Easy Italian seafood dishes for the family

Sadly a few days ago our Nonna passed away. She was the quintessential Italian Nonna, she always wore an apron, had a strong Italian accent and was often emotional. Our memories of her are surrounded by food. Thankfully she passed on her recipes to our dad who bought us up on lots of Italian inspired meals. This blog post is dedicated to our Nonna Maria...

Vanessa's dish: Classic and easy tomato sauce 

What you need 

Olive oil

Salt 2 teaspoons but if you are like me, you will want to add more.

2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes 

1 punnet or tube of tomato paste (you can use a tin of tomato puree instead)

2 onions

4 cloves of garlic

Secret ingredient - a teaspoon sugar (optional but it does sweeten the tomatoes)

Add enough oil to a pot to cover the bottom and saute the chopped onions, when soft add the garlic and soften. (be careful not to burn the garlic)

Add the tins of chopped tomatoes, tomato paste or puree and then add 1 tin of water. 

Add salt and sugar to taste 

All you need to do now is simmer the sauce uncovered until it starts to reduce. its a bit of a balancing act where you will need to add more water if it becomes too thick and more puree/paste if its not thick enough. The paste/puree adds extra depth to the tomato taste and help thicken along with the simmering. 

I usually simmer it for at least 30 minutes however 20-30 minutes still results in a good sauce. Often its even nicer the following day.

Steamed mussels

Add clean and de-bearded mussels to a pot with a lid with a couple of tablespoons of water or wine. Turn up the heat to high and wait a few minutes. Don't be tempted to open the lid to often as it lets the steam out and reduces the temperature. You need it to be HOT to open the shells. When I check the mussels I take the open ones out straight away and quickly put the lid back on and steam the rest. 

If after about 10 minutes some shells haven't opened - throw them away. 

I find the quicker you get the mussels out once they have opened, the better - they don't need to cook any longer. Set them aside until you are ready to plate up. 

Grilled tomatoes and lemons

Cut both the tomatoes and lemons on half. Place in an oven proof dish and drizzle with olive oil. (don't bother using oil on the lemons)

Grill until the tomatoes are soft and starting to caramelize.  

Set them aside until you are ready to plate up.

How to assemble 

1. Cook your spaghetti in lots of salted rapidly boiling water. It is said the water needs to be salty like the sea and  use a large pot. 

2. When al-dente (to the bite) - meaning taste it and it should be firm, not soft like tinned spaghetti!!! 

3. Drain and add the tomato sauce and mix through. 

Some people like to mix the sauce through it first, others like to add the sauce to individual bowls of spaghetti - your choice. 

4. Arrange the mussels, tomatoes and lemons in bowls and top with black pepper. 

Enjoy

Vanessa X 

Nonna Maria with her grandchildren Vanessa and Ingrid picking and eating oranges in Keri keri and Nonna with her first born son Rino (our dad) 

Ingrid's dish: Crispy fried calamari

Whenever I think of Nonna, she's either sitting in her rocking chair, a big mug of coffee in her hands, watching daytime soaps on TV or she is cooking in the kitchen. Nothing was ever too much trouble, if you wanted gnocchi made at ten o'clock at night, the potatoes were boiled up and mashed and a simple tomato sauce was created. The tablecloth came out and we sat up to buttery soft italian dumplings. As a kid, I remember feeling very cherished by my Nonna. 

I also remember fried calamari being thrown together at a moments notice, a few visitors popping over, the playing cards coming out and a raucous night filled with loud laughter and hands slamming down on the table when the last card was played.

When I decided to do fried calamari for this blog post, I could imagine Nonna trotting off down to the local fishmonger, whereas I went to the local asian supermarket - how things have changed! I picked my squid, and regrettably told the fishmonger not to prep it, as I'll do it myself! (um...crazy idea...)

An economical dish, this whole squid cost $4.50 and served four people accompanied with a wintery salad.

So I brought it home and googled - "How to prepare squid, which I have to say, totally grossed me out. I couldn't do it without gloves on, I was a total wimp! When I accidentally pressed the eye a little too hard and it squirted 'eye juice' all over my kitchen window, I could hear my Nonna laughing out loud in the background thinking what a ridiculous situation I had got myself in. So please, what ever you do, get it prepped at the asian supermarket, fish monger, or risk being turned off calamari for life!

However, it was all worth it in the end. It's a great dish to share, its rustic, economical and it really does transport you to al fresco dining on a cobblestone street on the Mediterranean seafront.

Make a simple tartare dip, by mixing 3 tablespoons of store - bought mayonnaise, a handful of capers, a squeeze of lemon juice and chopped gherkins.

Crispy fried calamari

Serves 4

What you need 

1 fresh squid (cut into strips)

1/2 to 1 cup of standard flour

vegetable oil, fill frypan up to 1cm

salt and pepper to taste

lemon wedges

How to prepare

First, get the fish monger to prep the squid! (i.e.: remove all the yukky bits!!!) Once home, pull the tentacles out and cut the tentacles away from its body. Slice open the body, lie it flat and lightly score the surface to tenderize it. Cut into even strips same width as tentacles. Pat dry with a paper towel.

In a plastic bag, mix flour and salt and pepper. Add squid strips to the bag and give it a shake until squid is evenly coated.

Heat oil in a frypan on high heat. When sizzling, add calamari in batches until crispy and golden. They should only take about 2 mins. Drain on a paper towel. Serve piled high with lemon wedges. 

ALSO TRY: Sprinkled with fresh Italian parsley or parmesan.
HAVE WITH: Thinly sliced boiled potatoes garnished with olive oil, salt and cracked pepper.

Enjoy

Ingrid X 

Smoked Fish Pate

I was 21 when I got my first proper fishing rod, my boyfriend at the time bought it for me and we embarked on numerous trips, trying different bait, different locations, by boat, on wharf, surfcasting from the beach and all were pretty miserable - not one fish was caught that year, so my love affair of fishing ended and so did my romance.

Takes only a few minutes to prepare but tastes like you've spent the whole day making it

These days, I envy those who can fish, I never realised how aligned everything needs to be in order to hook a 'big in'. Weather patterns, moon phases, the right hook, bait, sinker. . . now I just leave it up to the experts, which is usually the Auckland Fish Market - which is exciting in itself just to visit and see the different species, colors, shapes as well as a great place for fish n chips, and a cold beer.


It was also recommended in our Best eating places to take the kids list, as it has a massive courtyard with a sandpit, and also the marine inspired playground across the road.

The whole reason for this post, is because my neighbour, Steve, turned up with some Smoked Kingfish, caught from a recent trip to Whananaki, (40 minutes drive northeast of Whangarei, North Island, New Zealand) he hooked a 35lb Kingfish and my, what a catch! It's was quite a dry texture, so I decided the best thing to do was to make a quick pate/ dip for lunch. 


Because the pate was so easy to make, and I'm never one to rest on any success, I decided to make the bread as well, which unfortunately went the same way as my fishing - lets just say it was super crunchy, and enjoyed as soon as it exited the oven, but a few hours later, it was used for cricket balls in a match in the backyard.


So what went wrong with my bread? 
Type of bread: Italian style Cottage Loaf from the book Italian Home Baking by Gino D'Acampo 


Ingredients: 680g strong white flour, extra for dusting: 2 tsp salt : 10g fast-action dried yeast : 400ml water, warm : Olive oil for brushing

How to make: Brush tray with oil. Mix flour, salt, yeast in a bowl. Make well in centre. Pour in water and mix to a firm dough. Add more flour if necessary. Transfer to floured surface and knead for 10mins until smooth and elastic. Brush inside of another bowl with oil and place dough. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in warm place for an hour (I used my hot water cupboard and I left it for 3 hours!!!). Turn the dough out on floured surface and punch down. Knead for 3 mins and divide into two thirds and one-third, shape each into a ball (I divided the dough into 12 rolls). Place on oiled tray. Brush the tops with oil (I also added sesame seeds) Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for a further 30 mins. (I left it for about an hour and when I saw how much they had risen, I thought, my rolls were way too BIG, so I re-sized them into smaller rolls - round shaped and oblong, not really kneading the dough much again, just reshaping). Preheat oven to 220C. Bake on the bottom of the oven for 40mins until loaf is golden. Serve warm.

The Outcome: My rolls were too hard and too dense.
So folks, if you have any answers, let me know in the comments below


Steve's wife and ex chef, Johanna recommended: Use the dough hook on your kitchen mix, you may not have kneaded the bread enough.


Moving on to my pate, which thankfully was a triumph and as I said so simple to whip up, if your lucky enough to have a smoked fish dropped off at the front door. However this would also work with supermarket bought smoked fish, or even tinned salmon, tuna or sardines. Enjoy, Ingrid

Smoked Kingfish Pate or dip
What you need
200g kingfish (or any smoked fish or a tin of salmon, tuna, sardines)
250g cream cheese (softened - i.e. leave it out of the fridge for awhile)
4 tbsp milk
50g capers 
1/2 lemon (juice of, and grate some zest)
salt and pepper (to taste)


How to make
In a bowl, put cream cheese, milk, lemon juice, zest and fold through flaked fish and capers. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill until needed. Serve with crackers or crusty bread.

How to style food for a magazine

Recently Vanessa and I were commissioned to style and take some photo's for a fabulous magazine called NZ Life & Leisure. Each year they put out a special title and this year it was The Insiders Guide to New Zealand showcasing NZ's top spots to visit for food, where to stay, people to meet and things to do . I thought it would interesting to share our experience and also one of the recipes from the day, that we tucked into with gusto.

  

THE BRIEF: To photograph four recipes (Kingfish Tartare, Kedgeree, Chargrilled Lamb Steaks with Smoky Capsicum Salsa and Avocado Salad) in a relaxed casual style making sure it was a good fit with the other recipes in the magazine (which were stock images from a variety of photographers and stylists) and also to compliment the colours used in each section of the magazine.

Words used were: Country style : relaxed : natural light : a little bit of depth of field (background blur): unstaged : unfussy

We were given pdf proofs of mockups of the magazine from the Art Director (which is virtually unheard of!) which gave us a great overview of the style and feel of the mag, and also the colours of each section (which were segmented by different places to visit in NZ)

What plates, cutlery and props to use? Our setups before the food arrived.

THE SHOOT:

We decided to keep it very simple, with muted colour and let the food be the focal point. We choose to shoot above if the food was quite flat, and we choose a 3/4 front on angle if the food could be piled high.

PROPS USED: Muslin cloth (great for creating a relaxed style, as the edges of the muslin roll up which create a nice subtle effect, old enamel plates - different sizes stacked on top of each other, old wooden boards, white painted wooden boards create a marine/ seaside feel to the shot especially good if your photographing seafood, red fry pan to compliment the capsicum salsa and to add colour as meat (Lamb steaks) can sometimes be quite dull. Lemons cut in different ways always add a freshness to a dish.

The recipes were supplied to us, so make sure you double check you have all the right ingredients showing in the photo. An avocado salad ain't an Avo salad if you forget the AVO!

CAMERA USED: Canon 550D - shooting in RAW and JPG - As the photos are retouched in house we supplied both RAW and JPEG files on disk to the Art Director with minimal retouching, only a bit of contrast. No sharpening.

SHOOTING FROM ABOVE: Used the standard kit lens 18-55mm. ISO: 100 f:11 We always had an aperture of 11 as this is the best aperture to have everything in focus.

SHOOTING FROM THE FRONT: Lens Used: 100m 2.8 ISO: 100 f:3.2 plus tripod

Kingfish Tartare: Old enamel plates and boards painted white add to the seaside theme.

THE PROCESS:
We choose two dishes each and shopped and prepared each one at our own house - cutting up chillies or chives, cooking rice - anything that could be made ahead of the shoot. We decided to shoot at Vanessa's house, on her front porch as it was a bright but overcast day - perfect for photographing food.

As Vanessa is definitely the better cook out of the two of us -  she took over the cooking, and styling of the food whilst I went ahead and set up the different props and table settings, set up the camera, reflector board and tripod. It was a very simple setup, as the light was perfect. I did a white balance using a white card and holding it in frame and setting it in my camera, which I did at various times throughout the day as the light changed.

Mistakes made, lesson learned
We had some very 'blonde' experiences, and the wine wasn't even opened yet! We forgot the Avocado in the Avocado salad, we kept saying, 'what a weird looking salad', 'how bland', 'only broad beans?', 'not very appealing' and shot a few frames before it dawned on us what we had omitted. We also didn't realise that broad beans needed to be popped out of their shells - and again took a lot of frames with them looking grey and lifeless.


TIPS

• Prepare your table settings prior to any food being cooked, set up your plate/ dish/ cutlery etc
• Re read any recipe you are commissioned to style or photograph - if you forget anything important, your shoot is ruined!
• keep it simple, less is more, always try to remove one item from your table setting and see if it improves the shot
• Always refer back to your brief - there is a reason why you've been given it
• Be decisive. Don't take truckloads of photos of the same setup. Take three at different apertures, and move on. You will appreciate it at editing stage.
• Get it right in camera. Make sure your lighting is right and no random crumbs, spots or dribbles are showing. Again, you will appreciate at editing stage, not having to clone out horrible fingermarks you didn't remove when you could.

Best dish of the day: Thumbs up to Anna Tait - Jamieson (Life & Leisure's Food Editor) for creating this very exciting dish - a great blend of flavours and textures. We hope we did it justice in our photographs.

Kedgeree
Recipe extracted from The Insiders Guide to New Zealand

Serves 4
What you need:
milk to poach (about 2 cups)
500g smoked fish
2 tablespoons of butter
1 onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cream
2 cups cooked rice (1 cup raw)
1 tablespoon chopped chives
4 eggs
juice of 1 lemon

How to make
Bring milk to the boil in a large fry pan, reduce heat then add fish and poach gently for 3-4 min. Discard milk and when fish has cooled sufficiently, break into large flakes.
Clean out fry pan then saute onion, celery and garlic in butter until softened. Add ginger and spices, stir and cook for 1 minute then add cream.
Simmer for another minute before adding cooked rice and fish.
Heat through then add chives. Remove from heat and keep warm while poaching the eggs. Squeeze lemon juice over each serving and top with a poached egg.

Asian style snapper

If only we caught it ourselves...

Fishy facts 

• Fish have been on the earth for more than 450 million years and were well established long before dinosaurs roamed the earth.
• Fish is a good source of protein, low in saturated fat, and filled with omega-3 fatty acids which are good for the heart and brain.
• Populations that eat fish regularly live longer and have less chronic disease than populations that do not.
• Recent research suggests that supplementing the diet with omega-3 fatty acids not only can reduce these risks but can also help treat depression, bipolar disorder, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Fish is, indeed, a brain food.

We have been shooting, eating and posting images to our flickr site in the hope that we can tap into photo libraries and publications buying our images. We realised if New Zealand based companies wanted our images we needed more New Zealand stuff which is why we decided to tackle fish for this food fight. 

We are blessed to live very close to beaches both East and West coast and and you would think that fish would be plentiful. Fish is of course available, however New Zealand fish is expensive. A fish we remember as kids and our parents too is Snapper. Our Mum remembers her father after work taking the dingy out and catching a bucket load for dinner. Today its a day event, usually chartering a boat for a hefty fee and there is never the guarantee of anything never mind the prime snapper. 

Snapper used to be de rigure at the fish n chip shop, now is the premium option battered or crumbed for a tidy $6-8 dollars per piece. Snapper fillets are usually $30 - $35 dollars per kg! Maybe chartering the boat isn't such a bad option!

Whenever Ingrid and I come up with an idea we are both itching to get started. With work and kids its often difficult so when I decided to drive tired Jake around the place looking for the perfect fish to shoot I opted for the most convenient option, a gourmet supermarket en route home. At the local mega supermarket the previous weekend, I noticed lots of interesting types of fish both whole and fillets so thought a gourmet supermarket will also stock the range however the price will be ridiculous.  

How wrong was I! They had fillets of white fleshy fish, large tiger prawns, Morten bay bugs, scampi, fish roe, salmon, oysters and even paua. Where were the ice-trays of glistening and shiny whole fish? 

Me: 'Have you got any whole fish?"

Fishmonger: "HUH whole fish, we don't usually do whole fish here" 

Me: "What, why not?"

Fishmonger: "You are on the North Shore love, the people here want fillets"  

Fishmonger: " Its your lucky day though, we have a few baby snappers if you want them"

Me: "Are they fresh?" (I laugh at this question as of course he's going to say yes even if its not!"

Fishmonger: "Yeah, they came in this morning" (I am thinking where from?)

He shows me 2 baby snapper barely legal size

Me: "OK just one please"

Me:  " Make it 2, I feel sorry for the one left behind"

So I walk out of the shop with 2 baby snapper in a fancy gourmet supermarket bag and $20 lighter in the pocket and a grizzly child. 

The plan - early to bed for Jake so I can cook, shoot and eat.

Fresh snapper 

Grilled baby Snapper Asian style

Asian style snapper

What you need

Whole fish, gutted and scaled (1 per person or a large one for the table)

Olive oil

Sea salt

Fresh lemons

Coriander 

Oyster sauce

Seasoning - I added a touch of chili and lime store bought seasoning

How to make 

Score the fish on both sides (deep cuts) This makes it look good, shortens the grilling time and gives you a look in to see if its cooked. 

Place on baking paper and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning/salt.

Turn the grill on and when its hot cook the the fish for about 5 mins on a tray close to the element. 

When its brown and cooked through, gently turn and do the same to the other side. 

When cooked, transfer to serving plates and squeeze lemon juice on to the fish, drizzle with oyster sauce and sprinkle with chopped coriander.

Suggestion -You could warm the oyster or soy or chili sauce and serve as condiments on the side.  

How to eat

Eat one side first, off the bone but be careful of the small bones. When done remove the entire bone and discard and start on the second side. If you are game like Lewis, tuck into the head too!

Before and After - be careful of the bones!