On request, an experiment was set up to smoke whole small clams (2 year olds). At this age, the clams measure about 10 cm across.
24 Clams were prepared, first attempts were made to open the shells by hand but this was very time consuming. It proved much more easy to open them by boiling for 5 minutes in 4 litres of brine containing 80g salt per litre. The stronger brine was used to make up for the additional water contained in the shells.
24 animals yielded 190 g of cooked meat (or 7.9 g/shell).
The animals, when cooled, were sliced through the apertures to obtain one piece of opened clam but it was impossible to extract the kidneys successfully from such small pieces without ruining its aspect.
The batch was further treated in the same way as described for the “Japanese style”. Drying was completed in 30 minutes, and sufficient colouring in 4 hours of smoking.
The overall aspect was not very appealing and the remaining pieces of kidney imparted a bitter flavour to the product.
| Table 5: Smoking small clams - yields | ||
| 24 small clams (2 year old): | ||
cooked weight: | 190g | 7.92g / shell |
marinated: | 172g | 7.17g / shell |
final product: | 117g | 4.87g / shell |
2.1 Conclusion:
Unless another way is found to prepare the clams (especially removing the kidney), it will not be possible to prepare a valuable product with two year old clams.
This is a pity, as the shorter culturing time would give a cheaper and more readily available raw material.
