Something fishy

I’ve always loved to cook and being here is like a cooks paradise.  There are always good ingredients available – fresh vegetables, meat, fish, etc.  In fact, on Friday, the mobile fish vendor comes.  He sets up shop in a small room in the castle with an outside entrance and sells all sorts of fresh fish.  For the most part, I buy clams, shrimp, and langoustines.  Sometimes I will by whole fish, but usually when it’s cold out since we like to eat them grilled.  And yes, I do clean them myself.  

But, what do I do with the clams, shrimp, and langoustines?  Well, I make spaghetti with frutti di mare.  I thought I’d share the recipe.  By the way, I made it up myself and the measurements aren’t really exact. So, read on, if interested….
 

When you get home with your purchase, the first thing you want to do is rinse off the clams, scrubbing them together to remove any dirt, then put them in a container full of water with some salt in it.  A small container with just enough water to cover the clams and about 1 tablespoon of salt should do it.  This helps clean out the clams and get rid of any grit. Let them sit in this solution for about an hour, then drain and rinse them.  You’ll also want to rinse off your shrimp and langoustines. 
 

For 2 people I usually use about 200 grams of clams, and 200]grams of shrimp & langoustines – sometimes I’ll throw in some mussels too, when in season.  Last night I had 1/2 kilo of clams, so I used them all. So basically, you can use more seafood if you’d like.
 

You’ll also need some fresh parsley and basil.  If you don’t have access to fresh parsley and basil very often, keep an eye out when you go to the supermarket.  Whenever they have some, pick some up, bring it home, wash it and let it dry.  Then take the leaves off and put them in a ziploc bag and put it in the freezer.  That way, you always have some handy.
 

For the rest of the dish you’ll need about 7 or 8 cherry tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic – crushed, a bay leaf, a 1/2 cup of dry white wine, and some ground hot pepper.  We use
pepperoncini that we grind ourselves.  You can either grind up some of the dried flakes or use cayenne pepper.  I’ve seen the black pepper grinders with hot pepper flakes in them too.  If I didn’t have all this hand-ground stuff available, I’d try that too.
 

As for the spaghetti, I recommend 100 grams per person for this dish.  (I’m assuming this is going to be a one dish meal.)
 

So, let’s get started.  Set your pasta water to boil and salt it.  I’m not going to go into detail about this.  It’s not hard to cook pasta.
 

Meanwhile, in a large frying pan or saltapasta (basically a wok, which works best for this due to the shape), put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic and heat it on high.  You don’t want to toast the garlic, so after about two minutes, add the wine, some salt, the bay leaf, parsley and basil.  Sprinkle in the hot pepper according to your taste.  The dish is best when it has a little zing to it.

Now, add your clams and stir them around for about two minutes, then add the shrimp and langoustines.  Put the lid on the frying pan and let simmer for a few minutes, stirring every once in a while.  This doesn’t have to cook long, just long enough for the clams to open and the shrimp to be pink. 
 Once you’ve reached that stage, stir in the cherry tomatoes that you’ve cut in half, put the lid on, and turn off the flame.  We’ll leave it this way until the pasta is almost done.  This way your cherry tomatoes heat up, but don’t turn to mush.
 Once your pasta is about 3/4s of the way cooked, take about a ladleful of the pasta water and add it to the frying pan with the shrimp mixture.  Use your judgement according to the size of your ladle.  You don’t want the fish to be swimming in water.  Then, turn the flame back on.  By this time your pasta should be almost done.  Don’t let it cook all the way.  When it’s about a minute from being done, remove it from the water, add it to the frying pan and toss with the shrimp mixture.
 Since the seafood isn’t shelled ahead of time, this is a messy dish, so have lots of napkins handy. 
 

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