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Italian seafood salads

Marinated Seafood Appetizer

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One of my favorite—and showiest—appetizers is nothing more than several kinds of seafood, gently cooked and bathed in an olive oil and lemon dressing.

Frutti di mare is the lovely Italian name for the shellfish, crustaceans and cephalopods I’m talking about. Some tips for making this marinated seafood appetizer special:

Choose three or four seafood varieties with contrasting shapes and colors. Small shrimp, pretty and pink, are a no brainer. Mussels and clams, with their interesting convoluted shapes, are darker in color. Scallops are white and luscious looking. Baby octopus and squid, with their irresistibly squiggly tentacles, finish off the display. Crabmeat and lobster claw meat, delicious as they are, are wasted in this beauty competition.

Cook each kind of seafood with care. Octopuses turn their cooking water dark, so are best cooked on their own, then drained. Mussels are space hogs, filling your sauté pan while leaving behind a delectable essence, ideal for embellishing before cooking other seafood. Shrimp require a few minutes of gentle cooking, while scallops need only to be heated through.

Cool seafood before adding the marinade. Because shellfish and crustaceans throw off liquid as they cool, adding the marinade too soon could turn it watery. Chill the seafood salad for several hours or overnight, giving flavors a chance to develop.

Serve in gorgeous glasses or clear dishes. Show off your frutti di mare mix in coupe champagne glasses, martini glasses or stemmed dessert bowls. Garnish with microgreens, just a sprig or two.

Plan for leftovers. Our favorite thing to do with marinated seafood, apart from eating it solo, is to mix it the next day with freshly cooked linguine. My husband, who usually takes on this job, likes to pump up the flavor with sautéed garlic.

Print
Marinated Seafood Appetizer
Prep Time
45 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
1 hr 15 mins
 

Course: Appetizer
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 8 people
Ingredients
  • 2 lemons
  • 1 ½ pounds small shrimp
  • 1 pound baby octopus or squid
  • 3 pounds mussels or clams
  • 1 pound sea scallops preferably “dry” (zero or minimal preservatives)
  • Bay leaves
  • Black peppercorns
  • 4 garlic cloves crushed
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ cup white wine or dry vermouth
  • Sea salt
  • Freshly ground white or black pepper
  • 1 or 2 celery stalks thinly sliced
  • Microgreens
Instructions
  1. Prep lemons: Zest one of the lemons. Halve lemons and squeeze juice. Reserve zest, lemon shells and juice.
  2. Prepare seafood: Peel shrimp. Split baby octopus if large. Rinse mussels and pull off any “beards.” Halve or quarter scallops as needed for similar size as other seafood.
  3. Cook octopus: Fill a medium saucepan with enough water to cover octopus. Add 2 bay leaves, 2 lemon shells and a few peppercorns. Bring to a simmer. Add octopus and simmer, partly covered, until tender, about 20 minutes. Cool in cooking liquid (can be refrigerated). Drain.
  4. Cook mussels: In a large skillet, saute garlic over medium heat in 2 tablespoons olive oil until golden. Add white wine. Stir and add mussels. Cover and cook until mussels open (discard any that do not). Cool slightly in skillet.
  5. Transfer mussels to a large bowl, leaving liquid in pan. When cool, pick mussels and place in another bowl. Discard shells.
  6. Cook shrimp and scallops:. Add 2 cups water, 2 bay leaves, the remaining 2 lemon shells and a few peppercorns to mussel liquid. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add shrimp and cook until they start to turn opaque. Add scallops and simmer a minute or two longer. With a slotted spoon, transfer seafood to a bowl and cool. Discard cooking liquid.
  7. Make dressing: Combine ½ cup olive oil with ¼ cup lemon juice and lemon zest. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  8. Combine seafood: In a large bowl, combine shrimp, scallops, octopus and mussels. With a spatula, gently stir in dressing. Chill thoroughly for at least 4 hours and preferably longer (24 hours is ideal).
  9. To serve: Fold celery into seafood. Using a slotted spoon, scoop seafood into coupe champagne glasses or glass dessert bowls. Garnish with microgreens.

 

Crab and Potato Salad Called Insalata Pantesca

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I’m a fan of Sarah Grueneberg from way back, so when I heard she was going to teach a cooking class near my home, I had to be at the table.

Other students knew her as the finalist on Bravo’s Top Chef show who had the whole city of Chicago rooting for her (a New York City interloper won the contest but just barely).

I knew Sarah as a chef I could count on for a well-informed interview on Italian ingredients or cooking. Sarah is from the Texas Gulf Coast, so I’d also collected some of her killer sports-watching snacks for a magazine piece.

But all of that was on the phone. I’d never laid eyes on Sarah and was startled, arriving at Rolling Pin Cooking Emporium, to see how young she is–just 31 years old. By her own description, Sarah chafed at the tedium of high-school classes and jumped for the culinary life at the earliest opportunity. By age 22, she was the youngest-ever sous chef of Brennan’s and from there moved up the ranks at Spiaggia, Chicago’s only four-star Italian restaurant, to become executive chef.

insalata pantesca

We were here to watch Chef Sarah power through a menu that started with insalata pantesca–named for Pantelleria, a Sicilian island known for its capers as well as for black lava landscapes and dome-roofed dammusi. In Sarah’s version, layers of potatoes are lavished with an herb-caper pesto, crabmeat and heirloom tomatoes.

Next she launched into slow-roasted pork rib roast drizzled with a fine balsamic vinegar and served with Barolo risotto. And to finish, honey panna cotta with honey salted caramel.

I loved tasting Sarah’s food at last and, along the way, savoring the opinions and chef’s tips she tossed out. A sampling, in Sarah’s words:

  • Tarragon is my new favorite herb. And balsamic vinegar…it’s the next steak sauce. Whatever you do, don’t cheat on the quality of ingredients like balsamic and olive oil.
  • It’s a brave person who dared eat an artichoke for the first time.
  • For a deeply flavored broth, roast the bones. Once the liquid comes to a boil, drop in ice cubes to lock in the proteins and avoid skimming so much.
  • Cut roasted meat too soon and it will definitely freak out.
  • Roasting vegetables in the pan juices of the meat you’re serving–that’s going to be a winner every time.
  • For virtually seed-free lemons: Cut wedges off the lemon at right angles, leaving most of the seeds in the core at the center.
  • As an Italian chef told me, properly made panna cotta should jiggle like a woman’s breast.
  • Where’s my honey? (probably referring to the Tupelo honey used in the panna cotta but possibly to Sarah’s cute fiance Jaime Canete, sous chef for the evening)

Okay, back to to Sarah’s insalata pantesca. For more of her cooking, think about making your way to Chicago for a meal at Spiaggia.

Print
Crab and Potato Salad with Herb-Caper Pesto (Insalata Pantesca)
Prep Time
40 mins
Cook Time
15 mins
Total Time
55 mins
 
(adapted from Chef Sarah Grueneberg's recipe)
Course: Appetizer, Main Dish, Salad
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 pound Yukon Gold or other boiling potatoes peeled
  • Sea salt
  • ½ cup loosely packed basil leaves plus more to garnish
  • ¼ cup fresh tarragon leaves
  • ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • ½ cup almonds toasted, plus more to garnish
  • ¼ cup salt-cured capers rinsed, plus more to garnish
  • Good-quality extra virgin olive oil
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 pound pasteurized crab meat picked through
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes preferably heirloom, halved or quartered
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ½ pitted Castelvetrano or other Mediterranean olives halved
Instructions
  1. Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and season with 1 tablespoon sea salt. Add cold water to cover by one inch.
  2. Over medium heat, bring the water to a simmer and cook the potatoes until just tender (avoid overcooking; they should have a bit of resistance). Remove potatoes, cool and slice in wedges or half-inch rounds.
  3. In a blender bowl, combine the basil, tarragon, parsley, almonds and capers with 1/3 cup olive oil. Blend until pureed but a bit chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  4. Toss the crab and tomatoes with the lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Mix the potatoes with the pesto. Arrange on a platter or individual plates. Spoon the dressed crab and tomatoes on top. Garnish with basil leaves, olives, almonds, capers fried in olive oil and a few grindings of black pepper.