Can you eat coquina clams

After the clams have soaked for 24 hours, they are ready to be cooked. You can either add them to the desired dish for cooking at that time, or boil and freeze them for use at a later date. If opting to freeze them, place the clams in shallow boiling water for 5 minutes. As they cook, the clams will pop open. Once all of the clams have popped open, leave in the pan to cool. Once cooled, pour the clams and their broth into a zip lock or other freezer container and store in the freezer.

Once introduced into your aquarium, these pathogens could make their way into killing coral or infecting the rest of the fish in your tank with a serious virus. Shellfish have been known to carry Hepatitis A, for example, and that could kill your entire population.

In fact, they can bring colors and added benefits to your fish tank that you may not get from fish alone. Two of the best saltwater clams that you might consider introducing to your aquarium are the tridacna crocea and the tridacna squamosa.

They also like to attach to rock surfaces. Of course, most fish like to take a bite off of the mantle of this clam. Your best bet is to have an aquarium with fish that eat plankton or algae, because a lot of other aquatic life will devour the crocea clam. When it comes to the water, just watch the calcium levels to ensure its survival. The squamosa species of clam is similar to the crocea in that it also uses photosynthesis to feed on algae and it needs calcium in the water to survive.

A shovel full of that sand usually produces hundreds of Coquina. Dump the sand into your colander, rinse the sand away, and dump the Coquina into your bucket, which has sea water in it. Of course, two people with two colanders works the best, one filling and one rinsing. You can easily collect gallons of them. The only odd part is they live in colonies, so you will go from patches of beach with them to patches without. As for cooking…. Rinse them very well; place in a pot with enough cold fresh water to almost cover the shells.

Bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer a few minutes, 10 to 15 will do. Drain off the broth and serve. I think it is also the basis for a great potato puree. As for the tiny bits of meat…. But I have eaten a lot of that, too. In Australia they apparently separate the meat commercially.

Lastly, there is some humor in the naming of the Donax. It is among the smallest of edible shellfish, but Donax usually means a giant reed. There are two possible explanations. One is the donax was a large split reed in two and the little Coquina has two siphons. The species name, variabili means changeable, referring to coloration. Like other crabs and lobsters they are garbage collectors… they eat little bits of this and that.

Tiny, in a garlicky, winey broth, there were about 60 in a portion. We charged our grandchildren with collecting enough for supper, culled out the largest ones, soaked them in a cornmeal — dusted bath for 30 minutes to encourage them to disgorge the sand , rinsed and drained.

Sauteed garlic and red pepper flake in olive oil, added white wine and the coquinas, steamed covered just til they opened. Stirred in a couple of knobs of sweet butter and some italian parsley, they were delicious, briny and garlicky. Four ounces in the shell per person made a fun first course. Made way too much though, so back into the pot they went with a half quart of water… now I have damn tasty stock!

Liquid gold! My uncle-in-law is from Jordan. Not really sure how well that works, and I never was brave enough to try it. I found coquinas by the gob when a pup on Marco Island near 50 years ago. The resulting broth was great. I tired of trying to de-meat them though, and settled for straight broth.

The road to Marco was a plank bridge at that time. Ah, me too! I used to catch them by the handful, back in the early days at my home country Venezuela. That was about 30 years ago. I remember them larger about 1 inch in length and wearing quite colorful shells. Let me tell you about delicious! Nowadays, they are hard to find, even in Venezuela. Yes, Deane! The coquina does bring great memories indeed. Looked it up and here is an excellent paper that explains it… symbiotic hydroid! I am hooked on your page it has lots of info I just joined into shell collecting.

It a bucket of broken shells I found 3 tiny coquinas live. How can I save them I had a water bottler with ocean water and sand, and the kids saw how they burry them selves in the sand. What sea animals are illegal to keep I know sand dollars are but what else. George Island off of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. We filled 2 gallon jugs with coquinas and took them to Alligator Point where there we none. NOW, you can walk the beach for many miles and see coquina shells in the surf.