Vegan clam sauce

This vegan “clam” sauce uses few ingredients and it’s an all around impressive dish along with being nutritious and easy to make. You’ll need mushrooms, garlic, parsley, nutritional yeast, seaweed, and chilli and you’ll need to choose the pasta shape you’ll want to combine it with: spaghetti, linguine, bucatini or even go for a short shape if that’s what you fancy

This recipe doesn’t need exact measures. Just use your judgment and taste. And whilst spaghetti alle vongole is a traditional Christmas Eve dish in Naples, this is really a dish which can be made anytime

Rough measurements given here yield enough for two

Ingredients

• 2-3 king oyster mushrooms, a few oyster mushrooms and a few shiitake; OR simply brown mushrooms; or a mix of all of these
• 2-3 garlic cloves, or more
• seaweed – if you can find wakame, arame and one finger-length of kombu. If you can’t find these, then use nori
• a chilli (optional)
• nutritional yeast
• handful of flat leaf parsley
• handful of cherry tomatoes
• olive oil
• vegan butter (optional)
• white wine (optional)
• lemon (optional)
• spaghetti, linguine or bucatini, enough for two people (200g or so)

Method

First, you’ll fill the bottom of a small bowl with a mix of wakame, arame (two or three pinches of each should suffice) and one finger-length of kombu. Cover this with just enough water to rehydrate them – so that’s about a quarter or halfway up the bowl. Once they’ve rehydrated, then chop them up finely, keeping the soaking water

If you can’t find these seaweed, then use nori. Toast the nori for a few seconds in a dry pan if it’s not already toasted. Then cut the nori into very small pieces and set aside

Chop the mushrooms into rough, small pieces. Mince the garlic into very small pieces. Halve the cherry tomatoes. Chop the chilli if you’re using it

Roughly chop the parsley and set aside. I use the stems as well, so I make sure they’re very finely minced

Set the water to boil for the pasta, salt it well, whilst you cook the mushrooms

In a large frying pan on medium heat, begin to sauté the mushrooms. No need to add oil at this point just watch the mushrooms cook. They’ll release some water and then stop. Once the mushrooms have release all their water, add the seaweed, soaking water, chilli, garlic, tomatoes and a good glug of olive oil. Continue to sauté until the garlic is golden. Taste for seasoning and add just a little salt if necessary. If you’ve added enough salt to the pasta water, you won’t need too much additional salt in the mushrooms for an appropriate level of seasoning. Deglaze the pan using a dash of white wine or some pasta cooking water – or both! Keep warm

Once the water is boiling, add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the packet, but take the pasta out about a minute before the time indicated on the packet. And retain some of the cooking water

Combine the mushrooms and pasta over low heat and add the parsley, nutritional yeast and a bit of vegan butter for extra creaminess or more olive oil if you prefer. Mix well. You can skip the butter and instead add a spoonful or more of the pasta cooking water. Just keep mixing everything until the parsley has wilted and all the pasta is well covered. Sprinkle some lemon juice over the top if you want some added acidity. Serve immediately