The fish guy at Madison Market told me that the reason you never see fresh shellfish is that it doesn’t keep long enough. They used to get some fresh shellfish there, but they stopped bothering because they’d just end up freezing it when they couldn’t sell it all fast enough. I do like to shop at Pike Place Market, but only when I have loads of leisure time, so I opted for frozen prawns and scallops.
Since I don’t yet know what I’m doing with shellfish, I turned to Eating Well, a magazine recommended by Best Pal Larry. The recipe I made – Seafood Stew – is here. I made one small change and replaced the stock in the recipe with white wine. It’s very easy – the most time consuming bit was trimming the green beans and preparing the shrimp. The red sauce base is delicious – I regretted that I hadn’t bought a loaf of french bread to sop up what was left on my plate. The combination of fennel and saffron is beautifully aromatic and right now, my kitchen smells like the coast of Tuscany. Pretentious, no? And yet, compelling…
Since I shop on Fish Wednesday for Fish Wednesday, I can tell you that this meal for two used about 12 dollars worth of ingredients. It’s easily an 18 dollar plate at a good restaurant. I have a stunner of a lunch for tomorrow and now, shellfish added to the Fish Wednesday rotation.
As always, yum. Admit it. You’re a little jealous, aren’t you?
A Nerd’s Eye View note to the lazy: You gotta wash the dishes and clean the range after cooking Fish Wednesday. I like to leave the dishes ’til morning as much as the next sloth, but if you do that on Fish Wednesday, your tiny apartment is gonna smell fishy for days. I’m just sayin’.
[tags]Fish Wednesday, shellfish[/tags]
Mmmm. You’re giving me ideas for tomorrow night’s dinner. I make a similar recipe to this, more a soup than a stewm really, using white fish and shrimp. It never occurred to me to include green beans. Must try that. I’ve found that a little splash of Pernod adds a nice flavour as well.
And yeah, I’m the world’s laziest sloth, but not destroying the evidence after a meal of fish really does mean it turning into Fish Thursday, Fish Friday and Fish Saturday no matter what you planned for dinner.