Fregola con Arselle

Fregola is not couscous, though Americans often confuse them. It is a Sardinian pasta made from semolina, rolled by hand into irregular pearls, then toasted until golden. The toasting gives it a nutty depth that no other pasta possesses. When cooked with clams, the fregola absorbs the briny liquor and wine, becoming something between a pasta dish and a soup, the grains swollen with the sea.

Arselle are the tiny clams harvested from the lagoons around Cagliari. They are sweeter and more tender than their mainland cousins. If you cannot find them, Manila clams or cockles will serve. What matters is size: small clams cook quickly and give up their liquor generously. Large clams turn tough before the fregola finishes cooking.

This dish requires no stock if your clams are fresh and plentiful. The liquor they release, combined with white wine and good olive oil, creates all the sauce you need. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in. No tomato. No cream. No cheese. The purity of the sea, concentrated.