Marinara sauce generally contains meat and is ladled over pasta. In Southern Italy, though, where seafood is plentiful from the Mediterranean, squid, scallops, mussels and clams accompany this rich tomato sauce redolent with onions and garlic. Cook up the sauce a day ahead to let the spices blend and save time on the day you plan to serve the dish. Use rice as a change from wheat-based pasta. Clean up as you work -- this is a dish that leaves plenty of spatters and messy pans and tools.
Marinara Sauce
Step 1
Boil a large pot of water and set a large bowl of ice water in the sink.
Step 2
Lower six to eight tomatoes into the boiling water carefully with a slotted spoon for about 30 seconds. Then transfer them, one at a time, into the ice water.
Step 3
Slide the skin off of each parboiled tomato, and then cut it open and gut the seeds out. Put them in one bowl. Put cleaned tomatoes into a second bowl. Repeat parboiling and cleaning until all tomatoes are finished.
Step 4
Heat enough olive oil the soup pot and saute the diced onions over high medium heat until they are golden. Add the garlic and cook it for 2 to 3 minutes until you can smell it, then add the spices and cook for 3 to 3 minutes more over low heat.
Step 5
Pour the seeds and skins into a strainer to separate any juice and cut the cleaned tomatoes into small pieces. Pour juice and tomatoes into the soup pot and discard the seeds and skins.
Step 6
Raise the heat under the soup pot to medium and simmer the marinara gently for at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Seafood
Step 1
De-vein the shrimp by cutting down the center of their backs and rinsing them in salted water until the black thread-like intestine falls away. Slice the calamari into 1-inch segments, if necessary. Cut diver scallops into quarters, if necessary -- scallops should be about 1 inch across.
Step 2
Rinse all seafood thoroughly in lukewarm salted water before cooking.
Step 3
Heat the marinara. Gently drop the calamari and mussels into the marinara. Simmer the pot gently for 15 minutes.
Step 4
Prepare 10 servings of rice according to package directions and arrange the rice around the edge of a large platter.
Step 5
Ladle the marinara onto the platter, removing any mussels that have not opened during cooking. Lean open mussels against the rice around the perimeter of the sauce.
Tips and Warnings
- Buy fresh seafood because frozen fish will not stand up to the strong flavors of marinara. Mussels that do not open may have been dead when they were caught or they may have been sick.
- Handle hot pans with oven mitts and handle mussel shells carefully. Keep your face and exposed skin away from unpredictable bubbling sauce.
Things You'll Need
- 3 to 4 quarts finished fresh ripe tomatoes
- 2-gallon or larger soup kettle
- Large bowls
- Ice
- Paring knife
- Chef's knife
- Cutting board
- Colander-style strainer
- 2 cups sweet or yellow onions, diced
- 2 to 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 6 cloves fresh minced garlic
- 1 tbsp. each basil and oregano
- 1 tsp. each of your choice of rosemary, thyme, parsley, crushed anise or crushed bay leaf
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup red wine such as Merlot, Barbera or a Novello or full-bodied red table wine
- Salt and pepper
- 1 lb. each diver (jumbo) or bay (large) scallops, calimari (cleaned squid tubes and legs), shelled large shrimp (25 to 30)
- 2 lb. live black mussels in shells
- 10 servings brown or white rice
- Large serving platter
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