Shellfish

Oh my, if you love shrimp, this quick, easy grilled-seafood appetizer will make any celebration festive.

PAT Oh, how we love grilled pineapple—and everyone loves grilled shrimp. And as Gina says, “Let’s keep it pretty,” so we skewer these two favorites together. Always remember to soak your skewers in cold water so they don’t catch fire on the grill. A brush of the syrupy glaze at the end will have your guests licking their sticks.

PAT This being Happy Hour, we’ve gotta have crab-stuffed mushrooms. And any time I can get Gina to eat mushrooms with me, I do! (Guys, let me tell you, I’ve been told mushrooms are an aphrodisiac, so when the guests leave it might be time for your Happy Hour!)

GINA When we think of romance, we think of something tantalizing and with a little kick. So we created this spicy pasta with just that in mind. Spark up your taste buds with crushed red pepper and roasted tomatoes, and feast your eyes on the jewel-like pink shrimp and shiny black mussel shells nestled in that silky bed of linguine and ribbons of basil leaves. (Ladies, all of this careful planning helps us please our men!) The look of the final dish is just as beautiful at home as it is at a fancy restaurant. Now, what can beat that?

On New Year’s Eve 1996, we decided we wanted a warmer place to celebrate, so we jumped on a train to New Orleans, took a paddleboat down the Mississippi, and ate dinner while watching the fireworks. The next day, there was the Sugar Bowl game and the Court of Two Sisters on Royal Street, in the French Quarter, where we went for mimosas and brunch. This routine became a tradition for a few years— but now it doesn’t beat toasting in the year with our girls, so we brought the flavors home. This recipe holds a particularly funny memory for us. One year we had a bowl of some of these saucy, spicy shrimp at a restaurant on the pier, just before jumping on the paddleboat. Pat couldn’t keep the spoon away from his mouth, and he ended up spilling a tremendous amount of that dark roux down the front of his white sweater. So there he was, sipping champagne and watching the fireworks with a huge stain! He didn’t mind a bit.

Although these savory, salty little bundles are a little too fat to truly resemble cigars, rolling the crabs in the prosciutto does employ a technique used by skilled workers in Cuba. It might also seem familiar to you if you’ve ever hand-rolled anything in papers. For directions on cleaning the soft-shell crabs, see page 32. Make sure you go easy on the salt in this dish because the prosciutto already contains plenty.

I love it when the first bunches of springtime sorrel appear in the market. It has a fantastic sour, lemony-mint thing going on that does something great for clams. The only drawback is that when you cook sorrel, it turns the worst color of brown. Sprinkle it on the dish at the last minute for the best flavor and look. Please try to find guanciale for this dish—it has a delightful fattiness to it that can’t really be replicated. If you can’t find guanciale, use bacon or pancetta instead. Everyone thinks clams have to be cooked over high heat. It’s not necessary in order for the clams to open, and it can render them tough if not done carefully.

This beautiful fall dish is a study in silken textures, from the velvety purée to the creamy interior of the ivory scallops. Quick searing gives the scallops a crispy, caramelized exterior that is well matched to the sweetness of the pear in the purée, while the chanterelles add texture, depth, and a luscious, buttery flavor. Although there are three separate parts to this recipe, it’s still relatively straightforward to prepare. Make the purée first, then hold it at room temperature; the searing and sautéing take no more than five minutes.

Though this recipe sounds straight out of a Coen brothers’ movie, the name refers to the fact that you chop off the squids’ arms and stuff them inside their own bodies. Trust me—this is my kind of punishment. I use cooked Controne beans as a binder instead of breadcrumbs, ensuring the filling is creamy and light, and I add slab bacon for a hit of smoke and texture. When you grill the tentacles, remember that you’re just precooking them and don’t leave them on the heat too long. Another key to this dish is ensuring that your filling is at room temperature before you stuff the squid. If it’s too cold, you’ll overcook the bodies while you heat the stuffing through. If you want to stuff the squid earlier in the day, just take them out of the fridge about a half hour before grilling.

I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to the romantic preferences of clams. What I do know is that this dish works equally well served as a substantial soup or as a brothy pasta, depending on your own desires. I use jumbo clams in this dish because they have a more pronounced flavor. They are a bit chewier, but I think the improved flavor is worth a small sacrifice in terms of texture. For the pasta, this is where you get to have some fun. Use a ridged pastry wheel if you want your squares to be extra elegant, or haul out a sharp knife if you want basic squares. Either way, they’ll taste delicious.

Maloreddus are delicate, saffron-infused pasta with a lovely golden hue and a hint of warmth from the saffron. They are especially good paired with fish or seafood, and lend themselves well to sweet and sour combinations, like this dish featuring a light, fresh tomato sauce accented with lemon and briny olives. You can find maloreddus in Italian specialty stores or through online sources.

Think of this dish as the upscale cousin of that old standby, linguine with clams. Sparkling and oysters are a natural and festive combination, and here they combine to create a quick, fabulous pasta. This dish is almost a lighter version of an oyster stew, with the oysters poached just until done, the sauce brightened with prosecco, and then served over a fresh tangle of tagliarini. This would make a nice addition to a New Year’s Eve menu, or make any winter supper feel like a holiday.

The simple name of this dish doesn’t tell you how phenomenal it truly is, especially if you wait until you get your hands on large, just-out-of-the-water shrimp with the shell on. Use the shells to make a quick shrimp stock that acts as a building block of flavor to my basic tomato sauce, transforming the pasta into something special. Freeze the leftover shrimp stock in small yogurt containers and use to make linguine with shrimp again, or use with fish or seafood stews or risotto.

This is a wonderful winter dish—fresh and simple with nothing to get between you and pure clam flavor. Steaming the clams first in a little white wine, then using that liquid in place of broth, infuses the rice with a briny essence that totally sings. Because of the star ingredient, you shouldn’t need to use much salt in the dish, and cheese here would be a no-no. A little butter at the end provides the perfect touch of richness, while a bit of lemon zest accents the clams perfectly.

This bright, sassy soup is full of big flavors—garlic, peppers, and lemon—that team up to accent the briny clams. The dish is then tamed, just a bit, with velvety Controne beans, one of my favorite Italian beans. Goat Horn peppers are red, slim peppers that you can find in Spanish and Italian markets, or in some upscale grocery stores. The preparation of this soup is fairly straightforward, and once you start cooking, the dish moves quickly. Have all of your ingredients prepared and ready before you begin.

My wife, Angela, loves mussels, especially the fat, tender Mediterranean mussels you get in summer and early fall. Consequently, we eat a lot of them—steamed, in salads, with pastas, you name it. Light enough for a summer dish, this terrific soup is also delicious in the winter months made with Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) mussels instead.

Totten Virginicas, Stellar Bay Kusshis, and Shigoku oysters are my top three oysters. Shigokus are Pacific oysters raised in floating bags that rise and fall with the tide, creating a small, firm “tumbled” oyster in a scoop-shaped shell. They have an amazingly clean taste that hovers somewhere between saltwater and cucumber. Because their taste is so pure, I keep my garnishes straightforward. The Meyer Lemon Ice is a sweet, frozen version of a lemon squeeze, and the pickled beets are my idea of a mignonette. You can choose to prepare only one, but the array of all three, with oysters glistening on a bed of cracked ice, is one of the nicest ways I know to start an evening...or an afternoon. You’ll need crushed ice for serving the oysters. If you don’t have a refrigerator that dispenses it, you can crush it in a food processor or blender. In the restaurants, we grind the ice ahead of time and put it in a colander over a bowl so some of the water drains out. Another trick is to line the bowl with paper towels to soak up any melting water while the oysters are being served.

Spot prawns are actually shrimp, though they do sport four white spots on their shells, which makes the name at least partially accurate. By any name, these firm, sweet, and delicate aquatic beasties are a Pacific delicacy shown to their best advantage when served as a crudo and accented with clean flavors. If you can’t find live spot prawns or other sashimi-grade shrimp, scallops, ahi, or albacore would all work nicely with the chile and mint. Wait to combine the chile, mint, and lime until you are ready to serve so that the lime juice doesn’t “cook” the mint.

Not an authentic bruschetta (you’d never eat this dish in Italy), this appetizer is damn good all the same, with the garlicky aioli making a rich bed for the crispy grilled crabs. Look for soft-shell crabs in May through July, when blue crabs begin to molt and shed their hard shells. Once they do, it takes about four days for their new shells to solidify, and it’s during this window that they are perfect for eating whole. It’s best to buy soft-shell crabs live and kill and clean them yourself, but you may have them cleaned at the fishmonger and cook them as soon as possible once you get home.