Seafood Pasta

Seafood!

Neptune his favorite meal!

I once read somewhere about Italian farmers combining their gold from the land, being pasta, with the diamonds from the sea, being seafood, and blablabla... Just a romantic story to say: Seafood pasta is AWESOME! Probably one of the best dishes in the world, that is if you like seafood. But who doesn't?!?

When I was a kid, growing up between Italy and Belgium, my favorite meal used to be "spaghetti alle vongole", a very simple pasta dish with cockles (a small kind of edible clams). Actually it still is one of my favourite dishes and my father is a master in preparing it! 

But I've discovered something else... In a restaurant hidden somewhere in Northern Italy, where only locals and their ocasional guests go, I've discovered a pasta called "spaghetti allo scoglio". It really blew me away. So good! The restaurant is called La Fontanina and they make a killer spaghetti allo scoglio, which in English would be called "seafood spaghetti".

Here is my recipe of how to make this dish. It isn't really the same as they serve in the restaurant, but I'm getting pretty close! 

For this dish I use bouchot mussels which are very small mussels. I think they are perfect to use in pasta dishes. If you can't find bouchot mussels just go for the smalles mussels available. It is much nicer to have small mussels in your pasta than having to find your pasta between giant mussels.

Spaghetti allo Scoglio

Ingredients: for 2 large portions

250gr spaghetti 

400gr (bouchot) mussels 

200 gr clams

6 prawns (peeled or unpeeled, your preference)

2 crayfish (1 per person)

3 garlic cloves

1 onion, chopped

1 can (400gr) diced tomatoes

1 tbs fresh oregano

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 small glass of white wine

Olive oil

Preparation:

Take a large casserole and heat 1 tbs of olive oil. Fry one, roughly cut, garlic clove and add the clams. put on the lid. After 1 minute add the mussels and the white wine. Shake once in a while and turn of the heat when the mussels are open. With a skimmer take out the mussels and clams and set aside. Strain the remaining liquid, to prevent potential sand in your dish, and set aside.

Take a large pan and fry 2 garlic cloves and the onion. After about 5 minutes add the diced tomatoes 

Add the herbs, the strained seafood liquid and let it simmer on low heat. Meanwhile start boiling slightly salted water to cook your pasta.

When the sauce has a thick structure add the crayfish and the prawns. At this moment start cooking your pasta. After about 7 to 8 minutes (the spaghetti needs to be al dente) add the mussels and clams to the sauce and stir. Get you pasta out of that water and add to the sauce. Stir the whole thing until the spaghetti is covered in sauce.

Serve on a large plate.

It is nice to have this in the middle of the table and serve everyone right at the table. 

Bellisimo!