Clams

Lala clams are the small clams behind Singapore’s beer clams and white wine clam dishes, the kind you get at a zi char stall stir fried with garlic, chilli and basil. Frozen lala are usually pre-purged, so the grit and sand is mostly gone before the bag reaches you, unlike clams bought live that still need an hour soaking in salt water. Check the pack weight against the drained weight: clams hold a lot of liquid, and what you pay for by the kilo isn’t always what lands in the wok. Cook them straight from frozen in a hot pan, they open in under five minutes and any shell that stays shut should be thrown out.