Spaghetti con Cozze e Marinara

 

If there's one thing that's true about Italian Christmas, it's that there's got to be some seafood on the table. In Bryan's family, Christmas even usually involves some form of calamari dish. In fact, our very first blog post was of Bryan's family's Christmas Eve dinner. So today, we're highlighting a delicious seafood dish that is perfect for Christmas, but is quick and easy enough to grace your table any night of the week.

Spaghetti con Cozze is a very traditional Italian dish, but every recipe we've found for it is a white sauce, where the spaghetti is coated simply with the white wine reduction and liquor from the mussels. That's all well and good, but we love red sauce. So, we mixed some in to create Spaghetti con Cozze e Marinara. It's a delight.

Making the Dish

Mussels, cleaned and de bearded.

To get started, get yourself some fresh mussels, clean them, and de-beard them. That's a weird word, but what it means is to take that little hairy looking thing sticking out from the shell and pull it off. It sounds grosser than it actually is, trust us.

Sautéing the garlic and red pepper.

In a large saucepan, sauté two to three diced cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of crushed red pepper in olive oil for a minute or two until the garlic starts to smell delicious and just barely starts to caramelize.

Adding the mussels to the pan with wine.

Then, quickly toss in the mussels and toss everything around, and very quickly after that, add in about a cup of white wine. You'll want to do this quickly because the garlic will still be in direct contact with the heat until you add the wine, and you don't want it to burn.

Patiently awaiting cooked mussels

Cover the pan and let the mussels steam in the boiling wine steam for about 5 - 7 minutes. Open the pan to check and see if all of the mussels have opened. Remove the ones that have opened at this point and place them in a separate bowl, and let any that are unopened cook for a few more minutes. After 3 - 4 more minutes remove the newly opened mussels, and throw out any that haven't opened.

The cooked mussels, removed from the pan as the sauce reduces.

With the mussels sitting in a bowl, let the wine reduce by about half. This should take about five minutes. You can start cooking your spaghetti at this point. Remember, with the spaghetti, cook it in salted water for one minute shy of the package directions.

Add one cup of good tomato sauce to the reduced wine and stir to combine. You want only enough to coat the spaghetti - the star of this dish is the mussels, the tomato sauce just provides a bit of extra flavor. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the mussels back to the sauce and stir around for a few minutes, letting the flavors combine. Then, remove the mussels again to a separate bowl so that you can more easily toss the spaghetti in the sauce.

Tossing the spaghetti, sauce, and mussels together. 

Once the spaghetti is done, add it directly to the sauce with a ladleful of cooking water, if necessary. Add in some freshly chopped parsley, and then toss to combine. When done, throw the mussels and their juices over everything and gently toss together. Then serve and enjoy!

The Result
As simple as this dish is, it really tastes quite fantastic. The sauce is a simple endeavor meant to provide coating to the pasta and additional flavor. Twirl up some spaghetti, spear a mussel, and taste everything together. You won't be disappointed!

Don't forget to check out the first installment of our Italian Christmas series - sausages with fennel and olives. Serve that as a main with this Spaghetti con Cozze e Marinara as the primi, and your guests will be completely satisfied!

Click through for the full ingredients list

Spaghetti con Cozze e Marinara

Written by: Herbie Likes Spaghetti

Quick and easy, this is a perfect dish when you're craving seafood

Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min

(Serves: 2)

1/2 lb spaghetti
12 - 16 fresh mussels
1 cup white wine
1 cup marinara sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley
1 tsp crushed red pepper
salt and pepper to taste