We love to buy fresh clams or cockles at the market and cook them at home, but despite many different methods of purging, we often get gritty ones. We got spoiled in San Francisco by the pre-purged manila clams from Hog Island Oyster Company, which were so clean you could eat raw at the market.

We had been craving warm steamed clams cooked in their own juices over barrel staves. We had them last summer in the vineyards of Burgundy. We tried our hand at his cooking method at home - sans the oak fire. It was delicious! We purchased some extremely fresh-looking clams from the market and tried a different purge method before cooking. It worked so well, we’re sharing it below.