What it is
Stir-fried clams (炒蛤蜊) are a fixture of rechao (熱炒), the casual stir-fry restaurants found across Taiwan. The usual versions are heavy with garlic or with Taiwanese basil, and some kitchens use chillies and black bean sauce instead. Taiwan farms hard clams on its sandy south-west coast.
Where it came from
As a restaurant dish, stir-fried clams belong to the story of rechao, which is fairly recent. In 1970s Taipei, seafood restaurants cooked from tanks of fish and shellfish brought in from Keelung, the port about 30 km away, and slowly added more dishes. The 1980s boom changed the market. Office staff working late wanted cheap meals that arrived fast, and many seafood restaurants turned into low-cost stir-fry halls to serve them. Powerful gas burners, newly available in Taiwan, let cooks run the wok at full heat and send plates out in minutes. The food historian Kuo Chung-hao puts the real take-off later, in the 1990s, when Taiwan was at its most prosperous.
How it is made
The wok goes onto a powerful gas burner at full heat. Garlic, and often chilli, is fried first, then the clams go in and cook until their shells open. For the basil version, a handful of Taiwanese basil (九層塔) is added once the shells have opened, along with any sauce, and tossed until it wilts. This basil is sharper and spicier than the European kind and is not eaten raw in Taiwan.
How to eat it
It is a shared plate for the middle of the table, eaten with white rice, which many rechao restaurants give away, and in the evening with beer, usually Taiwan Beer. Groups often order roughly one dish per person. By one 2023 estimate, rechao restaurants account for almost 45 per cent of Taiwan's beer sales.
Around Taiwan
- Kaohsiung
- Chao Ming (昭明海產家庭料理) in Cianjin, a family seafood restaurant open for more than half a century, pairs fresh clams with crunchy mung bean sprouts (蛤蠣銀芽). Most dishes on its menu come in small, medium or large.
