Seafood Pasta

The flavor from the seafood is what gives this sauce its personality, so make sure to get the best and freshest you can.  

Serves 4  

Prep Time 20 minutes 

Cooking Time 40 minutes

Ingredients:

olive oil

6 cloves garlic, chopped finely

1 white onion, chopped

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/2 teaspoon paprika

300 grams shrimp or medium prawns, peeled with tails left on, heads removed and set aside

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 kilo squid, cleaned thoroughly, ink sacs removed, and cut into rings

300 grams fish fillet, cut into bite-size pieces

1 (800-gram) can chopped tomatoes

300 to 400 grams linguine 

1/2 kilo clams, soaked in a bowl of salt water to get rid of sand, shells scrubbed

1 bunch basil, leaves picked, plus more for garnish

Procedure:

1  Heat a few generous glugs of olive oil in a skillet or pot that can hold all your ingredients. When oil is hot, add garlic and onion, and sauté until the onion is soft and translucent. Add Italian seasoning and paprika; stir. Cook until fragrant.

2  Remove onions and garlic from the pan; set aside. Add a little more oil if the pan looks dry. Season shrimp with salt and pepper. When oil is hot, add shrimp to the pan, along with the heads. Cook for a couple of minutes, turning once, and remove from the pan once shrimp turns orange. Discard heads or freeze them for making stock.

3  Season squid with salt and pepper. Add to the pan and cook until the pieces turn opaque and their ends curl, about a minute or less. Remove from the pan and set aside.

4  Season fish with salt and pepper. Add a little more oil to the pan if needed so fish does not stick. Fry fish until golden on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

5  Return the onion-garlic mixture to the pan and let this sizzle again. Add tomatoes, black pepper, and a swirl of olive oil and stir, making sure to scrape up all the seafood bits left in the pan. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until some of the liquid has evaporated and the sauce is thick and pulpy, around 15 to 20 minutes.

6  While the tomato sauce is simmering, cook linguine according to package instructions. Reserve some pasta water before draining and setting aside.

7  Place the clams in the tomato sauce and cover with a tight fitting lid. Let this cook for about 5 minutes, shaking the pan once or twice. Uncover and check if clams have opened. Discard any clams that haven’t.

8  Taste tomato sauce and adjust seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add the rest of the seafood and toss gently, coating the seafood in the sauce and warming them up. If the sauce looks too dry, add some of the pasta water and swirl the pan to incorporate. Add basil, setting aside some for garnish. Toss again and take the pan off the heat.

9  You can mix your pasta noodles with the sauce in the pan or choose to serve it separately. Garnish with extra basil leaves.

Cooking tip: Saute all the seafood first in a paellera (paella pan)—an intense seafood flavor base develops in the pan, which then infuses the rice. Do the same for this pasta sauce. Aside from fantastic flavor, this also ensures that each component is cooked perfectly.