Italian Seafood Stew - Impressive + Easy Recipe

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The best Italian seafood stew recipe made with gorgeous tiger prawns and mussels. This is an incredibly easy, impressive Mediterranean-inspired one-pot stew that is done in under 30 minutes.

Coastal Mediterranean areas are responsible for some of the most amazing seafood and fish stews anywhere in the world. Italy, Spain, France, Greece and Portugal all have fine offerings for an amazingly tasty dinner which not surprisingly all have similar origins. 

Many of these dishes such as the French classic bouillabaisse which comes from Marseille, were designed using the smaller fish which weren’t easily sold to the restaurants. As such the fishermen would take these home, boil the fish up in a rustic stew and serve with bread and rouille. The word bouillabaisse is made up of the words meaning boil and reduce. The Italian Tuscan fish stew known as Cacciucco has a similar story and its name comes from the Turkish kaçukli meaning odds and ends. However, these dishes have translated well to the restaurant scene and even though to be authentically original and faithful to their humble beginnings, these dishes do have certain aspects that they must contain. Bouillabaisse for example must have rascasse (scorpionfish), sea robin and european conger. Cacciucco is said to have to contain a fish beginning with each letter in its name but of course, most now get embellished with other expensive ingredients such as monkfish, langoustines, crevettes, clams or lobsters.

Other noticeable differences will be the flavour pairings that come from the local herbs and spices and specialist ingredients known to the area such as rice, pasta or vegetables. The Spanish fideuà, which is a seafood stew similar to paella, is named after the amount of noodles it is made with. This wonderful extra texture gives a sublime pairing for seafood and one we have particularly taken inspiration from in our italian seafood stew. The other inspiration we have taken from this spanish classic is the use of meat in a seafood dish too. Paella, uses the smoky and spicy nature of chorizo to flavour the rice and broth which is adorned with mussels, prawns and squid. In Italy, they too have wonderfully flavoursome smoked and spicy sausages and especially in Calabria they make irresistibly spicy ones which we have used in our stew to impart a characterful depth of flavour.

Some ingredients appear in many of these Mediterranean dishes. However very different the end result these countries dishes are, the usual suspects always pop up. Namely tomatoes, wine, fennel and saffron. Some form of carbohydrate whether potato, rice or pasta adds substance to the dish too. Such as the noodles that a fideuà uses we have opted to use pasta and in this case pennette rigate which is a very thin quill, much finer than its cousin penne. This is an Italian seafood stew after all. The star of the show, and of course to make this a seafood stew are crevettes. Large, succulent prawns as big as your wrist that with the shells left on give such an amazing flavour. Peeling them at the table also adds to the fun of the dish too. These crevettes can be expensive so you could use smaller varieties instead. 

How to make this easy Italian seafood stew

Picking and choosing our way through these amazing flavoursome Meditteranean seafood stews and refining our choice of ingredients, one other important point to mention is the preparation technique. Our aim is to bring the restaurant experience and quality of food to your home, flavourise the ingredients you have but at the same time make your experience of cooking and preparing your food fun and easy. With this incredible Italian seafood stew we have minimised the work you do. The ingredients do the work themselves. A little bit of peeling and cutting these ingredients all then meld together in one pot and cooks in only 25 minutes.

For the seafood aspect, you can as restaurants do, play around with your ingredients. Large crevettes add a decadence and as such this dish can quite easily be a showstopper and served to guests for an extravagant dinner party, but you could easily use lobster tails, langoustines or monkfish too. A fish with a meaty texture works well. We have used mussels too, and store bought mussels which have been pre-cooked are easy to find. We recommend using ones that come with just their own juices rather than a sauce as you would need to discard the sauce otherwise, and anyway the mussel juices add flavour to the stew. Of course you can use fresh mussels, but they tend to come in much larger packs and we are only using 200g. Clams alternatively would work very well. If you don’t want to go up in budget then just use king prawns or salmon fillets.

For one last Italian bit of flare and even though we have taken inspiration from all these Mediterranean countries, we have wanted to create our own Italian seafood stew. A generous grating of parmesan cheese over the whole lot gratinates and browns beautifully and adds that extra umami and salty flavour dimension to finish the dish off perfectly.

Ingredients

• First of all, the base. One peeled potato finely cubed, one chopped onion, half a chopped fennel with some garlic and the irresistibly spicy calabrian sausage . We have found that fennel and potato have appeared in many Mediterranean seafood dishes and even over world and work well to give flavour and texture. These are just fried off very quickly in a dash of good olive oil in a heavy-based dish. The sausage adds spice and a depth of smoky flavour.
• Next, we add tinned chopped tomatoes and white wine, Italian of course. You will have some juice from the mussels, so add this too. 
• Add a few strands of saffron and some fresh oregano and rosemary. Saffron is perhaps the most notable thread throughout these traditional fish stews from paella to bouillabaisse. Saffron and seafood is just a match made in heaven. Oregano is a very traditional Italian flavouring herb. The rosemary may raise an eyebrow or two, however, in Italy, it pairs very well with cheese and potato which also appear in this dish.
• With only a gentle heat on the stove, stir all these ingredients together then add the pennette rigate. If this pasta variety is not available then use risoni, or thin macaroni.
• Arrange the crevettes / giant prawns on top and liberally grate the parmesan over. Then place in a hot oven for 20 minutes
• Last of all, take the pot out of the oven and arrange the mussels around and place back in the oven for a final five minutes as the mussels only need to heat up. If you are using fresh mussels, add them ten minutes before the end rather than five minutes.

When the pot comes out of the oven, it is bubbling and the top is brown. The giant prawns are cooked perfectly as is the pasta. The wine, fennel, saffron and spicy Calabrian sausage have all added a depth of beautiful flavour. The dish is surprisingly light but the potato and pasta makes it filling. It is the perfect recipe for a sun-drenched day to serve to friends and family and it has a definite wow factor. Your secret though of how quick and easy it is to make can stay with you though.

As this is a one-pot wonder, you really don’t need to serve it with anything, but a little Italian toasting bread won’t go amiss. Just make sure you have a decent bottle of white wine to wash it all down with.

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