I don’t think this is the right way to make it.

Linguine and clams is one of those dishes where insistence on simplicity is rewarded.  The basic mechanics of the dish are extremely straightforward.  There are just a few little secrets that elevate a good dish to an excellent one.

Obviously you want fresh clams.  You don’t want fresh pasta.  Dried pasta works much better here, more on that later.  You want garlic, parsley is a nice touch, olive oil, butter and white wine.  That’s it. (Bacon?? Sorry Sandeep, no.) Maybe red chile flakes.

Start boiling the pasta.  Set the timer for 1 minute short of al dente.  Heat a flat pan which can be covered.  When hot add a touch of olive oil and chopped garlic (If you like the red chile flakes here is where you add it.)  When the garlic is soft but nowhere near brown place the clams in the pan and cover.  After about a minute throw splash in some white wine and cover again.  After another minute you should have open clams and a lot of clam juice in the pan.  Remove the clams to a bowl and reduce the heat on the pan.

Look in the pan.  This is your sauce.  You will soon be placing pasta in this sauce and you want the pasta to be covered but not swimming, so you are adjusting the heat so that it reduces to that target when your timer goes off.  Just before it does, swirl in butter to enrich the sauce.

When the timer goes off you have pasta which is not quite cooked.  That is what you want.  Use tongs and directly lift the pasta out of the boiling water and into the sauce.  There is a reason for this.  The pasta water has starch in it from the pasta and some of this water will come along with the pasta into the sauce.  The starch tastes good and it will help give body to the sauce.  Also, the water will increase the volume of the sauce and you want this because you are going to cook the pasta for its remaining minute in the sauce.  Pasta is a sponge at this point of the cooking process (think of what your pasta looks like when you have leftovers:  swollen and soft.  It has soaked up everything around it.)  The pasta will soak up the juices in its last minute of cooking.  Fresh pasta will not do this.

When this is done, throw in your parsley, toss and plate the pasta.  Arrange the clams on top and serve.  Provide bread and fork.  Beer is best.