Quarantine Cooking: Shellfish Squid Ink Pasta

Last night I was excited for squid ink pasta festooned with its shelled cousins, and as predicted, hubs was not down for it. He ate leftover spaghetti marinara with Italian sausage and garlic toast instead while I set out the ingredients: squid spaghetti, defrosted crab meat, lemon, garlic, shallot, mussels, cherrystone clams, shrimp.

I chopped the shallot and parsley,minced and macerated the garlic with sea salt, microplaned the lemon zest and squeezed lemon juice.

I threw the pasta and lemon peels into boiling water for 7 minutes before draining it.

In a skillet, I sauteed the shallots in butter and garlic oil for a good 6 minutes before adding the garlic to saute for another minute or two. I then deglazed the pan with some of my Chardonnay and added to that some clam juice that was in my fridge, the lemon juice, and a bit of heavy cream to cook down before adding all the shellfish.

I covered the simmering fish, but then thought no, there's a lot of cooking liquid that needs to evaporate as much as possible and I also did not want the shellfish to get rubbery and tough before adding the pasta and parsley and grated lemon zest to the pan.

Even though there was a bit too much cooking liquid (which I should have probably thickened by adding flour to the aromatics), I added the pasta which was perfectly al dente and greenery.

Delicious y'all, and I was so impatient to eat that I didn't properly plate for a proper photo capture of a satisfying meal. I did reserve the extra cooking liquid to boil more squid ink pasta and add more shellfish to and had a little extra leftover pasta for a late evening snack--yeah I prefer my carbs savory rather than sweet. 

I also was too lazy to make a stone fruit galette, which I think I'll make this afternoon after laundry and walking the dog in the park.