So earlier today I was all set to try to make brandade de morue, using the cod I had already started salting, but, then, snowed in and with a blizzard raging, I did what any reasonable person would do, and took another nap, and woke up, with dinner time upon me. The salt-cod fritter recipe in Bouchon involved a bit of unfamiliar work, so, hey, the cod will just get more authentically salt-cody by salting for another day, so I put it in the fridge, and then I surveyed the contents of the fridge, took stock of what I could make, from what was there.

So, this first pic, this shows the ingredients I decided I would use. I had an idea for a white pasta sauce, with clams and sausage, but, thickened not with cream, but with pureed white beans, I have done this before, its nice on pasta. And yes, its not really believable, but I actually just happened to have this stuff around, I had bought a dozen clams on Christmas Eve, meant to make clams oreganata along with the other tapas, but I ran out of time, and yes, I bought the fresh kielbasa the day before, because fresh kielbasa is a delight, and rarely available, if you have never had it, its nothing at all like the smoked Hillshire Farms crap-ola, its just the garlickiest pork sausage you ever had, its perfect for what I wanted to do, combine sausage and clams in a white pasta sause.

So, that was the plan, sausage and clams, I would steam the clams open in the leftover champagne, because it was there, reduce the clam stock-champaigne mixture a bit, thicken with pureed white beans, with this combination of flavors, there is little seasoning needed, black pepper, parsely, really is it.

And so, the mis-en-place:




And the final result: