diy food: opening clams?

Nyxe

New member
Hello again. Today I went out and bought various seafood to make my own reef tank food. It took forever to open the mussels and clean the squid, but it was done. However, the clams are impossible to open.

So maybe this is not much of a reef question as it is a cooking question. How do you get a clam to open? Right now they're sitting in a tupperware with water until I figure out how to get inside them.

What I learned by attempting to make my own food: I should have bought frozen, raw, clean, de-shelled clams/mussels/squid/oysters instead of buying fresh.

Oh, and my fingers smell lovely. :lol:
 
I just force a small knife through the joint and cut the clam or mussel that way. For squid, I guess I'd remove the beak and grind up the rest.
 
What I learned by attempting to make my own food: I should have bought frozen, raw, clean, de-shelled clams/mussels/squid/oysters instead of buying fresh.

That's what I use, bagged frozen mixed seafood. Pretty much everything you mention plus shrimp is in the bag and raw. It's cheap too .......... :lol:
 
Thanks, I guess I'll try again tomorrow. I might use a box cutter since there's less blade (less for me to slip and cut myself with). I'm gonna finish making the food tomorrow since it's late, and I don't want to annoy my neighbors with the noise from the food processor.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11641827#post11641827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bpiermat
You have to put them in hot (boiling) water....they open right up

If you do this though you'll lose most of the good stuff to the water as well as cook the meat.

They make clam shucking knives. You can get them at any grocery store. Shove the knife into the joint at the back of the shell and pry it open.
 
IMO you need not add anything other than primarily scallops and a couple of shrimp. There was a thread on RC where somebody analyzed the nutritional value of seafood. Scallops and oysters blew all else 'out of the water' so to speak. I can't afford oysters and I love shrimp so that goes in instead (along with garlic, cyclopeze and Selcon)
 
put the clams in the freezer for 10-15 mins...that will relax them, be careful not to hit them on anything...thatll make them tighten up again...i always use a clam knife and put a towel in my hand to hold the clam, it works well with a little practice
 
Definitely use the towel: slicing your hand to the bone while trying to open a clam is classic, and very painful.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11642435#post11642435 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
Definitely use the towel: slicing your hand to the bone while trying to open a clam is classic, and very painful.
But hey if you do try to make sure you get the blood in the food mix lots of good stuff in blood!
 
The freezer trick works really well. Also using a proper shucking knife, as they are thin enough to slide in between the shells and dull enough not to cut yourself if you slip ;)
 
I ended up breaking them open by hitting them with the side of my kitchen scissors. Took me the better part of an hour to get them all de-shelled. Here's a list of the other stuff I used to make my mix:

shrimp
oysters
mussels
clams
squid
nori kelp
wakame seaweed
cyclopleze (what is this stuff anyway?)
tablets of chlorella (sp?)
garlic cloves
broccoli (just shaved off the flowering part)
mysis shrimp (half the pack-whatever I had left)
algae package (also leftovers)

I forgot to buy selcon at the lfs the last time I was there. I'll hit the lfs again sometime this week and add it to the mix.

I have around six or seven flattened freezer bags worth of reef food. Enough to last me at least a year or two, lol. Next time I'll be sure to do my proportions better. And use all frozen, prepared seafood instead of spending a day cursing over a sink and a cutting board.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11641827#post11641827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bpiermat
You have to put them in hot (boiling) water....they open right up

I ran them under hot water and they open right up.
 
next time instead of the freezer bags poor the mixture on top of eggcrate and freeze them on a flat cookie sheet and you'll have perfect individual squares for feeding and won't have to worry about breaking apart the food in the bags at feeding time. And the already frozen mixtures definitely saves time over cleaning fresh seafood.

Thanks
Harry
 
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