CAPTURING THE SEA in a pasta bowl
Chef and author confesses to being ‘hopelessly infatuated with pasta and seafood’
I FIND the combination of pasta and seafood so irresistible that I spend way more time than can possibly be good for me — or that I can justify as professionally enriching — gazing at screens showing creamy linguine with mussels and scallops, or spaghetti with shrimp in one tomatoey sauce or another.
Just try the hashtag #seafoodpasta on Instagram, and you’ll know what I mean.
Beyond the images, though, what makes these dishes so compelling are the deep flavours generated by seafood as it cooks, creating a virtually instant stock that emulsifies with the pasta’s starches.
The ability of these sauces to coat, and the layers of seaside aromas they generate, are what make me — and many thousands like me, I’ll say in my defence — salivate over a bowl of spaghetti alle vongole peering at me from a bright display.
Vongole is the most straightforward take on this theme. The version you choose to cook, however, can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. My emphasis is on need.
In my new cookbook, “Ottolenghi Simple,” I have made a conscious effort to create dishes that do everything I love to do with my food — it must be surprising and multilayered, yet comforting and simply good — while giving people the opportunity to easily fit cooking into their busy lives. You can cook for an occasion from it, but you can also cook occasionally, with far less commitment or effort.
Writing the book, I was surprised to discover how a set of flavours that I love and constantly cook with can be harnessed for totally different purposes and for varying degrees of effort or skill. Take the classic combination of seafood, fennel and tomato.
My pearl couscous with shrimp, clams and tarragon is a reflection of my cheffy instincts. It involves making stock using the shrimp shells. It also calls for cooking the fennel, prawns and tomatoes separately and placing the last two on top of the pasta, like a Spanish paella, displaying them in their unadulterated glory.
It’s delicious and impressive — and likely to win you lots of Instagram likes — but there’s a certain commitment involved that makes it a special occasion kind of dish.
My shrimp Bolognese is quite the opposite. It does what pasta does so well, offering a quick solution with little fuss. It looks and sounds homemade, which makes it reassuringly accessible — but it also captures the allure that makes me so hopelessly infatuated with pasta and seafood.
Pearl Couscous with Shrimp and Clams Makes 4 servings
1 pound (about 400 grams) raw head-on, shell-on shrimp or tiger prawns (preferably 12 extra-jumbo shrimp or king-size prawns, but any size will work)
7 tablespoons (105 millilitres) olive oil
5 roughly chopped garlic cloves, plus 1 crushed garlic clove
Salt and black pepper
1 small fennel bulb, finely chopped (about 1 heaping cup)
3⁄4 pound (300 g) cherry tomatoes 2 lemons, 1 finely shaved to get 5 strips of peel and squeezed to get 1 tbsp juice, and the other cut into wedges for serving
5 tarragon sprigs (about 1⁄2 ounce or
10 g)
2 tbsp tomato paste
It’s delicious and impressive, and likely to win you lots of Instagram likes, but there’s a certain commitment involved that makes it a special occasion kind of dish. Vongole is a prime take on this theme. The version you choose to cook can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. My emphasis is on need.
2⁄3 cup (150 mL) Pernod (or a similar anise liqueur)
1 1⁄4 cups (300 mL) chicken or vegetable stock
2 teaspoons (4 g) fennel seeds
1⁄4 tsp red-chili flakes
1 1⁄4 cups (200 g) pearl (or giant) couscous
1⁄2 pound (250 g) small clams (about 12), such as Dorset, littleneck or Manila, rinsed well
Total time: 90 minutes
1. Twist the heads off the shrimp and place the heads in a medium bowl. Leaving the tails attached, peel off the shells, add them to the same bowl and set aside. Devein the shrimp, then add them to a medium bowl with 1 tablespoon oil, 1 crushed garlic clove, 1/4 teaspoon salt and plenty of pepper. Mix together and set shrimp aside to marinate for 30 minutes or so. 2. Meanwhile, heat a large sauté
pan, for which you have a lid, over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil, the chopped fennel and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Fry for about five minutes, stirring every now and then, until browned. Transfer the fennel to a plate, wipe the pan clean and return to a high heat. Add the tomatoes and cook for three to five minutes, tossing the pan every now and then until charred in places. Set the tomatoes aside. Leave the pan to cool for a couple of minutes, then wipe it clean and return to a medium heat.
3. Add 3 tablespoons oil to the pan along with the lemon peel, tarragon and the 5 chopped garlic cloves. Slowly fry for five minutes until the garlic is golden and the tarragon becomes bright green and crisp. Remove half of the tarragon and set aside, to serve. 4. Increase the heat to mediumhigh, add the shrimp shells and heads and fry for seven minutes, stirring every so often until crisp and pink, adjusting the heat as necessary so the garlic doesn’t begin to burn. Add the tomato paste and 1/2 teaspoon salt, and fry for another two minutes, stirring frequently. 5. Carefully pour in the Pernod and let it bubble away for a minute (it may flame), then add the stock and 2 1/2 cups of water and simmer gently for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Use a potato masher to crush the shrimp heads a few times as they cook to release as much flavour as possible. 6. Meanwhile, in a separate small
pan over medium heat, add the fennel seeds and 2 tablespoons oil and cook until the seeds begin to pop. Set aside until ready to serve.
7. Strain the stock, discarding the shells, heads and aromatics, then return to the same pan. (You should have about 3 1/4 cups of stock.) Add the lemon juice, chili flakes, cooked fennel, 3/4 of the charred tomatoes and plenty of pepper and cook at a bare simmer for five minutes, or until the tomatoes begin to split.
8. Stir in the couscous, bring to a simmer then reduce the heat to medium. Cover the pan and cook for five minutes, until the couscous is cooked through but still retains a bite.
9. Add the clams, cover the pan and cook until they all open, four to five minutes. Top with the remaining charred tomatoes and set aside while you fry the shrimp.
10. While the clams cook, place a large, non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Once it’s very hot, add half the shrimp, so as not to overcrowd the pan. Fry for about 1 1/2 minutes on each side, or until crisp and goldenbrown on the outside and cooked inside, then repeat with the remaining shrimp. 11. Arrange the shrimp, along with the garlic and any oil, over the couscous in the pan, then drizzle the fennel seed oil over everything. Top with the fried tarragon and serve with the lemon wedges alongside.
Shrimp Bolognese Makes 4 servings
1⁄2 small fennel bulb, roughly chopped
1⁄2 small onion, roughly chopped 5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1⁄2 teaspoon red-chili flakes
1 1⁄3 pounds (600 grams) peeled, raw king prawns or extra-jumbo shrimp (or use the largest shrimp you can find)
1⁄3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (90 millilitres) olive oil
1 lemon, finely shaved to get 5 strips of peel and squeezed to get 1 tbsp juice
3 tarragon sprigs (about 5 g), plus 1 tbsp chopped leaves for serving 3 1⁄2 tbsp tomato paste
1⁄4 pound (120 g) cherry tomatoes, finely chopped
Salt and black pepper
1⁄3 cup plus 1 tbsp (90 mL) Pernod (or a similar anise liqueur)
2 cups (500 mL) chicken or vegetable stock
12 ounces (320 g) dried tagliatelle pasta
Total time: 40 minutes
1. Add the fennel, onion, garlic and chili flakes to the bowl of a food processor and pulse about 10 times, until more finely chopped. Add the shrimp and pulse another 10 times, until finely chopped. (Don’t process too much; you don’t want the shrimp to turn to a paste. Smaller shrimp will require less pulsing, though.)
2. Add 1/3 cup oil to a large sauté pan set over medium-high heat with the lemon peel and tarragon sprigs. Gently fry for two minutes, then add the shrimp and fennel mixture. Fry, stirring every now and then for about 10 minutes, or until the shrimp have released and then reabsorbed their liquid. 3. Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt and a very generous amount of black pepper and fry for four minutes, stirring every now and then until the tomato paste becomes thick and sticky and begins to brown. Carefully pour in the Pernod and let it bubble away for one minute (it may flame). 4. Add the stock and 1 tablespoon lemon juice, turn the heat down to medium and simmer gently for 15 minutes, lowering the heat if it is bubbling too much. Discard the tarragon sprigs and lemon peel.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta per package instructions until al dente, then drain well and add to a large bowl. Pour over the sauce and toss together well. Transfer to a platter and drizzle over the remaining tablespoon oil. Finish with plenty of pepper and the chopped tarragon and serve.