Elizabeth Hewson’s seafood and tomato pasta
Steer clear of the supermarket marinara mix for this dish. Choose your own and the world is your oyster.
Choosing a favourite pasta dish for me is like asking me to choose my favourite dessert, obviously an impossible task. But, under these blue summer skies, there’s nothing quite as magnificent as a big bowl of garlicky, tomatoey, seafood-laden pasta. In Italy, this dish is called frutti di mare, which translate to “fruits of the sea” and can be found in ristorantes and home kitchens along the coast. This dish features all types of seafood, and is often guided by what the fishermen pull to shore that day. I take the same approach here. Yes, okay, we aren’t sunning ourselves on an Italian pebble beach, Campari spritz in hand, casually watching fishermen pull in their haul … but we are spoilt for choice in Australia when it comes to our incredible seafood.
I want to encourage you to steer clear of the supermarket Mariana mix for this dish, the one with the curly parsley that always looks a little, well, sad. I enjoy the process, and freedom, of hand selecting what seafood I want to include in my sauce. I’m that person at the fish markets that says, “can I please have eight of those small black mussels, no not the one with the crack, the one under that”, “two of those giant prawns please”, “oh those clams look nice, can I have nine of those?” and while that could be considered mildly irritating, I’m yet to find a fish monger that hasn’t delighted and played along with my requests. It engages us both in a conversation, allowing me to choose what looks good and, most importantly, is, as those Italian fishermen intended, fresh. I get to make up a seafood “catch” based on what I like best. Building a relationship with your fish monger also means you can ask them politely to prepare your seafood for you — de-beard the mussels, gut the fish, and clean the squid.
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This recipe is highly customisable. You can use whatever seafood you like — shellfish, mussels, clams, pipis, prawns, big or small, or both. Or there’s firm-fleshed white fish, squid, crabs, or even lobster if you wanted to go all out. Alternatively keep it simple and stick to one favourite. The world is your oyster when it comes to your seafood selection. Here I’ve chosen my personal favourite fruits of the sea: mussels, clams, pipis, school prawns, two giant prawns (one for each of us), loligo squid, and a tiny goat fish that simply looked so pretty I felt compelled to buy it.
As for the pasta, in staying with the choose-your-own-adventure theme, it’s up to you. My favourite for this dish is a shape called calamarata, a thick ring pasta shape that originates from Naples made to resemble sliced calamari. I love the playfulness of this next to the sliced squid. Other favourites include paccheri and rigatoni, fat tubes of pasta that catch the sauce and sometimes small pieces of seafood in its beautiful crevices and tunnels.
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Seafood pasta
Ingredients
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 spring onions, white part and light green chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
500g cherry tomatoes, halved, little ones can be left whole
Salt
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dry Italian wine, preferably the one you’ll be drinking
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1kg seafood of your choice — I’d recommend 500g of shells (mussels, pipis, vongole and clams, making sure your mussels are debearded and the clams purged); two large green prawns,100g green school prawns, 150g squid, cleaned and one sliced small fish, optional
1 chilli, deseeded, finely chopped
½ bunch of basil, leaves picked
Zest of one lemon and its juice
½ bunch parsley, roughly chopped
120g dried pasta of your choice, I’ve used calamarata
Method
Heat a deep, large pot with a lid over medium heat with oil. Add spring onions, garlic and cook for 1 or 2 minutes, being careful not to brown. Throw in tomatoes along with ½ teaspoon of salt. Cook for about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until jammy.
Add tomato paste and give everything a good stir. Cook for 1 minute to allow paste to go a deep red. Add wine and cook for 5 minutes. Add chilli, basil and fish sauce. Leave to cook for a further 5 or so minutes to allow flavours to mingle.
Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of water to a lively boil and season as salty as the sea. Add pasta and cook until al dente.
My seafood selection follows the following cooking order — mussels, clams, small fish, prawns, school prawns and squid. If my shells are opening, I usually pluck them out into a dish to stop the cooking process, then throw them back in with the pasta. Enjoy the process of watching the seafood transform.
Lightly drain pasta. A little bit of cooking water is good to help bring it all together so be sure to reserve a cup and throw it into the sauce along with lemon zest, a squeeze of juice parsley, and toss. Taste to check seasoning. Serve and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
Seafood cooking guide
- Mussels 5-7 minutes, or until they pop open
- Clams and pipis 4-5 minutes, or until they pop open
- Prawns in their shells 4-6 minutes
- School prawns 2-3 minutes
- Squid 2-3 minutes
- Firm white fish cut into 3 cm cubes 4-5 minutes
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Garlic and herb bread
Ingredients
1 small baguette about 30cm in length (ciabatta also works well)
50g salted butter at room temperature
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ bunch chives, finely chopped
¼ bunch parsley, finely chopped
Method
Pre-heat oven to 200C. In a bowl, mash and mix butter, garlic and herbs. Cut the bread in 1cm slices almost all the way through, stopping just before the base. The idea is that the bread stays in one piece to cook but is easily dividable once cooked. Using a teaspoon, smear room temperature garlic and chive butter evenly between the slices.
Wrap your bread in foil. Place in your pre-heated oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until butter has melted and top is golden and crunchy.
Serves 2.