Scoglio all'Andiamo (Saffron Fettuccine with Seafood in a Lemon Garlic White Wine Sauce)

Last year I was lucky enough to win two nights at a Marriott resort of my choosing in the Caribbean through an Instagram contest.  At first I considered going to St. Kitts & Nevis since I had never been before, but the airfare was outrageous, so I ended up choosing to go back to Grand Cayman.  I used my points to stay an extra two nights at the Ritz Carlton and brought along two girlfriends. 

I was sad to find out that the Periwinkle restaurant at the Ritz was gone because I had the best truffle fries of my life there a few years ago, but when I found out that the Italian restaurant that had replaced it, Andiamo, had the truffle parmesan fries on their menu, I insisted that we go there for our last dinner on the island.

The fries were as good--if not better--than I remember them being, but I was also really impressed with their version of pasta allo scoglio, also known as pasta ai frutti di mare.  Scoglio means "rocky seashore" in Italian, and all types of seafood can be used in this dish.  Shrimp and mussels were on sale, so that's what I used, but clams, scallops, and calamari would also work.

Unlike most recipes for pasta allo scoglio, there were no tomatoes in Andiamo's version; all I tasted was a clean white wine sauce with garlic and lemons spiked with the delicious juices from the clams and mussels.  The sauce was so good we asked for another basket of bread just so we could soak it all up.  The pasta they used was a saffron fettuccine, which I attempted to make from scratch.  Since I didn't have any saffron on hand, I added some saffron salt to the fresh pasta dough and finished the dish with more saffron salt.  If I were to make this again, I'd probably add a pinch of turmeric to the pasta dough to bring out the bright yellow coloring more.

Scoglio all'Andiamo (Saffron Fettuccine with Seafood in a Lemon Garlic White Wine Sauce)
serves 2-3

1/4 cup butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
2/3 cup dry white wine
1 lb. mussels and/or clams
1 lb. peeled raw shrimp and/or scallops
1/2 lb. dried fettuccine or 3/4 lb. fresh fettuccine
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (optional)
Saffron salt (if you have it, if not, regular sea salt is fine)
Freshly ground pepper
Lemon slices

Bring a pot of salted water to boil.  Cook the fettuccine to al dente (if using fresh pasta, wait until the after adding the shrimp to the pan to start cooking the pasta).

In the meantime, melt the butter over medium-low heat in a large skillet.  Add the garlic cloves and saute for a minute.  Add the white wine and the mussels and/or clams.  Cover and let steam until the shellfish have opened.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the shellfish from the skillet and set aside in a bowl.

Add the shrimp and/or scallops and cook until just opaque.  Add the cooked pasta, lemon juice, parsley, and shellfish back to the skillet and toss well.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve immediately with lemon slices and crusty bread to soak up any leftover sauce.

Next:  Taiwanese Oyster Omelet (Without the Oysters)
Previously:  Gordon Ramsay's Sublime Scrambled Eggs - Two Ways
Last Year:  Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Five Years Ago:  Passion Fruit Ice Cream
Six Years Ago:  Carrot Cake Ice Cream

New England Clambake at Home

After making a low country boil, I couldn't not also do a clambake!  A traditional New England clambake involves digging a pit in the sand, building a fire, adding rocks to the pit, covering them with seaweed, layering on the food, and then covering it all up with a tarp and waiting forever for it all to cook through.  It's something I'd love to do someday, but in the meantime, here's how to do it much more easily at home (and much quicker, too!).

I pretty much followed this recipe from Bon Appétit, except I tried using a couple of different types of clams:  littlenecks, cherrystones, and steamers.  I decided I like littlenecks the best; the steamers were too sandy, even after letting them spit out sand in cornmeal and salt water bath, and the cherrystones were just too big and chewy.  I really only got the cherrystones, which I learned are just older, bigger littlenecks, because they were on sale for 99¢/lb!

I like how this recipe cooks the lobster first instead of steaming them at the end on top of all the other food.  My 7-quart stockpot definitely wouldn't have fit two lobsters on top of the rest of the food, and the thought of having to hold the lid down on even just one live lobster in a pot of steaming water is too much for me to deal with.  I was actually hoping to have the store just steam them for me (most grocery stores will do so for free), but there was a long wait for them to be steamed, so I just ended up doing it myself.  Since you use the water that you cook the lobsters in to cook the rest of the food, it ends up being a nice, flavorful broth that you can serve with the rest of the clambake. I use the broth to dip the clam meat in to rinse off any last bits of sand before I pop it into my mouth.

New England Clambake at Home (adapted from Bon Appétit)
serves 4

4 dozen littleneck clams (or a mix of littlenecks and steamers), scrubbed
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
1 lemon, sliced into rounds
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
2 celery stalks, cut in half
6 large fresh parsley sprigs
6 fresh thyme sprigs
2 small dried bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
2 live lobsters, 1 to 1 1/2 lb. each
2 lbs. small red potatoes
4 ears of corn, husked and halved
14 oz. kielbasa links, halved
1 1/2 sticks butter
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
Lemon wedges, for serving

Place the clams and cornmeal in a very large bowl and fill with enough cold, salted water to cover.  Set aside for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour for the clams to spit up excess sand.

Fill a stock pot about a quarter of the way with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat.  Add one lobster headfirst and cover.  Cook for 10 minutes, until done, and transfer to a large platter or rimmed baking sheet.  Repeat with the other lobster.

Add the potatoes and quartered onion to the pot and bring to a boil.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Layer the sausages and corn on top of the vegetables and cover again, cooking for another 10 minutes.

Rinse the clams thoroughly and add on top of the corn and sausages (if there isn't enough room in the pot, you can remove the corn, which should be cooked through).  Cover the pot tightly and boil until the clams open, about 12 minutes.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the garlic, oregano and basil.  Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

With a slotted spoon, transfer the clams, corn, sausage, and potatoes to the baking sheet with the lobsters.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and garnish with lemon wedges.  Strain the broth and pour into 4 soup cups.  Serve seasoned butter and broth alongside the vegetables, sausages, and seafood.

The next time I make this, I'll probably try reducing the amount of water in the pot, and adding some white wine or beer to steam the food with and add more flavor to the broth.

Next:  Ginger Beer Sherbet
Previously:  Taiwanese Grilled Corn
Last Year:  Vanilla Sugar Lemonade and Mint Lemonade Slushies, Martha Stewart's Perfect Macaroni and Cheese

New England Clam Chowda and Homemade Oyster Crackers

That should really be a sad face because Leslie is gone =(

My dear cousin and roommate, Leslie, moved out yesterday after 3.5 years of living together, so we threw a goodbye and birthday party for her on Sunday night. Annie and I came up with a theme of "Boston" for food so I made some New England clam chowder ("chowda" around these here parts) and oyster crackers. This was my first time making it, but I used a highly rated recipe on allrecipes.com for the chowder, and I think it turned out pretty good (at least, better than Campbells). The oyster crackers were more of an afterthought; I realized that it would be good to serve the chowder with oyster crackers but was too lazy to go to the store to get them so I figured I'd just make them myself. And now that I think about it, that's a pretty warped sense of laziness. Oh well.

I almost always go to allrecipes.com if there's something I want to make that I don't have a recipe for. I like the website because you can be assured that the recipes are good by looking for the ones that have tons of reviews and read the comments to catch any useful tips. For example, when I searched for clam chowder on the site, there were 43 returns, but only a few had more than a handful of comments, a couple had at least a hundred, and only one had 440. So of course I chose to use that recipe. And skimming through the comments gave me the idea to add bacon to the chowder to make it even more flavorful.

Bye Bye Leslie Clam Chowda (based on this recipe)
makes 16 servings (or feeds a party of 70+ people)

6 strips bacon
6 (6.5 oz.) cans minced clams
2 cups minced yellow onion
2 cups diced celery
4 cups cubed potatoes
2 cup diced carrots
1 1/2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 quarts half-and-half
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon salt (if you don't have salt you can just cry into the chowda because Leslie is leaving)
Ground black pepper to taste

Brown bacon in a large stock pot until crisp. Remove bacon and set aside. Add onions, celery, potatoes, and carrots to bacon fat and toss. Drain juice from clams and add to vegetables. Add enough water to cover and cook over medium-high heat until tender.

Meanwhile, in a large, heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour until smooth. Whisk in cream and stir constantly until thick and smooth. Add to the vegetables and clam juice. Heat through but do not boil.

Crumble the bacon and stir in with clams just before serving. (If the clams cook too much they get tough.) When clams are heated through, stir in vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Serve hot with oyster crackers.

I found the oyster cracker recipe using google. There were a couple of other recipes that used yeast and shortening, but I decided to keep it simple and use this one that uses butter. I considered briefly using bacon fat or duck fat, but then I decided I wanted my guests to go home alive. =P

Homemade Oyster Crackers (based on this recipe)
makes about 2 cups

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 oz. unsalted butter, diced
4 oz. whole milk
Sea salt for garnish

Preheat your oven to 375 °F.

Combine all dry ingredients in food processor. Add butter and pulse quickly, until it looks like "coarse meal". Add the milk and process 3 seconds. Remove to floured surface, knead 10 seconds and chill the dough.

Divide the dough into quarters, and working with one quarter at a time (leaving the rest chilling in the refrigerator), roll the dough out to 1/8" thickness and sprinkle with salt. Using a fork, prick the dough all over. Cut with the crackers into any desired shape using a sharp knife or small cookie cutter.

Place the crackers on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes or until light brown. Store in an airtight container once cool.

At first I wanted to try to make hexagons and figured I could cut the dough into diamonds and then lop off two opposing corners. But after I cut the dough into diamonds, the dough was too warm to work with so I just stopped there. I loved how these crackers had some real flavor thanks to the butter and didn't just taste like salty cardboard as oyster crackers too often do.
Next up: Boston cream cupcakes and mousse.