Clams / Khubbo Green Masala Sukkha.

Clams / Khubbo Green Masala Sukkha ...... Goes very well with roti, dosa or as side dish too ..... Yummy ......

Once again I have come up with an awesome sukka / dry curry variation with clams / khubbo. As you know there are many types of clams found all over the world. Also known as Kubbo (in konkani) Cockles / Marwai (in Tulu a native language of many in South Kanana) / Teesriya (In Marathi). These are really healthy and delicious. But as it is a little bit tedious to eat people do not prefer them much. But sometimes desire to eat them overcomes the laziness and I venture into preparing these when my fish vendor brings them in plenty. 

Also my discovery of easy method of opening the clams has made it breeze work and now I really don’t mind preparing them. Initiall I used to prepare the 1st or 2nd method to open them up. I have given three methods of opening the clams. But I recommend the 3rd one. Easy, thought you will need a days time of putting them in freezer. But that is OK. Just purchase them, wash and put them in a steel dabba / box and put it in the freezer and they are opened up and ready next morning. So all you will need is to prepare the curry with them and enjoy a lovely lunch / dinner.

Ingredients:

Clams : About 25-30 large sized

For the Masala : 

Coconut : 1 cup.

Coriander pd : 1 tblsp

Jeera Pd : 1 tsp

Garam Masala Pd : ½ tsp

Fennel pd : ½ tsp

Tamarind : small marble sized.

Green Cardamoms : 2

Green Chillies : 4-5 

Coriander Leaves : One cup finely chopped (tightly packed)

Salt to taste

For Seasoning: 

Onions : 2 large sized chopped fine

Garlic : 12-15 chopped fine.

2-3 tblsp of oil

** You will need about 3-4 cups or 25-30 large sized Kubbe / shell fish / clams for this curry. Clean the kubbe / clams in plenty of water. There is always sand in these and are tedious to clean. There are 3 ways of opening the kubbe / clams. 

** The First Method is to cut open the clams with a sharp knife. But you have to be careful in doing it as you may hurt yourself if not aware of handling it properly. You can watch some You tube demo for the same, which will help you to exactly understand the method of preparing the clams. Retain the shell in which the flesh is stuck and discard the other one. 

** Now the Second Method is the easier one, which I followed earlier. Just put the whole kubbe / clams in a broad vessel and add one cup of water. Put it on heat, the minute the water starts to get hot and before reaching boiling point the shells crack up. Immediately remove it from fire and allow cooling properly. When able to handle the shells remove the empty shell and discard them. Do not throw away the water in which the kubbe / clams were cooked. Pass it through a fine sieve or cloth (I use cloth) to strain off the sand particles if any. This cooked water can be used while grinding the masala and if necessary to add to the cooking curry. Just do not add more water while cooking the shells or else the water will go waste as we do not need much of it. One cup for 3-4 cups of shell fish is more than enough. Just rinse the retained shells and use it in cooking. Simple.

** The Third and the Easiest and Best of all Methods..... Which I discovered recently.

This is the method I follow now as it is very easy without any hazels the only hitch being you will need time of say about 24 hours. Just wash the kubbe / clams / shell fish in plenty of water. Drain off all excess water, put them in a thick plastic / polythene, and fold over tightly. Put this in deep freezer over night or for a day. Remove the frozen shell fish and put them in a wide dish and pour room temperature water to the vessel to brim level. Cover and keep it aside for an hour. When you check later on you will find that all the shells would have opened up by themselves. Wash in plenty of water taking care to see that you rinse off all the sand that is within the shells. You may retain this as it is or remove off one of the shell that is empty and use them. Rest method as per the requirement of the recipe. This I came about accidentally recently, when i stored it freezer and put it into vessel as said above. When opened I saw that the shells has opened up well. 

For Masala : Grind to a coarse paste one cup of freshly grated coconut with 1 tsp jeera powder, 1 tblsp coriander powder, ½ tsp fennel powder, ½ tsp garam masala, small marble sized piece of tamarind, 2 whole green cardamoms, 4-5 green chillies chopped and 1 cup finely chopped coriander leaves (tightly packed) with about ¼ cup of water. Do not add in more water. This is a dry masala curry and we need the masala to be coarse and thick. If absolute necessary keep sprinkling water and grind the masala. The masala paste should be coarse but all the ingredients should have been well mixed and ground. So keep mixing and grinding them. Remove and keep aside ready.

** In small pan add in the clams with half a cup of water, cover and cook till done on medium heat. Keep this ready aside.

** In a thick bottomed kadai heat the 3 tblsp oil, when hot add in the garlic and fry till light brown in colour. Now immediately add in the finely chopped onions and continue frying till both are brown in colour. Add in the ground masala, salt to taste and mix well. Continue cooking till the masala is well cooked and comes to a boil. Be careful not to burn the masala as it is dry. Do not add in water at any stage. Now add in the cooked clams along with the remaining water in which it has been cooked and mix well. Cook on low heat till well mixed and dry like a sukka. 

** Clams Greem Masala Sukkha is done. You can serve this as a side dish with any plain dosa or with rice-dalitoy etc. I found that this goes very well with panpolo as the soft dosa tastes so awesome with this dry sukkha dish. Most of the time I prepare panpolo for such dishes. But today somehow I had the batter of sada dosa with me so did not prepare it, but served it with sada dosa along with some dry potato bhaji which we in konkani call batate usli. This is really any awesome combination for lunch or dinner too. Yumz.