Recipe
7 "Seven Fishes" Recipes Your Guests Will Actually Want to Eat
Christmas Eve is a day of fasting, so the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes is a way of celebrating Christmas while abstaining from meat until Christmas Day. Researchers are unsure when the feast first became popular, but its Roman Catholic roots of abstaining from meat indicate a long existence. Its origins trace back to Southern Italy, where my family immigrated from in the early twentieth century.
My mom has been hosting the Seven Fishes for my extended family forever. When I was little, I dreaded Christmas Eve because the house smelled like something reminiscent of a beached whale that has been sitting in the sun for a month. Or at least that's how my younger mind perceived it.
When I began taking an interest in cooking in high school, my mom and I decided it was time for a change; we would introduce new, more appealing (and not all Italian, to change it up even more for our expanding family) seafood dishes that smelled delectable, rather than putrid.
Some of the traditional dishes we will not stray from are baccalà or salted cod, calamari in gravy (red sauce), and linguine with clam sauce. The other four to six dishes (because, why stop at seven? But keep it an odd number) of the feast are usually new, and almost everyone in my family agrees they're an excellent change. We're adapting the old tradition to fit newer needs and tastes.
Crab Cake Stuffed Flounder
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 35 mins
- Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 lb. crab meat
- 1-2 eggs beaten
- 1 up chopped onion
- 1 cup fresh bread crumbs
- 3 tablespoon mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
- Dash Worcestershire sauce
- Chopped green peppers
- 1 lb. flounder fillets
- 4 tablespoon butter melted
- Salt and pepper to taste
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Crab Appetizer Pizza
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon curry power
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/3 teaspoon salt
- 6 oz can crab meat
- 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
- 1 11-inch Boboli pizza crust or other thin prepared pizza crust
- 1 tablespoon chopped green onions
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Hot Crab Salsa Dip
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Servings: 15
Ingredients
- 1/2 8 oz package cream cheese softened
- 1 package 10 oz frozen chopped spinach thawed and well drained
- 1 cup Pace chunky salsa
- 1 6 oz can crab meat drained
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Italian Tuna Salad with Arugula
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Servings: 10
Ingredients
- 2-1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 5 to6 oz cans Italian tuna in olive oil drained
- 1 small celery stalk finely chopped
- 2 tablspoon nonpareil capers drained and rinsed
- 2 tablspoon finely chopped fresh flatleaf parsley
- Pinch hot red pepper flakes
- 5 oz baby arugula
- 2 large ripe tomatoes cut into ½ in rounds
- 2 small cucumbers scrubbed but unpeeled cut into ¼ in rounds
- 2/3 cup coarsely chopped pitted kalamata olives
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Fish Fillets Italiano
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 25 mins
- Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 cup black olives pitted and sliced
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 1 lb cod fillets
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
One-Pot Lemon Garlic Shrimp Pasta
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 8 oz linguine
- 2 tablspoon olive oil
- 8 tablspoon or 1 stick unsalted butter
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1-1/4 lbs. large shrimp
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 4 cup baby spinach
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablspoon parsley chopped
- 1 tablspoon lemon juice
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Shrimp Avocado Pico de Gallo
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Servings: 10
Ingredients
- 3 Roma tomatoes seeded and diced
- 1/4 cup diced red onion
- 1 fresh jalapeño diced
- 1 avocado cut into chunks
- 10 jumbo shrimp chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablspoon fresh chopped cilantro
- 1 tablspoon lemon or lime juice
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- Salt and pepper to taste
Step 1
Step 2
P.S. My mom emailed these recipes to me directly from her recipe drawer full of Italian and party food deliciousness.