TASTE: MARC MURPHY'S NO RECIPE POT OF CLAMS, SHRIMP + CORN

OK, so the downside to having chef friends (or husbands as the case may be), is that they often don't understand that cooking civilians need an actual recipe to follow. Case in point: this incredible summer staple of a giant pot of steamed clams, corn and shrimp in garlic and white wine that Marc makes at least once a week all summer long. This past summer though, Marc was traveling and I was dying for it. I asked him via text for the recipe, and this is what he sent back:

Sweat some onion, garlic, chili flake in olive oil. Throw clams in with a bottle of white wine. Once clams are open, throw shrimp in. If adding corn, put it in at same time as shrimp.

My first reaction was WTF, but he was in China and my window of opportunity to text back and expect a response had passed, so I actually followed these directions, and you know what? It was PERFECT. For a dish like this, the amounts really are sort of intuitive and you can really feel like a pro just throwing a whole bunch of stuff into the pot.

I should also mention that we use frozen shrimp for this dish. Check out our kitchen secrets for more cool food-related tips!

And, I should also mention that I used 5 dozen clams and 3 large bags of the largest cleaned and peeled frozen shrimp. I also used 10 ears of corn and cut them in thirds, one bottle of white wine and I guessed on the rest.