clams in a colander before cooking.