Seafood Rigatoni with Basil

When not from The Fiddlehead Cookbook, I find that majority of recipes I try and like come from Bon Appetit magazine. On epicurious.com most of these recipes are searchable and at some point I realized that most of recipes saved to my online recipe box originally appeared in the magazine. This discovery necessitated buying a subscription and sometime early last spring I started receiving my monthly installment.

I have not kept track of how many recipes I have made from the magazines I have received. In some sense it is better just to have the internet search function on hand because at least for me, when I want to cook, I either have something on hand that I need to use or I want to make something specific.

With a magazine you never know what you are going to get. I have very much enjoyed receiving it every month, and I have gotten a lot of new ideas from what I have read . However, there was one particular month that we made several recipes out of. The September, 2010 edition of Bon Appetit included Baked Eggs with Bacon and Spinach (delicious, we learned it can be made in a microwave, and its a great way to eat veggies for breakfast), Mushroom Meatloaf with Mushroom Gravy, and Rigatoni with Shrimp, Calamari and Basil. All of these recipes were worth making and inspire me to do more than just let the pictures in my monthly Bon Appetit make me hungry.

The Seafood Rigatoni was part of the magazines restaurant edition and comes from a 'glitzy and expensive' restaurant called Marea in Central Park South, New York City. The printed recipe looked easy and delicious, and I happened to have some frozen shrimp and a bag of frozen mixed seafood (which included calamari). If you enjoy seafood this is worth giving a try and it happens to have one of my favorite ingredients in it: leeks.

If you have never used leeks in cooking you are missing out. This is one thing I have decided I have to figure out how to grow because they can be very difficult and/or expensive to find at super markets. I am convinced they just manage to make dishes delicious. Everything I have ever made with them has gone onto my 'must make again' list. They are somewhat like a large green onion, or a weird garlic/onion love child. When you cook with them you use only the white and light green parts but the way they are constructed makes finding all of the light green parts like unwrapping a present. I am convinced that the tops of the leeks would be great to add to a broth for flavor, even if they are too tough to eat; someday I will need to try that.

Ingredients:
1 lb uncooked raw large (or medium) shrimp, peeled and deveined (most frozen shrimp from the grocery store come like this)
14 oz. cleaned calamari or seafood mix (I used the mixed frozen seafood from Trader Joe's) If you don't like calamari you could ad additional shrimp or substitute with another seafood option i.e scallops
12 oz. Rigatoni Pasta, for this recipe make sure to invest in high quality pasta
6 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups thinly sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only; about 3 large. If you are confused about how to use a leek try this)
3 large garlic cloves (or more!), thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon (or more!) crushed dried red pepper
1 8 oz. bottle of clam juice-- this can be found with the canned seafood at the supermarket
1/3 cup(or more!) frozen peas thawed
4 Tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup + finely grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil

The recipe suggests that you take 1/2 your shrimp and 1/2 of your calamari and/or sea food mix and set it aside in the bowl. Take the remaining shrimp and calamari and dice or put through a food processor until finely chopped. Place the finely chopped mixture in a second bowl.

Cook Rigatoni in a large pot of boiling water until al dente. When done drain the pasta and return the drained noodles to their pot. The next steps do not take too long so they should be able to be completed while the pasta is cooking.

While pasta is cooking heat 5 Tablespoons of olive oil in a large skilled over medium-high. When the pan is hot add leeks, garlic, and crushed red pepper. I love my food with extra garlic and spice so I almost always double recipes garlic and pepper suggestions.

Saute these ingredients until the leeks are tender. This will not take more than 5 minutes. Make sure to stir as they cook so they do not stick to the bottom.

To the leeks add the chopped or food processed seafood and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the clam juice and the peas and cook for an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in 3 Tablespoons of butter, season with salt and pepper, and cover and set aside.

Add 1 Tablespoon of oil and 1 Tablespoon of butter to a skilled. Heat over medium high until butter is melted. Add the remaining shrimp and cook 2 minutes then add the calamari or seafood mix and cook until the seafood just turns opaque. Seafood is a bit tricky to cook because you know when its done when its color changes. It happens very quickly and the only way to tell is that the seafood suddenly doesn't glisten or look raw any more. It will not taste horrible if overcooked, however, the texture does become chewy. When seafood is done take off heat and set aside.

Add chopped shrimp/seafood mix to drained pasta noodles with 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese and 1/2 cup basil.

Divide pasta into bowls, top with seafood. Sprinkle remaining grated cheese and basil on top.

This recipe serves four and, as it is seafood, it is not as good when reheated. The shrimp tends to get tough. Regardless, it is delicious so if there are leftovers there will be little complaining. When we made it we really enjoyed it, and enjoyed the leftovers. I was suspicious about the frozen peas but they were great. I ended up added more than the called for 1/3 cup. My one addition would be to add about 1/2 cup of cream to the chopped seafood sauce. The recipe already has 10 Tablespoons of oil or butter in it, so there is no pretending it is low calorie. I figure one might as well do a thing properly. I like my pasta sauces just a bit creamy and I would enjoy this addition.

One of the things I loved about this recipe is that for something that looks so fancy it is easy to make... As long as you have a food processor. I do not have one, and hand mincing seafood was an experience. This is a great meal for seafood loving company or for a special weeknight treat.