Growing up, my extended family would gather maybe once a month at one of our go-to Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, where my grandparents would always let me pick one communal dish for the lazy Susan. And I always chose the same dish: stir-fried clams with fermented black beans. Besides this dish, the only other clam dish I ate (or knew about) when I was young was New England clam chowder.

As much as I loved those stir-fried clams, the idea of actually cooking clams didn’t occur to me until I went to cooking school. Culinary school is also where I finally learned why those stir-fried clams were sometimes gritty. Who knew you had to first purge all the sand out of those suckers before cooking them? (Don’t worry: All of our recipes include the purging process.) But once you do, a whole world of delicious possibilities, uh hem, opens up.

The briny, bouncy chew of clams works beautifully in a variety of dishes, from New England stuffed clams and chowders to aromatic Asian stir-fries to flavor-packed comforting stews like doenjang jjigae. While fresh clams are prized around the world, don’t discount canned clams. Combined with the right ingredients, they can be fantastic in dishes like pasta and dip. Whichever you have on hand, we have a clam recipe that’ll work for you.