Pasta with Shrimp and Fennel

A Piquant Tomato Sauce Adds Full Flavor

Lots of us eat more fish this time of year.  Some are still following New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier.  And what’s healthier than fish and seafood?  For others, Lent means fish or seafood every Friday at a minimum, so new recipes are always welcome.   And some of us just crave the taste. 

Shrimp is a favorite of most seafood lovers.  Almost everyone likes its briny tang.  But in much of the US, it’s still cold, so we’re also craving hearty dishes.  Like a big, warm plate of pasta — which just happens to pair wonderfully with shrimp.

So why not combine the two in a spicy tomato sauce?  Then add some fennel (a perfect winter veggie) for extra credit.  The result?  A welcoming cold-weather dish with flavor that won’t quit.

Poached Scallops

A Basic “How To” That You Can Use in Many Recipes

Poaching is one of the best ways to cook scallops, shrimp, and many types of lean fish.  The gentle, even heat provided by simmering can cook seafood in a few minutes.  And because the seafood is surrounded by liquid, there’s less danger that it will dry out.

But it’s not often that you poach scallops or fish and eat them plain.  Usually, poached seafood is served with sauce, and sometimes the poaching liquid becomes the basis of that sauce.  Indeed, there is a whole school of French sauces that start with reducing the liquid used to poach seafood.  (In the future, we’ll be working our way through some of those famous recipes.)

Knowing how to poach seafood is essential for many recipes.  Today, we focus specifically on how to achieve a perfectly poached scallop.  We’ll need poached scallops for a dish we’ll be discussing later this week.