Creamy Tomato and Seafood Pasta

Two words: squid tentacles

New here? Hi! If you want to get right down to business, scroll down for the video link where I demo this pasta dish, and all the way to the bottom for the recipe!!

In Today’s Newsletter

—Recipe development, body vs. brain

—Why shrimp are problematic (sorry!)

—Breadcrumbs save the day

—A brand-spanking new recipe and video for Creamy Tomato and Seafood Pasta

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Greetings, cephalopods!

This week’s pasta is fab, it’s easy, it’s pretty, it’s fast. Its birth story is also a reminder (from me, to … me?) that we/I must not develop recipes all the time.

Stepping back: There are two paths to recipe development. One is mission-oriented; the other is intuitive. I don’t want to get stuck in a binary here (or ever, tbh), because of course everything is a mix of all the things, and I’ll talk about that later. And yet, it can be clarifying to simplify.

Here’s what the mission-oriented process looks like: There are specific recipes that I want to make—let’s say a soft-scramble egg taco with cheese—and for those I can instantly visualize it, rough out the ingredient list, and start cooking with a focused end point. This is the brainy way: strategic, linear, goal-oriented.

Other times, I indulge in the luxury of just cooking something that I feel like eating, not thinking about my job or my work. Let’s be real: this almost never happens anymore. Every meal I eat out, every thing I make at home, the relentless content ghoul inside of me is going, “is this a thing? is this a thing? is this a thing???” And this is why we have to go on vacations.

You heard me: V A C A T I O N. Today’s pasta, which I insist you make even though we’re all in back-to-school mode, might not exist if I hadn’t spent a borderline irresponsible amount of money on my beachy time off this summer. I talked a bit about what Montauk, Long Island, means to me in this newsletter when I was out there in July, which happens to also be where I cemented my core ideas about shopping and cooking in Where Cooking Begins. After hosting friends and cooking multi-part meals for several days running, there came a night when I just wanted to do something easy, and craved a pasta with fresh tomatoes and some local seafood that could simply poach in the sauce.

Where it all started, in July.

I did not think about creating a new recipe that night, because most of the steps to this one were fully instinctual and part of my muscle memory and any way I was busy drinking pink wine with my beloved friend Delia as I threw it together. The yellow Sungold cherry tomatoes got the burst tomato treatment from this chicken dish, a preparation I learned from watching my mother cook. I chose shrimp because I already know how good they are poached in the buttery tomato-kimchi sauce from this easy rice bowl. And I puréed the sauce—which aerates and emulsifies it, giving the illusion of cream without added dairy—because Cosmo doesn’t like the texture of tomato skins, and he was with us that night. The things we do for love. It was a big hit, everyone had seconds, and cleanup was easy breezy.

It wasn’t until I was back in Brooklyn that my rational brain elbowed my summer self in the tits: “That thing you did? That was a recipe.” I entered “Creamy Tomato Seafood Pasta” onto my August shoot lineup, and then it was time to get serious. Weights, measurements, timing, tasting, writing. All these details need to be locked before I can film a video, and this is where the touchy-feely cooking energy lobs one over to the Working Girl responsible for getting shit done.

Round one of testing: meh.

The first real pass started the same: butter, oil, shallot, garlic, tomatoes. I weirdly couldn’t get shrimp at Wegman’s the night I went shopping, and did a little Spin It with scallops and squid tentacles, knowing they’d cook at about the same time (my own shopping fails are the reason Spin Its exist in the first place, and yes I lean into this flexibility all the time!). I had ruffly malfadine in the cupboard, which I love, and dinner was served to Cosmo, who had tasted the vacation version only a few weeks prior.

Carb on carb is always a yes.

We liked it, but we didn’t love it. Main complaint was the lack of textural contrast. The noodles and the fish were both slippery and tender, the sauce creamy. It needed crunch. I opened the panel up to my other child, Leo, who has been working as a line cook all summer and is a great taster of things, and he suggested putting anchovies both in the sauce and in the breadcrumbs, for oomph. So smart; so I did that and loaded the crumbs up with some lemon zest, parsley, and garlic. For round two, I made it with shrimp and finished with the breadcrumbs, and turned to spaghetti so as to not overwhelm the experience of eating the seafood.

Round two, getting warmer.

The sauce was relatively unchanged from v. 1, but infinitely more tasty with a squeeze of lemon juice (from the zested lemon), and the crumbs. But now I had a shrimp problem, which is complicated, and can be summarized here (TW: will make you not want to eat shrimp).

Feedback from some very enthusiastic tentacle-spotters in my DM’s gave me the courage to use squid, which is sustainable, affordable, delightful, and when poached gently and quickly the way I intended, very tender. On shoot day, it all came together. The pasta shape was locked. The tomato sauce was abundant. The crumbs were sparkly and crunch-tastic. Lest all these rational decisions cause us to be rigid, I leaned into all the soft-touch, intuitive decisions I needed to make in the moment. The squishiness of the shallots before adding the tomato, the amount of liquid I wanted to see the Sungolds release, the doneness of the pasta, the tossing and the glossing. More art, fewer rules.

This dish started with pure vibes midway through a two-week hiatus, and nothing harshes that mellow like putting a recipe through the ringer three times. That’s why I am always telling you to cook with abandon: yes, follow the recipe but feel your way. Taste, adjust, raise and lower. Choose your seafood wisely, sniff your tomatoes, throw an extra sprig of basil in there if you’re digging it. Acknowledge the heart/brain binary in all of this so that you can wiggle your way in between the two extremes. I have nothing but trust that you, the cook at home with music playing in your kitchen and aromas atomizing right in your nose, can make it good.

Love you more than those two weirdly extra-long squid tentacles,

CLM

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I’ve removed the paywall from this recipe, for the love of tomatoes (and you, of course). If you decide to subscribe anyway, know that your support will go right back into my work developing recipes, shooting videos, and writing about all of it. If you’re reading this, please join us!

Creamy Tomato Seafood Pasta

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NEW! Recipe: September 11, 2024 

Creamy Tomato and Seafood Pasta 

4 Servings 

I’m not kidding when I tell you this takes 10 minutes to prep and about 20 minutes of cook time. If you are working on your anchovy aversion, this is an ideal recipe to explore that. The fillets in the breadcrumbs dissolve into nothingness, merely serving to make the herby and lemony breadcrumbs pop. In the sauce, they melt away as a bit player in a sweet and savory tomato sauce that frankly could use a little edge. Go for it.

For the breadcrumbs

4 tablespoons extra–virgin olive oil 

2 anchovy fillets packed in oil, drained

2 garlic cloves, grated

Freshly ground black pepper 

1 cup panko

1 cup parsley, tightly packed, then coarsely chopped 

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Flaky salt

For the pasta and serving

3 tablespoons extra–virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 shallot, roughly chopped

2 anchovy fillets

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper

1 ½ pounds Sungold tomatoes

4 basil sprigs (leaves attached)

1 pound squid bodies and tentacles

1 pound thick spaghetti 

½ teaspoon crushed red chile flakes

Make the Breadcrumbs

In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, heat 4 tablespoons oil. Add anchovies and garlic. Season with black pepper and cook, stirring, until garlic is fragrant and anchovies start to crumble, about a minute. Stir in the panko and cook, stirring frequently, until crumbs are golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the parsley and lemon zest, and toss to combine. Taste breadcrumbs and adjust seasoning with flaky salt. Transfer crumbs to a small plate and let cool. (Reserve the zested lemon for seasoning the sauce later.)

Get ahead: Crumbs can be made up to 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Make the Pasta and Sauce 

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil and butter over medium- to medium-high in a 4- to 5-quart Dutch oven (or other heavy pot with a lid). When the butter is foaming, add the shallot and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the barest color has formed on the garlic, about 3 minutes. Add anchovies, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Cover pot and cook over medium, stirring occasionally, until the shallot is deep golden in color and the garlic is tender enough to be smushed with a spoon, 4 to 5  minutes. 

Add tomatoes and basil sprigs to the pot, season with chile flakes, and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomato skins start to split, about 4 minutes. Cover and cook, stirring every couple of minutes, until the tomatoes are about half their original volume and there is a copious amount of sauce in the pan, about 5  more minutes. 

Pluck out the basil springs. Transfer sauce to a blender jar (reserve the pot). Pulse for long intervals until the sauce is creamy and lightened and there are no longer any discernable pieces of tomato skins. Pour tomato sauce back into to the pot, then scoop about a cup of the pasta water into the blender jar and swirl it around to loosen any remaining sauce. Add that liquid to the sauce, taste, and adjust seasoning as needed; keep warm.. 

Cook pasta until very al dente, about 2 minutes less than the time indicated on the package. When the pasta has about a minute to go, return the sauce to a bare simme, add the squid, and cook gently until the squid is barely cooked through, about 1 minute. It will cook a bit more in the next step.

Using tongs or a mesh spider, transfer the spaghetti to the sauce. Cook, stirring and tossing and adding additional pasta cooking liquid as needed, until the sauce generously and lavishly coats the pasta, about 2 minutes. Squeeze in the juice of the zested lemon. Serve the pasta topped with breadcrumbs.

From the Market

Parsley

Sungold tomatoes

Basil 

Squid

Spin It

Use basil in the breadcrumbs, or use parsley in the sauce

Any type of cherry tomato can be swapped for the Sungolds; use the same weight

Scallops and/or shrimp can replace squid; cut into ¼-inch pieces before adding to the sauce

At Home

Olive oil 

Anchovies 

Garlic

Salt and pepper 

Panko

Lemon

Flaky salt

Butter

Shallot

Spaghetti 

Red chile flakes

Spin It

Omit the anchovies, or use a dash of fish sauce in the tomatoes 

Fresh breadcrumbs can replace the panko; leave them shaggy (not finely ground)

Red or yellow onion can replace the shallot

Fusilli, linguine, or lumache can replace the spaghetti