Fresh and fragrant, relatively fast to prepare...
The secret to the fullness of the flavour is to keep the water from the mussels and to prepare a stock with the shrimps shells. The precious liquids will contribute enormously to the flavour.
Usually the fresh parsley is added but I advise to use both parsley and basil. This hint will assure a further unmistakably Mediterranean flavour.
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
160g spaghetti
100g mussels (without shells)
10-12 shrimps
10-12 cherry tomatoes
2-3 garlic cloves
chilli
fresh basil
fresh parsley
salt
EVO oil
1. Peel the shrimps and devein them, keep the shells.
2. Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a frying pan and add 1 garlic clove cut into halves.
3. Fry the shrimps shells and heads till they get orangey.
4.Add half a glass of water and cook for 2-3 minutes over a high heat.
5. Pour the mussels water to the pan and keep cooking for 2-3 minutes more.
Note: If you were using the fresh mussels, cook them till they are open in another pan and keep the water.
Note: I usually use the frozen mussels for this recipe, so I unfreeze them and use the water.
6. Make a little cut over the cherry tomatoes' peel.
7. Cook spaghetti half way (if the package indicates 14 minutes of cooking, cook for about 10) and while you are boiling spaghetti, boil cherry tomatoes for 2-3 minutes, then peel their skin.
8. Pour 2-3 tbs of EVO oil in a pan and heat it with a garlic clove.
9. Filter the shrimps stock and add it to the pan.
10. When spaghetti are almost ready drain them, keeping some of their water and finish cooking in a pan with the shrimps' stock.
11. Cut peeled cherry tomatoes into halves and add them to spaghetti along with the peeled shrimps and mussels. Cook till spaghetti are ready.
Note: If it gets too dry add some water that you kept from boiling of spaghetti.
12. Chop some fresh parsley and basil finely and add the herbs to the dish.
BUON APPETITO !!!!
You may cook this dish with just mussels or you may mix mussels with clams...
You may also remove all the mussels out of their shells or keep some mussels WITH the shells, the dish presentation will be much more dramatic!!!
You may even avoid using the cherry tomatoes....
The result will still be very rewarding !!!
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
~700-800g mussels
160g linguine
cherry tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
chilli
parsley
salt
EVO oil
1. Put pasta (linguine) into salted boiling water and cook them till almost ready: if the package instructions indicate 11 minutes of cooking, then cook for about 8 minutes and drain.
2. While the pasta is cooking, pour 2-3 tbs of EVO oil into a large pan and add garlic cloves cut into halves and some chilli.
3. Add washed and cleaned mussels to the pan, splash with some white wine and cover with a lid. Cook over high heat till the mussels are open.
Note: If you buy uncleaned mussels, you need to clean their shells from the seaweeds and tear the "beard" of the mussel away: hold the mussel firmly and tear he beard away with a sharp yank towards the hinge end.
Discard any mussel that is broken or opened.
Cleaned mussels are to be cooked immediately.
4. When the mussels are open drain their water into a bowl and keep it.
5. Remove half of the mussels out of their shells and keep aside.
6. When the pasta is halfly ready drain it and keep some of it's water.
7. In the same pan you used to open the mussels, pour the mussels water back and add drained pasta, cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes.
Note: If the sauce gets too dry, add some water from the pasta cooking.
8. Wash and cut cherry tomatoes into halves and add them to pasta.
Note: Don't cook cherry tomatoes too much as their skin will become harder and the pulp will secede from the skin and it's not nice....
9. Add the unshelled mussels to pasta and stir.
10. At the end add the mussels with their shells to pasta to heat them up a bit.
Serve with some finely chopped parsley and a glass of chilled white wine.... cheers!!!
Buon Appetito!!!
This pasta has quite a curious name: "Spaghetti alla Corsara" means Corsair Pirate Spaghetti.... maybe because of all this seafood, who knows...
Usually they cook this dish with tomato sauce or just cherry tomatoes... but as an option of this dish I prepare it without any tomato. I like feeling the sea flavour of the seafood. The other point is that we leave the shells of mussels and shrimps so it's not nice when you need to open the shells with all that tomato on it... and to my mind the dish looks much more attractive!
There is another name for this dish: Spaghetti allo Scoglio - Reef Spaghetti and you may easily find the dish under this name in the most seaside restaurants here in Italy.
It will just take 5 minutes to prepare the sauce and just 20 minutes for the dish to be ready.
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
160g spaghetti
10 shrimps
3 calamari
16 mussels
2 garlic cloves
50ml white wine
parsley
basil
salt
chilli
~6 tbs EVO oil
Note:Try to buy all the seafood fresh, you won't have unpleasant surprizes as unopenning mussels and hard to chew calamari, though it's possible to prepare this dish with the defrosen products if you know the quality. I always do it with the fresh ones...
1. Bring water to boiling, salt it and start cooking spaghetti.
Note: How to cook spaghetti: 80g are absolutely enough for one serving (if you like more have 100g, but it's a bit too much). A package of pasta is 500g, so you take one third of the package for 2 servings, half a package for 3 servings and the whole package for 6 servings.
Take the portion of spaghetti you need and insert it into the boiling water at high heat, then with a rotating movement distribute spaghetti in the pan as a fan. They won't stick one to the other this way. Drown spaghetti with a fork. After 1-2 minutes of boiling stir spaghetti in the pan. Cook at medium-high heat.
2. Pour about 6 tbs of EVO oil into a frying pan.
3. Add garlic cloves that you cut into halves and chilli to taste. Heat the oil up at meadium heat but don't burn it, so when the garlic slices start becoming a bit browny, the oil is ready.
4. Add mussels and shrimps and splash with 50ml of white wine.
5. Cover tightly with a lid and cook over medium heat till the mussles open, it is a very quick process, so don't leave them more time then necessary as they may become too dry. Don't stir.
6. Cut calamari in rings and add them to the pan.
7. Spaghetti should be cooked for 3/4 of the time indicated on the package: I use spaghetti that should be cooked for 14 minutes, so I boil them for 10 minutes in this recipe.
8. Add spaghetti to the pan with the sauce and finish cooking, if the sauce gets too dry, add some water that you used to cook spaghetti.
Note: I use tongs to take spaghetti out of the pan and to stir the dish, so all the water from the pasta is kept, though you don't need it all.
9. Chop some parsley and basil and garnish the dish.
Note: No cheese is used in this dish as it doesn't suit either fish or seafood....
Buon Appetito!!!
100g mussels (without shells) 
5. Pour the mussels water to the pan and keep cooking for 2-3 minutes more.
