STEPS 4, INGREDIENTS 7, TIME 20 MINS
This seafood pasta recipe is 100% flexible in terms of the ingredients you can use – simply buy any seafood you like; small prawns, scallops, mussels, whatever… and mix this oily concoction together with spaghetti or linguine.
You can’t fail to love munching it, because you choose what’s in it!
The beautiful Italian name of this seafood pasta recipe is ‘pasta ai frutti di mare’ – or ‘pasta with the fruits of the sea’. It’s also sometimes known as ‘spaghetti allo scoglio’, or ‘sea rock spaghetti’.
As with all seafood dishes, if you drink alcohol then be sure to grab some chilled white wine to serve with it. Mmm… let’s do it.
Serves 2
Ingredients: (For a printable PDF shopping list click here, or right-click this link and choose ‘Save target/link as’ to save the list for later.)
400g/14oz of mixed seafood (buy this chilled or frozen and be sure it is ‘clean’ (ready to cook), as preparing seafood can be a chore)
200g/7oz of spaghetti or linguine
Extra virgin olive oil
3 stalks of flat-leaf parsley
Quarter glass of white wine
1 clove of garlic
Salt & pepper
Optional: 1 plum tomato (from tin)
Equipment
Large frying pan
Pasta pan
Sieve/colander
Timings
Preparation: 5 mins
Cooking: 15 mins
STEP 1 – Fill and boil a kettle. While that’s heating, peel the garlic clove then chop it end to end (long-ways).
Carefully cut out its central ‘spine’ or heart (this is green or white in colour and the trickiest part to digest). Throw this away then close the clove and chop it as finely as you can.
Wash and remove the parsley’s stalks, then tear or roughly chop the leaves.
STEP 2 – Cover most of the frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil and put this on a medium/high heat. Throw in the garlic and two-thirds of the parsley, and when the garlic starts making a frying/sizzling sound, turn the hob down to medium.
(Be sure the oil doesn’t burn and start smoking. If it does, drain it away and start again.)
STEP 3 – When the garlic is sizzling, throw in the seafood, wine, 2 pinches of salt, one of pepper, and if you like, the optional tomato finely chopped.
Mix this all gently for 4-5 minutes (until your seafood loses its translucent/see-through look).
STEP 4 – Put the boiled water in a pan on a maximum heat, and when boiling again add 2 tablespoons (1 handful) of salt. Drop in your pasta, stir, and cook as per the packet’s instructions.
When the pasta is ready (i.e. ‘al dente’ – literally, firm to the tooth), drain this and put in the frying pan full of seafood at a medium heat.
Stir in the pasta for 2 minutes until it’s covered in seafood and oil.
Done! How easy is this garlic pasta recipe?
To serve: Sprinkle the remaining parsley segments on top of each serving. Serve with your favourite white wine .
Next time: In addition to garlic, some Italians like to add finely chopped red chili to this seafood pasta recipe. Just check your guests won’t mind the heat, then add this when you throw in the garlic.