Spaghetti with Gurnard

Spaghetti con la gallinella. Gurnard is used mainly as a soup fish here. This recipe however serves it poached and flaked with spaghetti. This avoids the problem of navigating the numerous bones.  When you’ve finished you’ll be left with a couple of litres of pretty good fish stock which is worth saving and would freeze well. Serves 4.

Spaghetti with gurnard ingedients

• 320g spaghetti
• 300g whole gurnard – cleaned
• Zest from 1 lemon
• Parsley – finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic
• 100g small or cherry tomatoes – sliced
• Stock vegetables (Onion, carrot, celery)
• Olive oil

1. Peel and chop the stock vegetables. Add to a pan with 3 litres of water and a large pinch of salt. Simmer for 30 minutes. You can omit this step if you are pressed for time.
2. Add the fish and poach for 5-6 minutes. The fish should be starting to flake, but not dissolving. Remove the fish and allow to cool slightly. Strain and reserve the stock.
3. Flake the fish taking care to remove all the bones.
4. Mince together the lemon zest, the garlic and the parsley.
5. Fry the fish gently in a little olive oil and add a little of the stock. Be careful not to add to much, you don’t want it too sloppy.
6. Cook the spaghetti in the stock until al dente
7. Just before the spaghetti is done, add the minced ingredients and the tomatoes to the fish and warm through.
8. Drain the spaghetti and add to the pan with the fish. Mix well and cook for a further minute or so.
9. Serve immediately.

spaghetti with gurnard finished dish

Gratinated mussels

Cozze gratinate. From Puglia. I wanted to try this recipe to see if it makes a difference cooking the mussels from raw, rather than opening them in a hot pan first. I have to say it does! They were much nicer. Use a short knife to open the mussels over a bowl to catch the liquid. I still need a bit of pratice, but I was getting it towards the end. Serves 4 as a main course, more as an antipasti.

Gratinated mussels ingredients

• 1 kg mussels – well cleaned and opened on the half shell (reserve the liquid)
• 100g dry breadcrumbs
• 100g parmesan – grated
• A few sprigs of parsley – finely chopped
• A pinch of dried oregano
• A clove of garlic – finely chopped
• Olive oil

1. Mix together the breadcrumbs, parmesan, oregano, parsley and garlic.
2. Arrange the mussels on a baking tray and top each one with a little of the mixture.
3. Put a few drops of the mussel liquid on to of each one and drizzle with olive oli.
4. An alternative method is to mix the mussel liquid in to the breadcrumb mix to form a dryish paste. Press a little of the paste into each mussel and drizzle with oil as before.
5. Grill the mussels until they are golden brown and sizzling.

Gratinated mussels finished dish

Bucatini and Mussels all’Amatriciana

Bucatini e cozze all’amatriciana.  This is a new twist on the classic amatriciana. The addition of mussels works surprisingly well. It is adapted from “Sale e Pepe” which is something like the Italian equivalent of “Good Food Magazine”. The original recipe calls for guanciale, but as this is hard to find, even in Italy, this is my version using pancetta. Serves 4

Bucatini amatriciana with mussels ingredients

• 320g bucatini or spaghetti
• 1 kg mussels
• 400g passata
• A clove of garlic
• 50g pancetta – cubed
• 1/2 a glass of dry white wine
• Pecorino romano cheese – grated
• Chilli powder to taste
• Olive oil

1. Fry the pancetta in a little oil along with the whole garlic clove.
2. When the garlic has browned, remove and discard.
3. Add the chilli and fry for a few seconds.
4. Add the passata and cook over a low heat for about 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile put the mussels in a pan along with the wine and cook over a high heat until the mussels have opened. Drain and reserve the liquid.
6. Shell the mussels, reserving a few for decoration.
7. Pour the mussel liquid into a large pan and add water to make it up to about 3 litres. Bring to the boil and cook the pasta until al dente.
8. Shorlty before the pasta is ready, add the mussels to the tomato sauce and allow to heat through for a minute or so.
9. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with tomato sauce.
10. Mix well and serve with the pecorino on the side.

Bucatini amatriciana with mussels finished dish

Spaghetti with Prawns and Courgettes

Spaghetti zucchine e gamberetti. I cooked this to use up the leftover prawns from yesterday’s trip to the  fish market. Serves 4.

Spaghetti with prawns and courgettes ingredients

• 320g spaghetti
• 300g medium prawns, legs and antenae removed.
• 1tbsp capers – soaked for a few minutes and drained.
• 3 small or 1 large courgette -sliced thinly into rounds or quartered lengthways and sliced into quadrants if large.
• 1/2 onion sliced
• Tomato sauce or passata
• A pinch of dried thyme
• Olive oil

1. Fry the onion gently in the oil until it starts to soften.
2. Add the tomato sauce, the capers and the thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, uncovered, for about 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile fry the courgettes gently in olive oil until soft. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Add the prawns to the tomato sauce and cook for a further few minutes until the prawns are cooked.
5. At the last minute add the courgetttes to the sauce.
6. Meanwhile cook the spaghetti until al dente.
7. Dress the pasta with the sauce and serve.

Spaghetti with prawns and courgettes finished dish

Slow Cooked Octopus “alla Luciana”

“Purpo” alla Luciana. From Campania. A nice way to cook a large octopus. Very simple, but delicious. The octopus ends up very tender and the liquid it produces makes a very tasty sauce. Serves 3-4

Octopus Luciana ingredients

• 1 Octopus weighing about 1kg – cleaned and tenderised.
• 1/2 glass olive oil
• Parsley – chopped
• 1 clove of garlic – chopped
• Salt and pepper

1. Remove the eyes and beak from the octopus.
2. Place the octopus in a (preferably) terracotta pot. The pot should be just larger than the octopus so it’s a reasonably tight fit.
3. Add the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Go easy on the salt though.
4. Cover the pot with aluminium foil or grease proof paper and tie as tightly as possible with kitchen string. Cover with a lid.
5. Cook over a very low heat for two hours. Shake the pot from time to time to prevent sticking.
6. Remove the foil, add the garlic and parsley, and cook for another few minutes.
7. Serve hot or leave to cool in the cooking liquid and serve cold as an antipasto.

Octopus Luciana finished dish

Grilled, Marinated Bream

Orata ai ferri. I’ve decided to make better use of my local fish market seeing as it’s just five minutes walk away from my flat. I’d forgotten that Monday is a bad day to go, as the day boats don’t go out on a Sunday. As a result, all that was available was either farmed or frozen. I made the best of it however and bought a couple of very fresh bream. So fresh in fact that they were still in rigor mortis.

Update: I’ve just realised that I cooked this recipe about a year ago and it’s already on the blog. D’oh! Oh well, it proves I like it I suppose

Grilled, marinated bream ingredients

• 1 medium sea bream per person – cleaned and scaled
• Plenty of chopped parsley (pref. flat leaf)
• Fresh lemon juice
• Fine dry breadcrumbs
• Olive oil
• Salt

1. Make a marinade by mixing together roughly equal amounts of lemon juice and olive oil. Add the parsley and season with salt and pepper.
2. Pour the marinade over the fish making sure that some gets into the cavity. Leave to marinate for a few hours in the fridge.
3. Drain the fish well, reserving the marinade. sprinkle with the breadcrumbs.
4. Cook under a medium grill for around 15 minutes (depending on the size of the fish). Turn two or three times during cooking. Baste with the marinade every so often.
5. Serve immediately.

Grilled Prawns

Gamberoni alla brace. This recipe is claimed by Sicily, but prawns are cooked this way all over Italy, and indeed the world. It’s about as easy as you can get. The only thing to remember is to not overcook the prawns. If you are using a barbecue, leave a distance of around 30cm between the coals and the prawns.

• Large, raw, unshelled prawns
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Chopped parsley

1. Brush the prawns with oil and arrange on the grill.
2. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes.
3. Serve immediately, sprinkled with parsley.