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Original Italian name: Crema di salsa marinara
Place of origin: Northern Italy
To my mind Marinara rich cream sauce is the best seafood sauce for pasta. I love to serve it for everyday dinner. I am often making this sauce especially when I have got friends coming around. When I want preparing something special like seafood, I make Seafood salad or Marinara with pasta and cream sauce.
Marinara sauce may have various combinations mixing your favourite seafood. I usually take prawns, scallops, small squid, baby octopus, mussels, clams and sometimes I pick different kinds of fish.
Cooking this meal I mix the prepared seafood selection with the creamed pasta. Doing this, the pasta should be tossed well with rich cream sauce.
Making the marinara rich cream sauce and pasta you need to cook 3 dishes – pasta, marinara and sauce itself. Sounds complicated but it is simple enough. There are a few key things to remember.
Firstly, the cream sauce must be cooked in advance. Straight away when the sauce is on you need to start cooking pasta. By 5-7 minutes before the pasta is ready, I start cooking the marinara mix. By the moment when marinara is cooked, the pasta should be ready too.
Finally, at this moment hopefully the sauce is still warm and not thick yet. In case if you feel it is over thickened, simply add a warm milk.
Second tip is that marinara can be cooked using only one ingredient from the following -olive oil, dry white wine or unsalted butter. I would personally prefer using dry white wine rather than simple olive oil or butter.
The last tip is the pasta being cooked should be tossed well with the cream sauce. Then the seafood mix should be combined gently with the creamed pasta.
The marinara rich cream sauce is generally combined with a flattened pasta types, fettuccine for example is my pick.
Ingredients for cream sauce
75 g unsalted butter
3 tablespoon of self raising flour
100-150 ml full cream milk
100 ml double thick cream
salt and pepper, freshly milled
1/3 teaspoon of sweet paprika
1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon of dry tarragon
Method of cooking cream sauce
Cooking time – 10min
Melt butter in a stainless steal saucepan. Add sliced garlic and lightly simmer it for about 2 minutes. Take care not to burn the butter. When garlic is browned take it off.
Add tarragon to the butter and let stand for a short time.
Stir sifted flour into the butter and return to the heat. Cook and stir over low heat until the ingredients thicken just 3-5 minutes.Take care not to brown the mixture. Then slowly add the milk and stir into a smooth sauce. Increase heat slightly and stir until the sauce starts to thicken.
Add paprika and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the thick cream.
The marinara rich cream sauce should be tossed with pasta. If the sauce is too thick you need to add extra milk in before tossing with pasta. As a result, the pasta must be well coated with sauce.
Ingredients for marinara (serves 4)
700 g of marinara mix
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 tablespoon of olive oil
or 2 tablespoon of dry white wine
or 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
Method of cooking marinara
Cooking time – 5-7 min
Rinse the marinara mix and let drain well. Prepare mussels to cook.
Heat white wine with extra olive oil (or only olive oil or only butter) in a large pan. Add sliced garlic and cook for a while. Then take the garlic off.
Heat white wine to medium heat and add drained marinara mix. Stir slowly until seafood get white for about 5-7 minutes. Care not to overcook the seafood. Squid and octopus usually takes longer time for cooking than shrimp, scallops, mussels and clams. Discard any mussels and clams which do not open once they have been cooked.
Finally, when the seafood is cooked slightly toss it with the creamed pasta. Serve immediately.
Ingredients for pasta
400g fettuccine
Method of cooking pasta.
Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente. Drain thoroughly and put into a warmed large bowl. Pour over the sauce and toss to combine.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks perfect for spring, as we move into sumemr (if we ever do!) I maybe get rid of the cream to make it more suited per l’estate. I think the terragon and paprika must complement the seafood flavour so well! I have never tried it, and now I will. thanks for all the tips on how to make this simple dish into perfection
Hi Marta – thanks, so nice of you.
If you like you can serve marinara sauce without the rich creamy sauce definitely. However, this recipe is the original Italian one and I usually offer authentic recipes to you.
I like the step-by-step approach during cooking. So I would be happy to share my tips with you too.
The marinara cream sauce sounds wonderful – I will definitely try it!
oooo! I bet this is the type of dish you just can’t stop eating. Am I right?
Hi Natasha, welcome to my site!
Hi Maryann, it is true especially combining it with a glass of perfect wine.
The sauce sounds great. Love the seafood in your photo, looks perfect, and those little shells are too cute.
Lori Lynn
Hi Lori Lynn, thank you so much.
a lovely recipe. your use of the word toss is very confusing. it is certainly now how you use the word toss in english. so do you mean mix? or do you mean fluff it up? or do you mean what?
Hi, the sauce and breakdown of how to cook sound lovely and actually simple. Will be trying it tonight.
Cheers Julie
Hi
I was wondering if this recipe is able to be prepared a couple of hours in advance and reheated for serving? I am unfamiliar with cooking methods for seafood so not sure if it would still be an acceptable taste?