Fish All’Acqua Pazza Cooking Recipe – Pesce All’acqua Pazza Cooking Recipe
Fish cooked in aequo pazza, meaning “crazy water,” is a typically southern Italian recipe. The fish is cooked in a broth scented with various flavorings and tomatoes. This is a very simple recipe particularly used for a fish called pezzogna (porgy or red sea bream in English), but one that also works well for cooking other fish.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 fish approximately 3 lb. (1.5 kg) (red mullet, sea bream, umbra, bass, etc.)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 stick celery
- 1 carrot
- ⅔ cup (150 ml) olive oil
- 1 cup (250 ml) white wine
- 10 oz. (300 g) cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
- 1 red chili
- 4 sprigs of parsley
- Salt
Cooking Method
- Place the cleaned fish in a medium-size pan (1) with all the ingredients and 2 glasses of water.
- Cook over moderate heat and remove as soon as the fish is cooked (about 20 minutes from the moment the water reaches boiling point) (2), and serve with the cooking juices and the tomatoes.
- The fish is cooked when the eyeballs turn completely white.
Mollusks, Shelljish, and Crustaceans Cooking Recipe
Cleaning cuttlefish, extracting the ink
- Separate the head with tentacles attached from the body.
- Remove the membrane that envelops the body and the transparent, quill-like cartilage.
- Open the cuttlefish out flat and clean the inside, making sure not to break the ink sac.
- You’ll recognize this sac by its mother-of-pearl color (1).
- Separate it and set aside in a small glass dish.
- Rinse the body and place it on paper towel.
- Cut off the tentacles just below the eyes using scissors (2); remove the beak (mouth) made of cartilage that is found in the middle of the tentacles (3), rinse everything well.
Cleaning calamari
Cleaning calamari, squid, and baby squid is the same as for the cuttlefish Separate the body from the head and tentacles (1) Empty the squid and remove the quill (2) The ink found in calamari is not particularly tasty but you can keep the calamari tubes for stuffing Rinse them and remove the membrane (3). Cut off the tentacles just below the eyes (4) Rinse everything well.
Cleaning sea urchins and extracting the tongues
Turn over the sea urchin and using scissors cut the entire perimeter around the small opening to create a hat shape, allowing you to open it up by a third (1) Using a spoon, gently retrieve the tongue (orange/yellow) (2) and place it in a small dish (3) (Be careful the tongues do not come into contact with fresh water, as there is a risk of them dissolving.) Discard the rest of the sea urchin.
Cleaning octopus
Turn the body inside out, rinse, then turn back to its initial position. Remove the eyes with scissors just above the tentacles and cut off the beak that is found in the middle of them; rinse and wipe dry with a paper towel. The cleaning process is the same for moscardini, baby octopuses that are recognizable by a single row of suction cups on their tentacles instead of the two rows that octopuses have.
