Sicilian Seafood Stew

Sicilian Seafood Stew In Italy, some of the best seafood comes from Sicily and this is my version of a dish I had there. A part of ocean fresh mussels, clams and shrimp cooked to perfection with garlic and spicy red pepper. The broth is rich enough to be mopped up with crusty bread. My mussels, clams and shrimp and spicy broth will excite your appetite. So, let’s get started on that spicy broth. I’m going to start up by turning on my stove to about medium low, so that I don’t want to burn my garlic later on, a little olive oil and for the aromatics, some garlic, bay leaf and red pepper flakes. When you’re buying garlic, you always want to look for a nice tight head. So, we’re going to take about, I like garlic in this dish, so about five cloves, alright, one, two, three and that’s good enough. Crush them. It makes it easier to peel and released the oil in the garlic. All Italian cooks in Italy have there own version of this Zuppa Di Pesce which is fish soup and where I’m from which is the south of Italy, fish soups are made of clams, mussels and shrimps. We’re going to chop some garlic here and that works, we add to our olive oil, a bay leaf and you’re buying bay leaf, you always want to look for this nice vibrant green color. When they get old, they get brittle and there’s no flavor in them so throw them away. Same with red peeper flakes, a little spice and when they aren’t fresh, they’ve got a lot of heat. We’re just going to lightly sauté this and white wine-a great ready use left over wine, about a cup. Bring it to a boil and evaporate most of the alcohol. Now, I use canned tomatoes for this dish out of convenience. They usually canned when the tomatoes are the ripest so I’ve got great tasting tomatoes all year round. That’s smells so good. The tomatoes with the garlic and the white wine evaporating. I’m just going to let this thicken for a minute and then I’m going to add my seafood. Let’s grab our mussels and our clams and our shrimp. I’ve had my fish person clean my mussels for me and when you’re buying them, you want to look for a tightly closed shell. So these are looking okay. This one hasn’t been cleaned very well and you want to pull off the beard. The beard does have a mussel attaches to the rock and it’s stringy so you don’t want to eat it. And I like to store my shellfish on ice to keep it fresh. You always want to buy your shellfish the same day you’re going to use it. We’re just going to give it a quick rinse. And for our clams, and I like to use this little net clams. This one is open, we’re going to discard it, it’s not safe to eat. And I’ve had my fish person to clean the grit off of these as well. We’re going to give them a quick rinse. And now for the shrimp. Once again, these have been cleaned and that just means peeling off the skin and deveining them. So let me take all my shellfish and go over to my broth. I already smell the juices from the clams and the mussels and when you know the mussels and clams are ready is when they open up. Great! It looks like some of mussels are now ready. They’ve opened up. As they open up, I’m going to put them on my platter and I’m waiting to the very end to add my shrimp. It only takes a minute or so and I don’t want to overcook them. Now, I’m ready for my shrimp. We’re just going to toss them in. The secret of the shrimp is you don’t want to overcook them. You just want them to turn on light pink color that way they’ll stay moist and tender inside. So I’ll let this cook for about a minute and then I’m going to add them to my mussels and clams. I’ll just add the finishing touches. A little sprint of basil and now, I’m going to taste it. It’s juicy and creamy, but it’s light. That’s what I love about this dish-it’s super light. I can still taste the hint of wine melted in with all the aromatics of the bay leaf, the garlic and the spicy red pepper. This is a delightful seafood one pop meal.