Out of your shell: easy and delicious bites

Clams and tuatua make a seafood banquet all the better. Photo / Bite, Herald on Sunday

Clams and tuatua make a seafood banquet all the better.

This year was the first time we have been down to the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival and boy, have we been missing out. Everyone was all dolled up and looked gorgeous and Marlborough definitely turned on the weather. We could hear the Black Seeds playing their set while we sipped on a delicious sauvignon blanc.

We were lucky enough to be invited down by the team at Cloudy Bay Clams, whose clams we have been using in our cooking for a while.

Back home in the Bay of Plenty, you can find tuatua all along the coastline. You just have to wriggle your feet and do the well-known "tuatua twist" until you feel the smooth shells beneath the sand.

It was interesting to find they don't have hordes of people wriggling their feet to collect their harvest of Cloudy Bay clams though.

As well as being delicious, these clams carry the Friend of the Sea International Sustainability seal of approval, something that is very important to us. The technology used to harvest these clams is truly amazing and we are excited to share some of favourite recipes for these New Zealand delicacies with you all.

The first recipe is for popcorn diamond shell clams, one of the dishes served at the Clam Shack at the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival. The coating goes deliciously crunchy, while keeping the delicate meat inside succulent and plump. We have paired it with Kewpie mayo and some chopped pickled ginger for a little kick.

When we have a decent-sized haul of shellfish we can't go past nice meaty tuatua patties. If you have collected your own shellfish, we recommend leaving them in salt water in the fridge for least an hour to get rid of some of the grit and sand inside (you don't have to do this if you have got Cloudy Bay Clams' tuatua because they flush them for you).

We managed to talk our mum into giving us her tuatua pattie recipe (to which we added a bit of sriracha chilli sauce) and served the patties inside crusty bread rolls with a simple slaw. We love cooking this down at the free barbecues by the beach in Maketu.

We rarely find moon shell clams on our beach, although their shells are quite often found washed on to shore, so someone or something is obviously getting lucky.

We think the shells of these clams are beautiful, so serving them in their shells looks great. We have grilled them with delicious smoked butter and a tasty crumb to give them a bit of texture contrast.

This is a great way to serve them if you want to make an easy pre-dinner snack that will impress your guests.

We are so lucky to live in a country where food of this quality grows naturally in our clean ocean water and sea bed.

Making sure the next generation is able to enjoy these treasures is very important so, to Cloudy Bay Clams and all the other likeminded food producers out there, we want to give you a big pat on the back. Keep up the great work!

Try out Kasey and Karena's delicious recipes at bite.co.nz - links below

• Popcorn clams
• Tuatua fritter burgers
• Grilled moon shell clams with smoked butter and herb crumb