Shellfish – Page 2 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Seared Scallops with Fava Beans

I’ve shelled fava beans before and I can’t say it’s my favorite thing to do in the kitchen, but I love them so much in salads that whenever the summer season starts, I always buy a few handfuls of them from Fairway or from any farmer stand outside of the city. If shelling raw, you have to do it twice: one from the pod and two from the casing. If you have access to a grill, it’s easier to grill them first and the beans come out of their casings much easier. I realize it’s not the season for fava beans anymore, but hey, bookmark this recipe for next!

To sear the scallops, I used my new 10-inch skillet from Bonjour. I never owned a skillet without Teflon on the surface and I’ve survived this long in the kitchen, but now I know why it’s so much better for delicate food items like scallops and hardy meats like a beef steak: the skillet gets so much hotter faster and you get that satisfaction that your food is getting thoroughly cooked without overdoing it. The bonus part is that, since there is no rubberized handle or nonstick surface, you can finish cooking in the oven without having to turn the seafood or the meat.

Ingredients:
a few pieces of fresh scallops, dried with a paper towel
a handful of fava beans, shelled
1 bunch of young purple carrots, chopped
oil, salt, pepper

1. Using a large skillet, heat some oil until almost smoking. Sear scallops for no less than 5 minutes. They will not stick to the pan if your scallops are dry and if your skillet was hot enough. Gently turn them over with a spatula to cook the other side for another 3 minutes. Remove to a plate.
2. Keep the remaining oil in the skillet and add a little bit more and reheat. Toss fava beans and purple carrots. Sauté in high heat for several minutes until the fava beans are semi-soft. If you bought them from the farmers’ market, a little rawness won’t kill you.
3. Assemble to a plate and serve with seared scallops.

Recommended tool/s:
Time to upgrade your skillets to Bonjour

Fusilli with Octopus

My supermarket in Harlem had these octopus in cans on sale. The idea of a cephalopod in a can sounded odd but the ingredients list didn’t have any weird stuff in it except for octopus and olive oil so I thought it wouldn’t do me any harm to buy a couple for less than $3.

With some fusilli pasta boiling in a pot–you can use any pasta you have handy–I sautéed leftover vegetables I already had in the fridge: mixed greens, dried mushrooms, parsley and garlic scape. The dish turned out really well and it served two meals with a few glasses of Verdejo wine.

Ingredients:
2 tins of octopus in olive oil
2 cups of fusilli pasta
1 cup dried mushrooms, soaked in water for 15 minutes, then drained
a few handfuls of mixed greens
1 garlic scape, chopped
1 small red onion, sliced
a handful of parsley, coarsely chopped
a small wedge of Piave cheese
red chili flakes
oil, salt, pepper

1. Cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente. Drain pasta and set aside.
2. While cooking pasta, heat some oil in a skillet. Sauté garlic scapes until fragrant and then add onions until soft. Add octopus with its oil and toss. Add the mushrooms, the mixed greens and the parsley until well combined. Season with chili flakes, salt and pepper.
3. Add the drained pasta in the skillet and mix well. Serve with grated Piave cheese.

Pulpo a la Gallega, Galician Octopus

The two-or-two rule I apply for squid also applies when I cook octopus. You either tenderize it for 2 minutes or two hours; anything other than those times, your octopus will be chewy and inedible.

At the Filipino grocery store in Jersey City, I found a small frozen block of octopus for under $5. I wish I bought more because this Galician salad was so easy. It might take time to cook the octopus but once tender, it’s like tossing a simple salad together.

Ingredients:
1 octopus, about 2 pounds, thawed, beak removed if necessary
4 medium potatoes, peeled, sliced
smoked paprika
salt

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a generous helping of salt. Put octopus in water and, when it returns to boil, cover and lower the heat to simmer. Cook for no more than 2 hours, until octopus is tender. When you have 30 minutes to go, add the potatoes and cook until tender.
2. Remove octopus and potatoes from pot of water and drain. Slice the octopus into smaller pieces. Separate the potatoes on a platter and sprinkle with paprika. Distribute the octopus on top of the potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and season with some salt.

Cioppino, Italian Seafood Stew

Here’s another Italian recipe I butchered. Cioppino is a traditional Italian stew using the catch of the day and I used all the seafood I “caught” from the sea-permarket (ha!) except for fish because my mother is allergic; otherwise I would choose monkfish fillets to have something very meaty and tender. The clams and mussels are perfectly cooked here, but that also means they didn’t get enough time in the hot broth, so I think clam juice in a can is an absolute necessity. If your eaters are not fussy, using shrimp with their heads on can add more natural flavor to the soup. I also decided to skip the pasta in my version and opted to serve it with a few slices of toasted baguette.

Ingredients:
1 lb squid, cleaned, sliced in small rings
1/2 lb shrimp, heads on, sprinkled with salt and pepper
12 littleneck clams
12 mussels, bearded
1 cup white wine
1 medium can of crushed tomatoes
1 small can of clam juice
a handful of parsley, roughly chopped
a few pieces basil leaves, chiffonade
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
salt, pepper, oil
1 small baguette, sliced, toasted

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat some oil. Cook the shrimp for 3 minutes. Remove to a large bowl.
2. In the same pot, sauté garlic with red pepper flakes until golden brown. Add white wine and 1/2 cup of water. Simmer in low fire.
3. Add clams and cover. Simmer for 3 minutes. Clams are cooked when they are open. Discard those that didn’t open. Remove to a large bowl. Add mussels to the pot and cover. Simmer for 5 minutes. Mussels are also cooked when they are open. Discard those that didn’t. Remove to the same bowl with the clams.
4. Add clam juice, tomatoes and 3 cups of water to the pot with all the seafood and wine flavor. Let simmer for about 20 minutes while occasionally stirring. Add squid and cook for 2 minutes. Add back the shrimp, clams and mussels and carefully toss together with the tomato broth. Remove from heat. The squid will finish cooking in the remaining heat. Ladle in big open bowls and serve with toasted baguette.

Squid Stuffed Squid

Seriously, what did people do before Google? When I bought several squid from Chinatown, I wasn’t exactly sure if they were squid or cuttlefish. They looked bigger than the squid I’m used to and if you’ve been to any of the stores in Chinatown, you know it’s hard to get a straight answer from any of the clerks. The squid were already cleaned off the plastic-y spine inside and that was my only way to tell one from the other: the cuttlefish “skeleton” is wider than that of a squid’s.

So I Googled and found several indistinguishable photos of squid and cuttlefish-looking things but then finally discovered this short paragraph from EnchantedLearning.com: The body of the cuttlefish (the cuttle) is flattened and has fins that extend along the entire length of the mantle. There you go; mine didn’t and that settled the dilemma of naming this recipe.

They were also butterflied open which required some butcher’s twine to close them up again after being stuffed. If you can get your squid cleaned but intact, you can easily stuff them through the head opening where the tentacles used to be.

Ingredients:
5 squid, cleaned, kept whole if possible, tentacles separated and finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
5 pieces of string beans, chopped
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1 medium can of crushed tomatoes
2 stalks of parsley, finely chopped
2 stalks of scallions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red chile, crushed
oil, salt, pepper

1. Preheat an oven to 375º.
2. Heat some oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saué garlic until brown and then the scallions until translucent. Add the chopped squid tentacles, the carrots and beans and cook for about 5 minutes by frequently tossing. Season with salt and chile. Add the bread crumbs and the parsley and mix to toast. You should now have a somewhat sticky mixture for your stuffing. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. On a large chopping block, lay the butterflied squid open. Spoon some of the tentacle mixture and spread all along the cavity. Grab one end of the squid and roll over the other. Wrap and tie to close with butcher’s twine. Gently move stuffed squid to a baking dish. Pour crushed tomato sauce over them.
4. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. To serve, carefully slice each squid into 3. The twine should easily come off so you can discard.