Portugal · Cereal and Pasta Dishes
Arroz de Marisco (Portuguese Seafood Rice)
Arroz de marisco is the Portuguese rice cooked in a stock drawn from prawn heads and shells, with clams and mussels opening in the pot.
Ingredients
- carolino rice300 g
- prawns500 g
- clams400 g
- mussels400 g
- onion1 pcs
- garlic4 cloves
- ripe tomatoes400 g
- dry white wine150 ml
- olive oil60 ml
- fresh coriander1 bunch
- piri piri sauce1 tsp
- water1500 ml
- salt1.5 tsp
- black pepper0.5 tsp
Method
- 1Peel the prawns and keep every head and shell. Simmer them in the water with a little salt for 15 minutes, blitz the lot and strain it. This stock is the dish; nothing you buy in a carton will stand in for it.
- 2Sit the clams and mussels in salted water for half an hour to purge the sand, then scrub them and throw out any that stay open when tapped.
- 3Soften the chopped onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent, add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 5 to 8 minutes until they collapse into a sauce.
- 4Pour in the white wine, let it reduce for two minutes, then add the hot stock, the coriander stalks and the piri piri sauce and bring it to a boil.
- 5Add the rice without washing it — the surface starch is what makes the broth creamy — and cook at a steady simmer for 12 minutes, stirring now and then.
- 6Add the clams and mussels, then the prawns, and cook for another 5 minutes until the shells open and the rice is just short of soft. Loosen with more stock if it tightens.
- 7Take the pot off the heat, stir through the chopped coriander and check the salt and pepper. Serve straight away, loose and brothy — malandrinho, as the Portuguese say, never dry.