Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book (60 page)

Clean and rinse the clams. Place the clams in 2 inches of water in a pot, cover, and cook over medium heat until the clams open. Remove the clams and set aside. (Discard any that do not open.) Pour the clam juice through cheesecloth and set the juice aside.

Place a separate pot over low heat and add enough EVOO to coat the bottom. Add the garlic and onion and lightly brown. Add the clam juice and parsley. Cook for 30 minutes. Add the clams and simmer for 15 minutes.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil for the spaghetti. When the water boils, add salt and the pasta. Cook to al dente and drain.

Serve the clam sauce over the hot spaghetti.

Grandpa Vic's Xmas Eve Seafood Salad

In our youth, Christmas Eve was a major family event, spent at our grandmother's house. Fish and seafood were the mainstay of the traditional dishes served that evening. It was quite a scene, with our mother, grandmother, and all of our aunts cooking for hours on end. Lots of female bonding was taking place, which is the best part of cooking with family for family.

Our parents always brought the seafood salad, which our father prepared ahead of time. Everyone loved it. It was his signature dish and he served it with great pride. Long after our mother passed away, he continued to bring it to family functions. The year before he died, we had Christmas Eve at our sister's house. We all noticed that his seafood salad was not up to par. Tactfully, we asked what recipe he had used and he told us that his fish store had made the salad for him. For the first and only time it was store bought. It was quite a revelation. —Vicki and Annette

SERVES 20 TO 25

Fill a large pot halfway with water and bring to a boil. Add the lobsters and cook until the shells are bright red, 10 to 12 minutes. Use tongs to remove the lobsters from the pot and let them cool.

While the lobsters cool, add half the shrimp to the same pot the lobsters were cooked in and cook for 2 minutes or until they are just pink; use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked shrimp to a bowl to cool. Repeat with the remaining shrimp. When all the shrimp are cool, cut them in half and place them in a large mixing bowl.

In the same pot, cook the scallops for 5 minutes, or until tender. Scoop from the water with a slotted spoon and let cool. Repeat with the calamari, cooking for 5 minutes or until tender. Scoop from the water with a slotted spoon and let cool. Discard all but 2 cups of the cooking water.

When the lobsters are cool enough to handle, crack the shells and remove the meat. Cut it into bite-size pieces and add it to the bowl with the shrimp. Add the cooled scallops and calamari.

Stir together the chopped celery, garlic, and parsley and add them to the bowl, stirring to distribute them throughout the seafood. Add the juice of 8 lemons, the EVOO, and the cooled seafood-cooking liquid and stir again. Refrigerate the salad, stirring every 6 to 8 hours. Just before serving add more lemon juice and EVOO to taste.

When we were growing up, a pot of this sauce would always be on the stove when we got home from church. Sunday dinner was served at about two o'clock, so preparations started at about eight in the morning. Every time we walked by the stove one of us would take a sample of a meatball from the pot or dip a piece of bread into the sauce, sprinkle it with cheese, and munch away. John's grandma Rose (our mother) always made plenty, knowing that a good portion of it would disappear before it ever made it to the dinner table. —Vicki and Annette

SERVES 10 TO 12

Heat the EVOO in a large, wide pot. Add the coarsely chopped onion and 2 of the minced garlic cloves and cook over medium-high heat until lightly browned, 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes with their juices, and bring to a simmer.

Prick the sausages 6 or 8 times with a fork and place them in a frying pan with ½ inch of water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook until the water evaporates, turning the sausages frequently. When the water has cooked off, cook the sausages a minute or two longer to brown, then add them, whole, to the sauce.

To make the meatballs, mix the ground beef, half the finely chopped onion, the raw egg, bread crumbs, cheese, 2 teaspoons of the oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Mix the ingredients well and shape into 2-inch meatballs. Add them to the simmering sauce.

Using a mallet, pound the round steak until it is uniformly thin. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, 2 teaspoons of the oregano, 1 tablespoon of parsley, and the remaining minced garlic, and finely chopped onion. Crumble the hard-boiled egg over the meat. Roll the meat into a log and tie with string or secure with wooden toothpicks. Add the rolled steak to the sauce.

Sprinkle the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of pepper, 4 teaspoons of oregano, and 2 tablespoons of parsley, and the basil over the sauce. Cook on low to medium heat for 4 to 6 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. Serve with your favorite pasta.

You can add any leftover meat from the refrigerator such as pork chops, chicken, or veal cutlets to the pot, and you can also add pork or beef ribs. For this particular dish, the more meat the merrier!

Whenever people say someone was a “saint,” our mother always comes to mind. She was a wonderfully easygoing person and a very docile and domesticated wife (after all, it was the fifties). We all loved this dish and it was served not only for the family, but also for company. In retrospect, her patience must have been stretched to the limit during the preparation of this and a few other dishes that our father felt needed his attention, and he would always oversee any recipes that involved cleaning seafood. On those occasions the kitchen became a battleground, with her against her four offspring looking for a sample (clams, either cooked or raw, were our favorite) and our father “helping” her clean the calamari—whether she was ready or not—and giving instructions to a woman who basically didn't need any! —Vicki and Annette

SERVES 4 TO 6

Heat the EVOO in a large, wide pot over low heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until lightly browned; do not burn the garlic. Add the crushed tomatoes, raise the heat to medium, and simmer for 15 minutes. While the sauce cooks, break the whole tomatoes into pieces with a wooden spoon.

Split the lobsters and clean out the body cavity. Cut the lobster halves in pieces and crack the claws. Add the lobster, shrimp, clams, mussels, calamari, and scallops to the sauce. Add the oregano, parsley, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook on low to medium heat for 45 minutes. Serve over the pasta of your choice.