Quote: (07-04-2013 12:58 PM)Vorkuta Wrote:
I have just spent 2 months eating this in various restaurants in France and I absolutely love it.
I know we have a few chefs and good cooks on board. Does anybody have a good recipe for this? In particular I want to know how to make the sauce.
Anyone cook this?
I've never had this dish in France but I've eaten it and prepared it many times in many Italian restaurants, where it would be called Spaghetti Frutti di Mare.
First, buy a high quality dried spaghetti. DeCecco is fine; try to find Rustichella d'Abruzzo if you can. It's got a much better texture and flavor.
Second, you want to determine what kind of seafood you want to use. Ideally, you want as much as possible: lobster, shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, calamari. Make sure your clams and mussels are well scrubbed and soaked to get rid of sand. If you want use fish, try to find monkfish as it lends itself better to longer cooking times than lean whitefish like halibut. For me personally, I would make this with shrimp, mussels, clams, and calamari and I'd throw in a lobster if I was feeling indulgent. To prepare a live lobster, find a heavy duty knife and split the lobsters through the head. Pull off the tail and claws. Boil the tails for 3 minutes (they'll still be rare) and the claws for 6 minutes. Cut open the tail and claws with kitchen scissors and remove and reserve the meat. Use the shells for your broth. Cut the meat into large, grape sized chunks. Once you get your seafood together, you want to make a seafood broth, with any of the trimmings from your seafood. Here's a recipe for the broth:
2 split lobster heads, or a pound of shrimp shells, heads, fish bones and heads, etc.
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
1 shallot, sliced
3 sprigs flat leaf parsley
1 bay leaf
4 C water
Heat up some oil in a wide, heavy bottom pan with sloping sides. Get it almost smoking and add your lobster heads, shrimp shells, fish bones, etc and start to brown them. A crust should develop on the bottom of the pan (it helps if you don't use too much oil). Caramelize them well, turn the heat off, and add your vegetables. Turn the heat to a very low setting and let the vegetables sweat slowly until they soften, about 15-20 minutes. Add the 4 cups of water and let simmer until reduced to a quarter of it's original volume, leaving you with 1 cup of intense shellfish broth.
Next it's time to assemble the pasta. I'd do something like:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
about a cup of simple tomato sauce, canned is fine
a pinch of chili flake
1 dried bay leaf
about 1/3 C of dry white wine
1C of shellfish broth from above
lots of chopped parsley
First, get your pasta in some boiling salted water. You've got about 10 minutes to assemble the sauce. Timing is everything.
Heat up some olive oil in a large saute pan and start to cook the garlic and shallots without browning. When they have softened, add the chili flake and white wine and let simmer for 10 seconds, then add the tomato sauce, bay leaf, shellfish broth, and all of your seafood (lobster meat, peeled shrimp, shellfish, calamari, etc) Cover and let simmer for 3-4 minutes. As soon as the mussels and clams open, turn the heat off. When the spaghetti has cooked for 10 minutes it should still be al dente. Remove from the boiling water with some tongs and put directly into the pan with your sauce, and cook the pasta another minute or two in your sauce. Toss well without getting everything everywhere. Add your chopped parsley, a swirl of high quality olive oil, and you're good.
The trick with pasta is making sure your sauce clings perfectly; if it's too watery it needs to reduce more. If it's too tight you can add a tablespoon of pasta water.
