Calamarata Pasta with Calamari (squid) in Tomato Sauce.

When I was growing up, Christmas eve dinners were always a big deal. We sat at the table for hours, eating fish course after fish course. Later on in the evening, some of the neighbors would stop by, enjoying my mother's cooking and joining the boisterous conversation. Most of the fish were fried - including smelts, eels, baccala and other staples of the Italian-American "Feast of the Seven Fishes." Once my brother Frank brought home conch when he was stationed in Boston as a tour guide on the U.S. Constitution (both he and my brother Joe were in the Navy). I don't have any recollections of liking it, although I've since grown to enjoy conch when we're in the Caribbean, in either conch fritters or ceviche. There was always spaghetti too on Christmas eve. To me, the pasta was the highlight of the meal, and I don't know which I loved more - the spaghetti with crabs we'd have some years, or the spaghetti with squid other years. Either way, they were always served in a red sauce, and you needed plenty of napkins to keep your hands cleaned while eating the messy crabs.

After decades of taking over the reigns for the Christmas eve fish feast, I still make sure to have at least seven fishes, but have pared down quite a bit, and no longer make the fried fish as I once did. We gather around the coffee table first, eating octopus salad, shrimp cocktail and several other offerings, all washed down with ample prosecco being poured. 

I get a lot of help from other family members like my son, who makes baccala mantecato, that I used to serve with grilled polenta. But since gaining a Jewish daughter-in-law, who makes latkes in keeping with her Hanukkah tradition, we now spread the baccala over a latke -- a perfect combo and one we jokingly call "baccalatkes."

After an hour or so, we move to the dining room, but instead of presenting numerous main courses as I did for years, now I narrow it to one, in addition to a salad. Most years, it's been pasta with shellfish, (spaghetti ai frutti di mare) but even that requires multiple pots to be going at once -- two pots just to boil the pasta, plus a pot to saute the shrimp and scallops and separate pots to steam the mussels and clams. 

It can be done but it's a lot to juggle, especially if you're serving 16 people, as I am this year. And I hate missing out on all the fun happening in the living room while I'm in the kitchen.

So this year, I'm planning to serve pasta with squid in tomato sauce, requiring only three pots (two to boil the pasta and one to cook the squid) It's a dish reminiscent of what my mother made, but not with spaghetti. I'll be serving it with calamarata pasta, named after the calamari it so closely resembles. You can buy it at Italian grocery stores or online, but I also found it at Home Goods, a store that sells everything from carpets to candy. The food section at Home Goods always has a great selection of pasta -- and the brand I found there -- made by Falco -- was really good quality - extruded with bronze dies, and with a slow drying process, it held its shape well after cooking. It was also designed with ridges and that helps the sauce cling. 

The squid is normally pretty clean when I bring it home from the store, so I just rinse it and cut it into rings. Be sure to get some of the tentacles too. If your squid needs to be cleaned first, click here for a useful YouTube video to guide you through the process. This amount below was only slightly more than 1/2 lb., enough for two people, but I would figure on 3/4 lb. of cleaned squid for two. 

Saute the garlic and shallots in olive oil until soft, along with the red pepper flakes, then toss in the squid rings and cook until they become opaque.

Add the tomato passata, wine, salt, pepper and basil, then simmer for about 30 minutes. You can do this an hour before serving if you're having company, then turn off the heat and gently simmer again for 10 or 15 minutes while you boil the pasta.

After the pasta is cooked to the al dente stage, add it to the sauce and stir to get everything well coated. Sprinkle with more fresh basil and serve with a good dry wine. We're planning to open up several bottles of nero d'avola. It's a red wine from Sicily and I know some people would say white wine only with fish. But squid in tomato sauce can hold its own with a medium to full-bodied red wine and nero d'avola is one of our favorites. But if you prefer white wine, do your own thing. But please, don't sprinkle parmesan cheese on this dish!

I think this is the perfect dish for Christmas eve, and one that's sure to please everyone around our table this year -- from my two-year old granddaughter to my 102 year-old father. I hope you make it too, whether for Christmas eve or another time.
Wishing you all a Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo.

If you'd prefer this dish with a garlic and olive oil sauce, click here for that recipe. For more Christmas eve fish ideas, click here.

Check out Ciao Chow Linda on Instagram here to find out what’s cooking in my kitchen each day (and more).

Calamarata pasta with calamari in tomato sauce

(serves four people)

printable recipe here

1/2 cup olive oil

2 small shallots

4 large cloves of garlic

red pepper flakes, to taste

1 1/2 lbs. squid, cleaned and cut into rings

2 - 2 1/2 cups passata (or tomato puree)

3/4 cup dry wine (red or white)

1/2 teaspoon salt, pinch of black pepper

fresh basil

1 lb. calamarata pasta

Saute the shallots and garlic in the olive oil until limp. Add the red pepper flakes and the squid and cook the squid a few minutes until they are opaque. Add the wine, the passata and seasonings. Cook for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

Boil the pasta until al dente, then add to the sauce and stir everything together until the pasta is well coated. Sprinkle more basil on top and serve.

 

Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes

Just in case you're planning a multi-fish extravaganza for Christmas eve and are still trying to decide what to make, here are some ideas to whet your appetite. I've made all of these in years past, and most of them will be on my table again this year, including this spaghetti ai frutti di mare. It was a favorite last Christmas eve, so it makes the cut again for this year. I'll serve it following the hors d'oeuvres that will be mostly fished-based, except for a couple of dishes for the vegetarians present.  It's always a juggling act trying to balance the numerous  pots on the burners and dishes in the oven, so that none of them is overcooked (or undercooked.)

So I make sure I have a few things that can be made ahead of time, including this favorite of

baccalà mantecato with grilled polenta that we'll eat before dinner while sipping prosecco.

My dad arrives with these codfish cakes. They reheat very well in the oven, maintaining their crunchy exterior. We'll munch on these before dinner too.

If you think you don't like octopus, you haven't tried my Octopus and potato salad. It's almost like eating lobster, especially if you peel the octopus and trim away the "suction cups" after cooking. Get the largest octopus you can find in order to get nice chunky pieces.

If I weren't making the spaghetti ai frutti di mari, I might be making this dish with squid:

calamarata

Some years, I've skipped the pasta and made this dish instead:

Seafood Risotto

But if there's one dish that absolutely must be on our Christmas eve table, it's this one. My son has taken over the preparation of this and has become quite adept at it:

stuffed squid

Too many dishes with tomato sauce can make for a lopsided menu, but if stuffed squid's not your thing, make it easy on yourself and try this swordfish in tomato and caper sauce.

Last year, I added this dish to the menu and everyone loved it. It can be made ahead of time and baked right before serving - swordfish involtini

And if you manage to have a taste of all these dishes, by the end of the evening, you might want to have this hand

Buon Natale a tutti.

Involtini di Pesce Spada (swordfish rollups)

Christmas eve is the one night of the year when my family's table is laden with fish - everything from spaghetti with mixed shellfish, to baccala' cakes, to stuffed squid and lots more. We never called it the "Feast of the Seven Fishes" because we never counted. My mom just served fish - and plenty of it. The first time I went to Italy, I found it odd that my relatives there in the north don't really make a fuss about fish for Christmas eve dinner. This "feast of the seven fishes" was totally unknown to them. My mother adopted the culinary customs of her Southern Italian family she married into, but even they didn't have a prescribed number of fish dishes. The custom of "seven" seems to have been invented by Italian Americans. 

Whatever you call it, I still cook fish for Christmas eve and I too, can't be sure yet on whether there will be seven. Some years it's five, some years it's 10 and gosh, maybe it'll be seven this year, but if that happens, it'll be purely by accident. I usually make my traditional dishes (there HAS to be stuffed squid and baccala), but I'm frequently guided by what looks freshest at the fish store the morning of Christmas eve. This year I plan to add involtini di pesce spada - or swordfish rollups - to the menu. I ate these the first time I went to Sicily years ago and have tried - and failed - to find a good recipe since then. But last month, Fabrizia Lanza gave a talk at the Italian cultural organization I'm involved with. When I saw the cookbook, I wanted to make everything in it, including her involtini di pesce spada. Once I did, I knew I had finally found the right recipe for that dish. It's almost identical to what I ate in Palermo years ago and it's delicious. 

I made this for a dinner party last month so I bought a huge hunk of swordfish, but you can use buy a small amount and make it for one or two people.

I cut my chunk in half, because after pounding the slices, I knew they would spread out a bit. I didn't want them to be so large that they'd be unwieldy to handle. Then I sliced thin pieces from each chunk, but it's not easy, I'm warning you. I even put the fish in the freezer for about an hour to make it less "jiggly" when I cut into it. It helped somewhat. I may see if my fish guy can do this for me next time. 

Here's what I ended up with from about three pounds of swordfish. 

I put some waxed paper on both sides of the fish and gently pounded with the flat side of a meat pounder until it flattened a bit (don't use the side with the prongs or you'll tear the fish apart.)

Then I added the stuffing. You can smear it all over the fish, or leave it in one spot. If you leave it in one spot, you'll have a finished dish that has a lot of stuffing in one central place. If you spread it out, then you'll have something like the first picture above. Or do a little of both. Either way works fine.

After they're rolled up and coated with breadcrumbs, place them in a casserole with slices of lemon, orange and bay leaves in between. I have a bay leaf plant and was able to use fresh bay leaves. If you can't find them, use dry ones. This casserole served enough for five people with some leftover after the dinner. I even had a few that I didn't put in the large casserole.

Instead, I put them in a smaller container and froze them for later use. They later cooked up just as if they had been fresh, so you can definitely make this ahead of time and freeze it.

It sure was nice to pull that out of the freezer and sit down to this for dinner a couple of weeks later.

These were so easy to make and taste so great that I plan to add this to my Christmas eve fish feast from now on.

Ciao Chow Linda was recently interviewed by N.J. Monthly for a story about the "Feast of the Seven Fishes." You can read more about my childhood memories of that night here.

Here are some other recipe ideas if you want to have your own "Feast of the Seven Fishes":

stuffed squid

spaghetti con frutti di mare

octopus salad

baccala mantecato

codfish cakes

seafood risotto

Involtini di Pesce Spada

printable recipe here

from Fabrizia Lanza's "Coming Home To Sicily"

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for coating

1 small red onion, finely chopped

2 3/4 cups unseasoned dried breadcrumbs, divided

1 lemon, half juiced, half thinly sliced

1 orange, half juiced, half thinly sliced

1 tablespoon dried currants (I used white raisins, cut into small pieces)

1 tablespoon pine nuts

1/3 cup chopped fresh mint

fine sea salt and black pepper

1 pound swordfish, sliced into 8 thin pieces (about 1/3 inch thick; if the pieces are too thick, you can pound them gently between pieces of wax paper)

12 bay leaves, preferably fresh

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle the bottom of a medium baking dish with olive oil.

Combine the 1/4 cup olive oil and onion in a medium skillet and cook over medium-high heat until softened, about three minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in 3/4 cup breadcrumbs, mixing everything together until the breadcrumbs have absorbed the oil. (I made the mistake of mixing all the breadcrumbs with the other ingredients the first time I made this, and it was fine.) Return to low heat and toast the breadcrumbs slightly. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon and orange juices, the currants, pinenuts, and mint. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lay a piece of swordfish on a work surface and put a heaping tablespoon of the breadcrumb filling (squeeze it in your hand to compact t) in the center and roll up. Repeat with the remaining swordfish and filling.

Pour some olive oil into a shallow pan and fill another shallow pan with the remaining 2 cups breadcrumbs. Dip each roll-up first in the oil, then dredge in the breadcrumbs until lightly coated. Place the swordfish roll-ups snugly in the baking dish and tuck the bay leaves and lemon and orange slices between the rolls. Drizzle with some more olive ol and bake until the fish is cooked through, about 10 minutes. (Mine needed 15 minutes to cook through.)

Serves four.