Cooking Pasta with Frozen Seafood: Angel Hair with Shrimp, Mussels, and Tomatoes
This Italian pasta dish uses frozen whole shrimp (or peeled shrimp without heads, if you prefer) and mussels in a light tomato-garlic sauce, and it costs around $13 for four generous servings.
When I posted a picture of this dish on my Facebook page, a friend from the Midwest complimented me, saying I was "so lucky to live in a place with good seafood." I immediately felt like an imposter because I bought all the seafood in this dish from the frozen section at my local Wild Fork Foods and Walmart. But my Midwest friend was surprised to learn that the same seafood was available to her in Fargo, North Dakota, at her local Aldi and Walmart, or by mail order. In other words, anyone with access to a major food retailer like Walmart can make this dish or another like it. You don't have to live by the ocean (although I do). You can make this dish cheaply and easily with frozen seafood.
Frozen seafood is often fresher than fresh seafood (because it is flash-frozen soon after catch) and is much cheaper.
Cooking Pasta with Frozen Seafood
Everyone loves pasta, and almost everyone loves seafood, but many cooks are hesitant to try cooking seafood at home. When celebrity and social media chefs cook seafood, they use very pricey fresh seafood. That's fine if you live in Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco and have unlimited time and money, but what about the rest of us? You can still have great pasta with seafood if you find a reasonably priced frozen seafood source. I love Wild Fork Foods (in Florida and many major cities, but they ship everywhere) and Walmart (with some excellent seafood options). If you know what you are looking for, they are always inexpensive.
This recipe was inspired by a recipe from Chef Scott Conant, who cooked a version of this dish on the Today Show. This man is pure genius. I loved the look of the dish and Chef C's enthusiasm for seafood and Italian cuisine, but it was too expensive for my everyday life, and I don't have access to fresh, whole shrimp. So, I made the dish easier and less costly by using frozen seafood. I changed the pasta from spaghetti to angel hair - it makes the timing of the dish much easier because angel hair cooks so much quicker. Finally, I found that this recipe needed a little more tomato and garlic than called for, and the dish needed twice as much seafood and considerably less pasta (a pound of pasta for four people is just too much unless the meal is all pasta). This dish lets you serve pasta with frozen seafood on a budget using ingredients from your freezer and pantry, and it will generously feed four people with no one feeling deprived.
The Shrimp and Mussels
I bought a pound of whole shrimp (with heads and shells) from Wild Fork Foods for $5.50. Although this shrimp is farm-raised, it's quite tasty. Finding wild-caught whole shrimp is challenging because shrimp spoil quickly if you don't remove the head. Unless a fishing boat can freeze the shrimp at sea or sell their catch daily, they probably won't sell whole shrimp. Whole shrimp are nearly always sold frozen.
So why use whole shrimp? The shrimp's head adds flavor because it releases and cooks into the dish. If you remove the head before cooking the body, you miss out on this flavor enhancement. But if you don't want to look at the heads, you can remove them before cooking. But don't throw the heads away--you can use the heads to make excellent shrimp stock.
So where to buy whole shrimp? If you don't live near a Wild Fork Foods, the next best option is Walmart—yes, Walmart. Go with me on this one. Walmart sells good whole shrimp; a 2-pound box is around $10. You can make this dish twice with this box. It is an outrageous bargain.
I bought the mussels in this dish for around $3 at Aldi. I have also purchased frozen, cooked mussels from Wild Fork Foods for under $3. Walmart also has an option around the same price point. The mussels are cooked, but you still need to prepare them before using them in this recipe.
Frozen Seafood Must Be Cleaned
While some frozen seafood is labeled "ready to eat," frozen seafood typically must be inspected and cleaned before you use it. For whole shrimp, you must devein the shrimp and snip off the long antennae. But don't cut the shell down the back--I'm aghast at how even notable chefs mangle shrimp in the name of cleaning them. I learned the technique for deveining a whole shrimp from an Asian cook. Make a small snip in the shell near the head and another in the shell near the tail. Take a toothpick, find the vein, and pull gently to remove it. If it breaks, go to the other spot you snipped. If it comes out whole, congratulate yourself. Your shrimp is ready to go.
A food scissor and a toothick - tools for deveining. A whole shrimp on a clean white kitchen towel. A shrimp on the kitchen towel with the vein removed and sitting next to it.
Mussels are a bit harder to clean, but I want to remind you they are cheap. First, thaw the mussels in a colander, but put it in a large bowl to catch the juices. Do not throw these juices away — there is tons of flavor there. Unfortunately, tons of sand and pieces of the "beard" of the mussel were not removed prior to cooking. (These "beards" must be removed from all mussels, hopefully before cooking. Take the drained mussels one at a time, remove any remaining beard pieces, and wipe off any debris on the shell.
When you are done, rinse them briefly in cool water. Then, pour the juices you captured through a fine-mesh sieve. When mussels cook, they release juices. To mimic fresh mussels, retain the juices from your frozen, cooked mussels and add them to your dish. But remember to strain these juices before you use them.
Once you have deveined your frozen shrimp, cleaned your mussels, and strained their liquid, you are ready to begin making this dish.
Choice of Pasta
This recipe calls for angel hair pasta, but you can use spaghetti or linguine. I like angel hair pasta because it is lighter and cooks faster, making the timing easier. But you can easily substitute your favorite pasta.
The Aromatics
To make this dish great, you must use fresh garlic and basil. This is a very simple sauce with just a few ingredients. There is no cream, cheese, or tomato paste to hide behind if the aromatics are wrong.
Don't use "jarlic" (a jar of pre-minced garlic that keeps for weeks), as the taste is always off. You can use a tube of pureed basil, but many retailers sell fresh basil very cheaply. (Aldi sells a flat of basil for around $1.) If you are lucky enough to have a green thumb, you may have a basil plant in your kitchen window. The fresh parsley for serving is (barely) optional. Take it from this cancer survivor- the smell of garlic and basil cooking in your sauté pan is why we strive to keep living. It's that good. Get some fresh garlic and basil, and Aldi sells reasonably priced wine while you are there. Life is short. Cook the recipe. Buy the wine.
The Tomatoes
I used a pint of wonderful little cherry tomatoes in this recipe and added a ripe Roma tomato. Use the tomatoes you love most and have available. I used the Roma only because I had ripe tomatoes that I needed to use. But be generous with the amount of tomatoes you use. Cut cherry or grape tomatoes in half and chop larger tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes with basil, garlic, and olive oil are just heavenly. If you have a bunch of "tomatoes on the vine," that would be ideal in this recipe. Just make sure you use a good amount of good-tasting ripe tomatoes.
Timing of Recipe
Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil and add 1 T of salt before you begin. Get a big sauté pan or Dutch oven and prepare your ingredients. Cook the shrimp first, until partially done. Don't overcook the shrimp at this stage.
Reserve the cooked shrimp and set aside. Add 1/4 cup olive oil to your pan and reduce the heat. Cook the garlic and crushed red pepper until the edges begin to brown. Add the tomatoes and cook until they reduce and soften. Before going on, make sure your water is boiling. Add the cleaned mussels and the reserved mussel liquid to the sautéed tomatoes when the water is boiling.
Then add dried angel hair pasta to your boiling water. Cook your pasta shy of al dente — for my pasta, that was two minutes. Drain your pasta, but reserve a cup of pasta water. Add the shrimp to the tomato mixture, then add the cooked pasta. Stir the pasta and seafood, and add the pasta water 1/4 c. at a time. You will need at least 1/2 cup. Stir until the dish is creamy and the pasta is cooked perfectly — this will take a couple of minutes, but no more.
Chopped garlic sautéing in a pan. tomatoes and mussels sautéing in the same pan. The same pan, with shrimp added and cooked and anel hair pasta on top.
Add the chopped basil and stir for another 30 seconds. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with fresh Italian parsley or more fresh chopped basil. Serve with a nice Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio and many napkins. For true seafood lovers, removing the shells is a marvelous way to know your seafood is fresh and tasty.
Enjoy seafood on a budget!
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