Ragù di Pesce

I am sitting here in my office right now, the sky as dull as a washed-out t-shirt outside the window, rain leaking from above, feeling very far away indeed from the sultry colors in the photo above. In fact, it almost feels sort of cruel to post it; it's like a taunt from the last beautiful days of summer, strutting around all triumphant in fancy heels and a perfect summer dress, while you - autumn - have given up and retreated to the bedroom in saggy sweatpants and itchy woolen socks. Let's kick summer in the teeth, shall we? Now is the time of apple picking and pretty scarves, Sunday afternoons at the movies and hard work, after all. Nothing to be ashamed of!

Also, summer, this sauce doesn't belong to you.

Okay, so remember my friend Alessandro? His mother, Gabriella, is quite possibly the very best cook I know, and I happen to be blessed with a lot of good cooks in my life. She is from Bologna, the culinary heart of Italy, and she creates magic at her stove, from delicate breadcrumb soups to lusty pigeon sauces and briny octopus-potato salads. She's the woman who taught me how to make real ragù Bolognese and a mean lasagna.

Also, ragù di pesce. Fish sauce, if you're wondering. Though "fish sauce" sounds rather...fishy, and wan.  Like something beige and sticky you'd see napped on boiled potatoes so old they've grown skin at a German university canteen. And the fish sauce, er, ragù di pesce (pronounced rah-GOO dee PESH-eh) I'm talking about is a spicy, briny, fantastical thing that you toss with spaghetti, grabbing your heart at first bite.

It is my not-so-secret hope that one day, I will be able to spend enough time in Gabriella's kitchen that she'll cook her way through her entire canon with me. In August, we started modestly: with grilled, stuffed tomatoes (I'm saving the recipe, my darlings, for the book) and this ragù. (Well, there were also a tray of gratinéed mussels and grilled fresh anchovies, tossed in herbed breadcrumbs, but those were more incidental lessons than anything else. Still, are you hungry yet? I just had breakfast and my stomach is growling.) And because sharing is giving, it is too good to keep to myself. May your September be rich in ragù di pesce!

You begin, appropriately, with the fish. At the fish market in the next town over from the village where my mother and our friends live, near the Adriatic coast of Italy, you can buy a little mixture specially made by the fishmongers for ragù. It's got bits of salmon and monkfish, tiny shucked clams, chopped squid, and some shrimp cut into it. You can make your own fish mix in places without such a lovely service by simply buying a couple of different fillets of fish, a few shrimp and octopus, and a handful of clams, and then chopping and shucking everything up at home. You'll want about a pound in total.

To make things a little special, you can also buy some fancy scampi to serve on top of the plate of spaghetti. But that's just if you have guests that you really want to impress. If it's just a regular old Tuesday night, skip this step. Gabriella also bought cannochie, a specialty of that part of the Adriatic. I'd never seen them anywhere else before, but the Internet says they're called mantis shrimp in English. Have you ever heard of them? Anyway, they look sort of goofy and they're spiny to no end, but once you get past their shell, the flesh is sweet and fresh and almost lobster-like in consistency. Except, there's a lot less of it.

Are you the kinds of people to do a proper mise en place before you start cooking? I always wish I would be, but I never am. New Year's resolutions and so on, let's make pretend we're doing a mise. Assemble an onion, some garlic cloves, a big pile of minced fresh parsley, two or three plum tomatoes, a bottle of white wine, a box of spaghetti, some hot red pepper, salt, and...the fish? I think that's it.

Now, feeling all virtuous with your organization skills, put on an apron and finely dice the onion and a garlic clove or two. In a wide, deep pan, sauté them togther gently in olive oil, along with several spoonfuls of the minced parsley. You want this mixture to get wonderfully fragrant, but without burning. So monitor the heat and keep moving everything around the pan.

When it's done, about 7 minutes later, add the chopped fish mixture and stir well to distribute the oil and onion and garlic and herbs. Let that cook for a few minutes, stirring almost constantly, until you see the very edges of the shrimp start to go gray.

Add the scampi and mantis shrimp, if using, and then add about a cup of dry white wine. Mix well and let it cook down for several minutes. In the meantime, seed and chop two plum tomatoes. Actually, three. Pour yourself a glass of that white wine.

Add the tomatoes to the pan and stir. If it's looking like it needs a little more color, add a few spoonfuls of pureed canned tomatoes. And salt. A good amount! More than you think. Gabriella says that's the trick about seafood, it needs a lot of salt. And a nice pinch of red pepper flakes, if you want a little heat. (I always do.)

Let the sauce come to a low boil and busy yourself with other things for a little while, like filling a pot with water for the spaghetti (the sauce as depicted here makes enough for a 454-gram box, which should be plenty for four to five people) and bringing it to a boil. Set the table, if you don't have small children to do it for you, or if your spouse is busy making the rest of dinner on the grill in the garden, teaching that girl with the camera his most precious secrets.

When the sauce is, well, saucy, meaning, when the sloshiest part of the liquid has reduced, and the sauce feels thickish, about 10 minutes later, turn off the heat, stir in the rest of the parsley, taste for seasoning and then deal with boiling the spaghetti. As a visual aide, the sauce should look about it how it does in the first photo of this post. When the spaghetti is nice and al dente, drain it and add it to the pan with the ragù, tossing to distribute the little bits of fish and sauce evenly. You want to work quickly so that the spaghetti doesn't turn gummy. It'll absorb a bit of the sauce's liquid in the hot pan, which makes for forkfuls that truly taste of the sea.

Command everyone to the table. In fact, if you got them well-trained, they'll know to be waiting, fork in hand, napkin in lap, raptly for you to dish steaming hot plates of spaghetti up in front of them.

The fish bits fall apart in the sauce, infusing the tomato sauce with briny flavor. The wine gives depth to the sauce, which is, as these things go, quite a contender for fancy fast food. The parsley adds freshness and a bit of color. But really, calling out the individual elements of the dish is sort of beside the point, because what makes this so delicious and special is how it all comes together on the plate.

And even though it's possible to make this ragù at any point during the year now, I think it tastes best when eaten with eyes closed, dreaming of the summer, remembering skin hot from the beach, hearing crickets chirping at night.

Comments

[Foodieinberlin]

Your metaphors are fantastic! Your soup looks delicious. My sister studied in Bologna for a year and I have to agree with you, it's a great city for eating out in.

[Serene]

That is so gorgeous! I have to make it. Yum.

[Amanda at Enchanted Fig]

Lovely, truly lovely. Get writing on that book! I want to read it!

[me @{Life or something blog}]

YUM! this looks amazing, as usual. I am even *more* excited about your book now that I know it will have a recipe for stuffed grilled tomatoes from the very best chef you know!!!

[jana]

beautifully explained, and it looks really really tasty, too. thank you, such a nice ode to italian summer!

[Adrienne]

Oof, lady, it's like you just bopped me over the head with a skillet and said MAKE THIS NOW. Maybe not so violent, but holy cow I want to make and eat this immediately. I love that it uses a variety of fish. Fantastic.

[Vanessa]

Even if we're sharing the same grey sky full of rain right now, your wonderful writing and recipe brings a ray of sunshine into the day. The end of last week was like an Indian summer and now it feels like deep into autumn. Am comforting myself with soup but I've recently started eating much more fish so can't wait to try this out. Oh for the light in Italy..

[Jessika]

Marvellous pictures! unfortunately I'm allergic to shell fish :(.
We entered full autumn in the space of two days. What was greeny on Thursday was orange and yellowy on Saturday.

I'm a mise-en-place person. I wasn't when I started cooking but it makes me feel more comfy.

[Val]

We moved to my husband's home state of FL more than five years ago, and this time every year makes me just a little desperate for that nostalgia-at-the-end-of-summer feeling. By the time October hits, I'm invariably poking my head outside early, early, early in the morning, sniffing around for that first hint of cooler weather. Maybe a little fish sauce like this will make these last bits of summer easier to bear. Thank you.

[Maddie]

Luisa, this looks absolutely wonderful. My stomach may be full of breakfast granola, but my heart's ready for dinner now.

I'm curious about something, though, not being a seafood pasta connoisseur. How does the recipe here differ from spaghetti ai frutti di mare? Is this a different name for the same thing, or do the ingredients/preparation differ?

[Luisa]

Maddie - Frutti di mare are shellfish. Usually, spaghetti with shellfish or vongole (clams) are dishes in which the "sauce" is just briefly cooked shellfish in natural juices, a bit of wine, maybe a few halved cherry tomatoes and some parsley. But that's it. It's rustic and the clams/mussels aren't shucked, but rather served shell and all along with the spaghetti. In fish ragù, there's actual fish along with the shellfish, which is shucked and chopped, and there's also a thicker, more substantial sauce. It takes longer to cook, too. Incidentally, it's worth keeping in mind that Italian cooking is highly regional. A Marchigianian ragù di pesce might look a little different from a Sicilian's version. As might a spaghetti ai frutti di mare...

[Charlotte]

Such a lovely post. It makes me (almost) want to eat this dish. From our cloudy skies to your cloudy skies thanks for a trip back into summer.

[heather]

whoa. command everyone to the table indeed. i think the smell alone would be enough to do that. amazing idea, really.

cheers,

*heather*

[Kristin]

Wow, this looks amazing! I might actually try it out tonight. Thank you :-)

[Stephanie @ Dollop of Cream]

Reading this on a Sunday morning, drinking hot tea, wearing long sleeves and long pants, makes me long for August in Italy. I've never been, but your words painted a convincing picture of what it could be like. Now, I will try this and bring a bit of the Italian summer over to rainy Vancouver Island in the autumn.

[la ninja]

oh, blast. I want to go home to my family now (barcelona) and eat lots of shellfish. boo hoo ;)

[chefrenee]

Beautiful, just beautiful. You have a gift, thank you for sharing it. Renee

[Jen]

I ate some linguini with crab in a red sauce on Friday night and the flavor of that is likely somewhat similar to what this tastes like--and I LOVED it, so I am definitely going to try something like this out.

[Stephane]

Luisa, this sounds like a bowlful of heaven but won't the scampi be overcooked after 10 minutes?

Thanks!

[Luisa]

Stephane - you cook them a bit more than ten minutes, actually. It's a pretty rustic dish, so the fish/shellfish is meant to simmer in the sauce for quite a while. If you wanted, you could plunge the scampi only at the last minute, but then they wouldn't be infused with all the sauce's flavors. A trade-off.

[Stephane]

Sounds really lovely; thank you for clarifying!

[Tau-Mu]

Oooh, this looks awesome!

[Christine]

This looks gorgeous! I've seen the canocchio in Milan, only it was called panocchio, I think there...but I've never been able to find it anywhere else.

Yum!

[Jeff]

This is definitely on this week's menu. Can't wait!

[Astrid]

This sounds perfect!

[Debjani Roy]

Excellent post! This is No. 1 on my Must Make List, thanks for explaining the recipe to us with such care.

[Sylee]

Mhmm, I was just thinking of stopping by the fish shop to buy something for lunch too, and now I want *this*. I'm all kitted out with new wool-silk longjohns: set for autumn!

[keiko]

this looks soooo good Luisa - must try very soon, thank you!

[Maya]

I want this for dinner immediately, and, of course, I'm on a bus with nothing but rest-stop food in my future. D'oh! Adding to my to-try list as...we...speak.

[Caitlin @ Amuse-Bouche]

Oh your photos made me hungry all over again even though I had shrimp for dinner tonight. I always love hearing how passionate you are about food. It warms my heart to know so many people adore cooking and eating and feeding loved ones.

[Nuts about food]

I just wanted to dive into that first picture and bathe in the sauce it looked so good! I love cannochie and grew up eating them in Venice. I was very excited when I came across them at the supermarket and saw they were much cheaper than I thought. I bought a big tray to cook with pasta...and did something very wrong beacuse, despite the pasta being pretty good, when we opened the shells there was literally no meat left...it had evaporated somehow in the process. Che delusione!

[jacqueline]

oh! this post was exactly what i needed today. <3

[The Rowdy Chowgirl]

What absolute luxury! This looks so delicious, and I love the mantis shrimp--an exotic touch!

[Marie Aarheim]

ahh. this looks utterly delicious and made me think of rombo and a great tomato sauce we had at the archipelago of la maddalena. fantastic excuse to visit the new fishmonger in town. yes. in oslo there really aren't that many. thanks for sharing!!

[Bunny]

Getting me HUNGRY!

[Bunny]

Have you ever read the book "Comfort Me with Apples" by Joe Fiorito? I think you would like it.

[Angela Broderick Bedell]

You are so talented! I don't know which is more impressive - your cooking or your photos.

[Janineve]

really, how unfair.
I haven't even had breakfast yet and you got me started thinking about dinner already!!
I love the way you talk about food and cooking. It makes me want to go into the kitchen and cook up something yummy.

[Jessica]

You are a beautiful writer Luisa. Thank you for what looks like an amazing dish. I can't wait to try it!

[ann]

Luisa -- I made this last night and it was WONDERFUL. The next time you see your friend give her an extra hug from me. It was so easy and so delicious and sophisticated for an afterwork dinner, I could barely believe it. Thanks so much for wrangling this recipe! It's a keeper.

[Sofié]

Oh what a lovely blog! This is going to be on my favourite top ten blogs :)

[Tracy]

What a nice photo journey. So satisfying, the final bowl. I would set aside all attempts to be elegant at that point. Please pass the parm...Yes, I am a barbarian who eats her seafood pasta with Parmesan.

[Michael Campbell]

Are mantis shrimp and langoustine the same thing?

[Luisa]

Michael - no, langoustine is what scampi are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_lobster

[Nicola]

Fishmongers that have the right mix of fish ready for you? That's so cool! The closest I can compare to that is my Korean fishmonger who has the freshest possible calamari and cleans them so beautifully, tucking the tentacles inside the body all good-to-go.
As for mis-en-place, YUP, that's DEFINITELY me!!! Love the simplification and calm that it brings.

This looks and sounds fantastic. I've been trying for YEARS AND YEARS to duplicate a certain bouillabaisse I once had...and this is bringing me 'round to trying again.

[Gina]

Looks yummy. I love this one.

[Kristin]

Just discovered your blog, it's lovely! Looking forward to having a look through your recipes.

[Kalle Bergman]

I LOVE ragu - in any shape, version or size. But this one sounds like it could be a sure top contender, and I'll try it out soon. Thanks for the great pictures and recipe!

[Sasan]

Hi,

Lovely, I have to make it today.

[Style Your Food]

oh yes it all looks so good. Thanks for sharing.