Salmon & Seafood Pasta
It’s incredibly exciting to be able to share this recipe on my website, during Episode 2 of Britain’s Best Home Cook Mary and Dan chose this dish as their favourite Ultimate Fish Dish, which I’m still coming to terms with!!
When I found that we were going to be making a fish dish I initially thought about making a fish pie, that’s about the only fish dish I normally make, but in week 3 we’re making pies, which left me in a quandary! I often make a light prawn pasta dish with crème fraiche, but alas no actual fish but that dish inspired me to create this one.
I set out to make a creamy fish pasta that I would be happy to eat, luckily when I was trying to create this dish it was just after Christmas and I had an open bottle of Prosecco in the kitchen, well waste not want not, instead of opening a new bottle of wine I used that instead. I was quite happy with the dish but it lacked just a little bit of depth at the end… again because of Christmas we had the remnants of a delicious cheese board in the fridge, which included some Perl Las, a little sprinkling of that and the rest is history….
Salmon & Seafood Sauce
Ingredients
500ml fresh fish stock
300ml prosecco
200g salmon fillet, skinned
200g cod fillet, skinned
200g live mussels on shells
6 king prawns, shells on
3 king scallops
50g butter
2 large shallots
2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
150ml double cream
Blue Cheese (to taste, I use Perl Las)
2 tbsp of parsley
Chives
1 lemon
Ground black pepper
Samphire to garnish
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Method
1. Prepare and devein the prawns. Clean and debeard the mussels.
2. Cube the fish and slice the scallops in ½.
3. Heat the oil in a pan with a lid, add one shallot finely sliced and one garlic clove minced, fry gently until softened.
4. Add 75ml of the prosecco to the pan and boil for approx. 30 secs to burn off the alcohol, add the mussels, cover with a lid and cook for approx. 3 minutes, until most of the mussels are open. Drain the mussels and reverse the cooking liquid.
5. Add the fish stock to the pan and bring to a simmer, add the salmon and cod and poach for 1 min, then the prawn and scallops for 1 minute.
6. Remove the seafood very carefully not to break up the fish cubes and reserve the cooking liquid, combine with the mussels cooking liquid.
7. Finely dice the 2nd shallot and mince the other garlic clove.
8. Heat ½ the butter in the pan with the shallot and garlic clove and fry gently.
9. Add the rest of the prosecco and boil until reduced, this takes about 10 minutes. Add the reserved cooking liquid and reduce for a further 20 minutes approximately.
10. Stir in the cream and reduce again.
11. Reduce the heat and add the rest of the butter and a sprinkling of cheese, a tiny bit at a time tasting with each addition, season with black pepper and lemon juice, the sauce will taste quite salty but when the seafood and pasta is mixed in it will balance out.
12. Add the seafood to reheat, being careful with the fish cubes.
13. Gently steam the samphire.
14. Finely chop the parsley and chives, add most to the pan.
15. Combine with the pasta to serve. Garnish with samphire and another sprinkling of herbs.
Top Tip
For those of you not lucky enough to live in wales it may be difficult for you to get your hands on Perl Las cheese, try another blue cheese, but just a little at a time, the aim is for the cheese to season the dish, not for the dish to taste of blue cheese.
