Cookaholics Bulletin Board

What about snail mail or is it shellfish of me to ask?

Mary

Mary,

Sorry, snail-mail can only be used for sending snails. Which are traditional for paella, but not as a substitute for crab. I could send you a couple dozen from my garden though.

I guess you can't get crabby, even if you want to.

You people are giving me a haddock!

Fuzzy
I sea where you are going with this but am floundering to try to find a response.

Becky,
Sorry but as an a-FISH-onado trapped in an land locked country I do tend to a pain in the bass about this subject.

Mary

Amy - how come these people don't have go to their room???
All this whaling without porpoise is ... oh, you get the idea

Tommy was rockin' the place with a very popular tuna
Salmon Chanted Evening
And the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers
Probably there to see the bass player

Jewfish around long enough with the right bait you’ll catch the info you’re fishing for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5QjOZHlWZk

WET DREAM
Kip Addotta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l1GvDWtccI


It was April the 41st - it being a quadruple leap year - and I was driving in downtown Atlantis.
My Barracuda was in the shop so I was driving a red Stingray, and it was overheating,
so I pulled into a Shell station.
They said I'd blown a seal.
I said, "Fix the damn thing and leave my private life out of it, okay?"

While they were doing that I went across the street to the Oyster Bar - real dive.
But I knew the owner, Gill, 'cause he used to play ball the Dolphins.
I said, "HI,GILL!" - you have to yell, he's hard of herring.

So I bellied up the sand bar, ordered a Rusty Snail, hold the grunion,
with a peanut butter and jelly fish sandwich on the side, heavy on the maco.
I was feeling good.
I even dropped a sand dollar in the box for Jerry's Squids, for the halibut.

Well, the place was crowded.
We were packed in like sardines.
They were probably there to hear the Big Band sounds of Tommy Dorsil.
He was rockin' the place with a very popular tuna: Salmon-chanted Evening
and the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers - probably there to see the bass player.

Well, one of them was this cute little yellow tail, and she's givin' me the eye.
So I figured this was my chance for a little fun - you know, piece of Pisces...
but she said things I just couldn't fathom, she was too deep - seemed to be under a lot of pressure.
And boy could she drink.
She drank like a... she drank a lot.

And then she gives me that same old line, "Not tonight, I gotta haddock."
And she wasn't kiddin' either, 'cause in walked the biggest, meanest lookin' haddock
I'd ever seen come down the pike.
He was covered with muscles.
He said, "Hey, shrimp, don't you come trollin' around here."
I said, "Abalone, you're just bein' shelfish."

Well, I could tell there was gonna be trouble and so could Gill 'cause he was already
on the phone to the cods.
The haddock hit me with a sucker punch.
I landed him with a left hook.
He eeled over.
It was a fluke, but there he was lying on the deck flat as a mackerel.

I said, "Forget the cods, Gill, this guy's gonna need a sturgeon."
Well, the yellow tail was pretty impressed with the way I landed her boyfriend.
She said, "Hey, big buoy, you're really a game fish.
What's your name?" I said..., "Marlin."

After that we had a whale of a time.
I took her to dinner.
I took her to dance.
I even bought her a bouquet of flounders, on porpoise.
And what did I get for my troubles?
A case of the clams.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

I loved the artichoke recipe Nancy. I used chicken broth to braise it in. I thought it worked perfectly with my meal. Next time I will be a little more ruthless with how many leaves I strip as a few were a bit too hard. Thanks again for sharing the recipe.

Mary

Mary,

Seriously, let me give you the basics of the recipe, because it works with frozen shrimp too.

10 oz "fideo" noodles*
1 large globe artichoke (around 1lbs)
3-5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp smoked paprika (pimenton)
3 tbs olive oil
1 cup diced fresh tomatoes OR one 14oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 large red bell pepper or other ripe sweet pepper, diced, about 3/4 cup
1 lbs large or jumbo shrimp, thawed, shells removed and reserved.
salt
water
1/4 cup minced parsley
12" or 13" round-bottomed skillet, preferably nonstick, oven-proof
small pot
small bowl filled with water and 1 tbs fresh lemon juice.

Pour around 3 cups water in the small pot, and bring to a simmer with the shrimp shells in it. Turn off, cover and keep warm.

Meanwhile, extract the artichoke heart and slice it. Drop it in the lemon water to prevent browning while you get the rest ready.

Heat the olive oil in the pan over high heat. Drop in the diced pepper and the garlic, and fry for a couple minutes, stirring. Drain the artichoke slices and dry them with a towel, and then drop them in to fry. Stir for a couple of minutes, and then add noodles and the paprika. Fry for a minute or so (stirring) and add the diced tomatoes. After another minute, add the shrimp, and mix. Turn heat down slightly. You may need to heat the oven at this point (see below).

Continue to cook on the stovetop for 10 minutes or so, and add the shrimp-shell water a bit at a time, waiting for the noodles to absorb it, not stirring it up anymore. Add salt to taste as well. You want the noodles to absorb all the water, so don't add too much at once ... the water should never cover the noodles. You'll probably only use 2 cups of it (yes, I failed to measure how much I used) At this point, if you have a really hot stove, you can just cover the pan loosely and leave it for 5-10 minutes to finish cooking on the stovetop. If you have a wimpy stove like mine, you'll need to finish the paella in a 425F oven for 10 minutes.

When it's done, the noodle mixture will "fluff up" in the pan, expanding. Sprinkle with the minced parsley and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Serve, making sure to scrape up the tasty burned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Dungeness crab version: use plain water. Break the crab down into leg segments and crack them. Extract the meat from the body segments. Add the crab at the same time as the tomato.

* Fideo noodles are little tiny noodles, around 0.5mm thick and 2cm long. They are also called "filini" in Italian. If you can't find them, buy capellini sold in "nests" and crush the nests.