Tagliatelle with Asparagus and Clams

A huge problem I encounter every time I take a walk in the old market in bologna is that I'm pretty vulnerable to the charme exhaling from some food ingredients: "Look how wonderful green and purple colors those asparagus" or "These clams has been just fished up, they're still breathing in the water". And then I figure out how to shoot them, with wich kind of lightning and in which set.
But since I was learnt that one should not waste any food then I have the problem how to cook them, considering I'm also on diet (yep... unfortunately).
All this rambling speech just to say that I had to find a way to cook asparagus and clams, possibly together, so I could have a single course compatible with my diet, but also something not too much untasteful.


Ingredients for approximately 4 persons: 2.2 lb. fresh clams, 14 oz. asparagus, just a bit more than half cup of fresh cream, 1 oz. butter, 1 oz. flour, 2 tablespoons of broth, parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt.

Preparation: put the clams in cold, salted water for about 5 hours to let them purge, strain them to remove all the sand and cook them in a large, covered pan together with some oil, parsley and a couple of garlic cloves until their shells will be all opened up. Shells them except about 10 that you will use later as a garnishment. In the meanwhile boil the asparagus, remove their hardest part, cut away their heads and put them apart and make a mash out of the remaining part. Brown the flour with the butter, add the mashed asparagus, the cream and the broth and let cook for about 5 minutes. Apart from this fry lightly the asparagus heads in some butter. When both the clams and the asparagus sauce will be ready, cook the tagliatelle in some salted water and strain them when "al dente". Put then the tagliatelle in a pan together with the shelled clams and the asparagus sauce and let cook for a bout 1 minute to flavour all up. Put the tagliatelle in the dishes and garnish with the asparagus heads and the clams still with their shells.