spaghetti with seafood and hot peppers
Summary
| Yield | |
|---|---|
| Prep Time | 30 minutes |
| Kind of Dish | main dishes |
| Tags | spicy |
Description
tasty and easy to make, works with most seafood!
Ingredients
- 1 lb seafood or fish (see notes)
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- 3 T extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 clv garlic (more or less to taste)
- 4 jalepenos, seeded and minced
- 8 plum or beefsteak tomatoes, roughly chopped (camparies or cherries can be substituted -- a pound or so)
- 1⁄2 c dry white wine
- juice of one lemon
- 1 c mint leaves, julienned
- 1 lb spaghetti
Instructions
heat olive oil, jalepenos, garlic, salt & pepper in a sauce pan until softened (5-6 minutes). add tomatoes, lemon and white wine and simmer down, about 10 minutes. add seafood and simmer until cooked (usually around five minutes). mix in the mint leaves and set sauce aside.
cook spaghetti according to package directions. mix into the sauce and let sit about 5 minutes so the sauce soaks into the spaghetti a little. feel free to chop a little extra mint and add as garnish on each plate.
Notes
most seafood works in this recipe so feel free to improvise based on what looks and seems the freshest and tastiest at your fish counter. i would not recommend clams or mussels. shrimp, lobster, any any flavorful non-salmon fish work well though. if you are using a flaky fish like talapia or haddock you don't even need to cut up the fillets before you add to the sauce -- they will break apart very easily on their own. steaky fish like mahi-mahi, bluefish, swordfish or monkfish will need to be cubed but are delicious in this. shrimp can just be tossed in after peeling and cleaning. lobster would need to be grilled or steamed and then cut up -- add the cubes when you add the cooked pasta to avoid overcooking.
personally, i prefer the "steaky fish" in this because their assertive flavors really stand up well to the mint and hot peppers.
oh, and feel free to serve with rice, quinoa, roasted potatoes, or even as a hearty soup (with whole wheat or ciabatta rolls or a baguette if you wish). if serving as a soup, this probably would only feed 2 as a main meal.
Comments
god i adore how you bring the seafood
i make seafood a lot, my mom's mediterranean & catholic background meant a lot of seafood from a young age (fridays & holidays!) -- starting super young on seafood really makes it feel normalized and unintimidating, which is i think the reason a lot of people avoid making more seafood.
i recommend trying to use this site as a general guideline for seafood purchases: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx
it's not perfect (some pro-US lobbying has skewed them into generalities about some foreign fishing practices, so you can do further research into individual providers if you are looking into items like shrimp that are generally rated "good" or "best" but then get dinged on japanese/central american providers as they are vastly changing their practices) but it's a decent resource.
making this tonight btw -- experimenting by putting soft-shell crab on top
i am one of these non-seafood-growin-up people. fish baffle me. their skeletons, their parts - they are obviously aliens who have been living on our world for millions of years. their flesh is TRANSLUCENT. but man they go down good with some lemon juice - with anything, frankly.
i need to go on one of those panic-room tv shows. they can strap me into a chair and make me debone a fish.
Something different and tasty! Would like to try this sometime.