A complete fish dinner: shrimp, clams, swordfish

We had my brother and Donna over last night for a complete fish dinner.

Here's the dinner menu:

Chunks of parmigiano and a glass of cold, crisp wine
Shrimp salad on a bed of lettuce
Clams sauté with French toasted bread
Swordfish basically Sicilian style
Sliced pineapple

For the shrimp salad:
The rosy pink shrimp salad was served on a bed of iceberg lettuce, shaved carrots, shaved red cabbage, a quartered tomato and red thinly cut onion rings.(For the shrimp mix: clean and devein shrimp and boil unpeeled quickly with onion, celery, garlic, and a carrot. Cool, peel, and then add: a little olive oil, some mayonnaise, diced celery and onion, salt, pepper) top with paprika.

For the clams:
Toast 8 thick slices of French bread and set aside--two per platter. Wash the clams well several times in ice cold water. Let sit for awhile and rinse again.

Place in a fry pan on high heat to open. Remove them from the broth, and pass the broth through a sieve with a paper towel. In the same rinsed and dried huge fry pan, add hot pepper, garlic and olive oil...when the garlic was golden, add the clams, broth a hit of vino (Pinot Grigio because that's what we were drinking...and it;s always a good idea to cook with the wine you're drinking) and chopped cilantro.

Hint: NEVER add salt to clams or mussels , if made as a "zuppa" (broth).

For the swordfish:

a little smidgen of olive oil
a little bit tomato
a little shot glass of vino
a little piece of sliced onion
a little minced clove of garlic
a few teaspoons of some capers,
a handful of black olives,
a smattering of cilantro.
(And a partridge in a pear tree!)

Instructions:
Salt and pepper the fish--may use garlic powder, if desired.

Heat the olive oil and cook the fish a few minutes on each side. Remove and add the onions, garlic and fry till golden. Add vino--only about 1/2 a glass. Add tomato. Cook down. Add the juices of the fish. Turn off and add: capers, olives (I use the squiishy Greek ones and pit them...always pit olives! and cilantro. return the fish and simmer.

Don't overcook it. Fish doesn't need a lot of cooking...I implore you. Poke it with a fork for doneness!

Make sure you take your time serving each dish, or the company will not be able to finish the meal! After the dinner--take a longer break, and then serve the fruit.

A little discussion of LEFTOVERS

I had huge pieces of fresh swordfish, one piece was leftover. Today with that piece I will make a pasta sauce and serve with linguini or spaghetti.

For Christmas I made very large ( as in almost the size of a lb lobster) stuffed tails with clams, scallops and shrimp. I had two tails leftover. I removed the stuffing and made an omelet adding, onions and zucchini. With the lobster I cut the tails into medallions and made a pasta sauce to die for, and definitely smack the lips! this topped fettuccine. Delectable! Oy vey, I had a person at the table who did not eat fish. In which case, you reserve some of the plain tomato sauce for their pasta...Problem resolved.

More on LEFTOVERS...

One night in the cold west, I made piccadillo. Can't remember if I've written about this dish, but basically it's chopped meat in sauce made with sofrito, and then you add raisins and olives for a sweet and savory taste.

The leftover piccadillo served as the stuffing for empanadas...

Okay, okay, okay--I"ll check back to see if these recipes : piccadillo, stuffed lobster, and empanadas are in the archives...if not--I'll post them...eventually. Unless someone's dying for these, writes and implores me to post them, posthaste.

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Now can anyone solve this problem about posting blogs??? I had a full tool bar with colors and highlights,the ability to change sizes and fonts, Bold, Underline and Italics...it has disappeared. So if anyone knows how to get it back, a la Sherlock Holmes, I'll be indebted to you...you may even get an invitation to dinner, though I will not pay for airfare. Sorry, folks.

Have a super-duper, scrumptious Sunday!