How to clean a horse clam

I am going to dig for horse clams this weekend. I would like to know how to clean a horse clam? Would it be the same sorta to cleaning a razor clam?

Pretty much the same as cleaning a razor. But you have the additional task of having to peel the skin off the tongue.

The smart ass answer is very close to the truth. Remove and toss anything you don't care to eat.You can get the membrane off the neck and the outer labia with a fast dunk in very hot water. I remove the dark end of the neck, and all the guts asd welll as the dark lining of the meat that protrudes from the shell AKA clam labia. When done you will have one hell of a lot less than you began with, but you should have all nice clean meat.

They're not worth messing with. They do make great crab bait though.

I guess it all depends on who you are and what your circumstances are. When I was a kid lots of our friends ground them up for chowder. It's true there is not much meat on them considering their size, but there is nothing wrong with what meat there is.

Dave , Most beaches that have horse clams have butter clams if you look around a little. They are way better for chowder and great if you spit them in half and fry them in the half shell. Horse clams are tedious to clean and yield small amounts of low quality meat.They just doesn't have the flavor of butter clams. Even if you scald the necks the skin doesn't peel off like a geoduck neck and you end up spending too much time scraping them. I probably should just shut up and be glad some are happy with horse clams and leave the others clams on the beach .

Keta: To each their own, but on most beaches you can dig a lmit of horse clams and a limit of steamers. It's not an either or situaton. I don't always bother with the horse clams, but with the limit on steamers so low its not a bad idea to get both limits.

Beleive it or not I really do know a bit about clamming in Washington. I have been doing it for about, 55 years. When I began, as a kid, we had no limits, or none anyone cared about. Every summer we woud have a big clam bake with 30-50 folks over to feast on the hundereds of pounds of clams we dug.

Horse clams make great chowder. There are parts on them that are tender, but the neck is usually quite tough when sauted. Cook it lightly, and remember to check the red tide hotline!
Neal

Dave ,I have no doubt you know clamming, I was just expanding on my "not worth messing with" opinion. Ya,I too remember those days way back when going to the beach with a 5 gal bucket and not stopping until it was full. To me streamers are native little necks and manila's and those 3" + butter clams and geoducks are the meat clams. Hey,you every run into guys on the beach that say they got their limit of geoducks and you look in their bucket and it's full of horse clams? That cracks me up.

Yep. And last year Sebastes and I met a couple who had about a 10 inch kitchen knife and wanted me to show them how to clean oysters. We lent them an oyster knife rather than watch the bloodshed.

I try to teach the new comers whenever I can, but get pissed when I see someone with well over the limit. The 40 clam limit sucks, as you can barely get one meal of the perfect sized steamers, but it’s the law and if I have to follow it so should "they".

I like to fry horse clams necks in strips. Clean them like Dave says ,cut the necks in strips crossways and pound them with a meat mallot, before coating and frying. I do the same with Geoducks, which are easier to clean, but not any tastier, although a bit more tender.

Don't overcook.

Either one makes for good eating.

Dave ,I hear ya on the over limit thing. Those days of dig all you want like when we were kids are long gone. It's a shame what you see people do sometimes. I once ran into a woman at the beach that must have been a relative of Loretta Bobbit. She had a bucket with about a dozen geoduck necks she had chopped off,said they make good fertilizer for her garden. I'm pretty sure it kills geoducks to chop their necks of and is illegal. You don't know how bad I wanted a warden to show up on ttha beach.

it seams every time i go out clamming...on lunch or whatever, there are always some people(usually not speaking great English) taking what ever they want...i try to explain that the limit is 40, they seam to pretend to care..i give them the regs book...i dont think it helps, they pretend pretty good to not know the limits...c

Clean your horse clams as Dave indicated. Grind the meat with a food processor then substitue the clam meat instead of crab meat in your favorite crab cake receipe. Fried clam patties with some hot sauce....that's some good eats.

Beezer

I've watched lots of people take overlimits of razors to their car and go back down for more. English speaking and not so english speaking. Some people don't have any regard for the rules. I always count mine before leaving the water.

step 1- smash

step 2- place in crab pot

step 3- eat crab

for sure use 3 step method. ate them when i was a kid, but back then i would put almost anything in my mouth once. maybe o.k. in chowder but id look for some butter clams first.(i do remember they were a bitch to clean)

Horse clams are great for chowder and fritters. Better yet, a mix of several kinds.



Dave - Would be great to have a description of how to prepare a clam bake. I remember one as a kid - clams, corn on the cob, potatoes - but I wouldn't want to waste a bunch of clams based on a guess of how to do one. You know of any good "how to"s? I've got plenty of clams, just no idea how to do it right.

Invite me over and I will supervise the bake!

It's been a few years, but this is what I remember.

We dug a pit about three by six by one and a half feet deep. Filled it with firewwoed and burned down to hot coals. (Maybe two to three hours) Once we had a deep bed of hot coals we covered them with rocks.(I'm sure good ole dirt would be fine.) We them added six to of seaweed, then the clams, oysters, corn, potatoes, etc. then lots more seaweed then a layer of burlap then some dirt. About 30 miuntes to an hour latewr the clams, and all the rest are ready.

I have done this without a keg, but it's much better with.

I bet you could have a PP clambake that would result in lots of seafood etc.

I'll do some more research - Sure would be fun to do. I put out 10,000 manilla clam seed this year. When those are ready to harvest I'll take you up on your offer.