The seafood spaghetti can be found on almost every Italian restaurant menu, in a number of variants: Sonia's version is made with mussels, clams, squids and scampi!
The recipe we'll be preparing today is a very famous first course: the seafood spaghetti. There are a number of variants of this dish, according to different places and seasons... but the absolute essentials are mussels and clams, to which you can add for example scampi, squids, shrimps and baby cuttlefish. But let's see together what ingredients we'll need:
• 11,3 oz (320 g) of spaghetti
• 10,5 oz (300 g) of squids
• pepper / salt
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 lb (500 g) of clams
• 1 lb (500 g) of mussels / 4 scampi
• 10,5 oz (300 g) of cherry tomatoes
• fish stock
• ½ glass of dry white wine
• extra virgin olive oil
• parsley
Let's prepare together the seafood spaghetti:
The first thing to do to prepare the seafood spaghetti is clean the squids: if you want to see how, click here. Now separate the bodies from the tentacles and cut the bodies into rings. In a pan, put 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a crushed, or chopped, clove of garlic. Now add the squids. Cook for a few minutes until the squids turn white, then add the white wine, let it evaporate, then add the chopped parsley, after that turn off the heat and set aside, keeping warm.
Now move on to the mussels and clams: clean and wash them well under cold running water. I'll give you some advice to discard those filled with sand, in this case I'm talking about clams: take the clams one by one and, very patiently, tap them... on a cutting board, if something black comes out, that it sand, which means that you can throw the clam away, because it's full of sand. At this point, take a pot and throw in the clams... cook on a high flame with the lid on, until opened. Do the same with the mussels.
Now, let's move on to the scampi: wash and pat them dry... then make a cut along the belly, from the tail to the head. Do the same with all the 4 scampi, then, near the end of the tail, you'll notice a black string, that is the intestine: you can remove it using a toothpick, as I'm doing now, otherwise it will taste bitter. In a pan, put 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a clove of garlic... let it brown... then put the scampi in the pan... and let them brown on all sides for 5 minutes.
Now all the seafood is ready, remember to keep it warm, perhaps inside their own pans with the lid on. At this point, take a large pan, put a couple of tablespoons of oil, a clove of garlic, whole or chopped as you prefer, and add the tomatoes, cut into halves. Let them cook until tender, but not mushy.
Now strain the liquid from the mussels and the clams through a very fine sieve and collect it in a bowl. As you can see, the tomatoes have softened, so add the squids, that have been kept warm... and the water of the mussels and clams. In the meantime, boil the spaghetti... and 3 minutes before the end of cooking... toss in the pan... here it is.
Finish cooking the pasta adding 1 or 2 ladles of fish stock, if necessary. 1 minute before the end of cooking, remember to add the mussels, the clams and the scampi, then add salt, pepper and parsley.
At the end of this elaborate preparation, our seafood spaghetti are finally ready to be served.
From Sonia and Giallozafferano
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