Sake-Steamed Clams (アサリの酒蒸し, Asari no Sakamushi)

Asari are spring clams. When they're at their prime, shun, the shells feel heavy, the liquor inside is sweet and clean, and you need very little courage to cook them well. This is one of those dishes people make too complicated because the result tastes so complete. It is not complete because you did much. It is complete because the clams did.

The first detail is sand. Let the clams sit in salt water before cooking so they purge what they carried from the flats. Skip that, and you'll remember the dish for the wrong reason. Then rinse the shells, put them in a wide pan with sake, clap on the lid, and wait for the sound to change: hard tapping at first, then the soft clatter of shells opening.

The sake is not there to drown them. It makes a small, fragrant chamber of heat, loosens the shells, and catches the clam liquor as it runs out. That broth is the dish. Taste it before you season. Often it needs only a few drops of usukuchi, light soy sauce, or nothing at all. Honmono can be severe like that, three ingredients staring at you with no sauce to hide behind.

Serve it as a small side beside rice and soup, or as the shellfish note in a quick weeknight meal. Use a shallow bowl, leave it room, and spoon every bit of broth over the clams. We do not waste the part that cooked itself.