Williamsburg Seafood Muddle

"From the "Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook" comes this seafood dish which is served at various colonial taverns on the site, including Christiana Campbell's. "In this recipe from the Barrier Islands, tomatoes and aromatic vegetables are stewed with seafood." The term "muddle" came from the early settlers and refers to a "mess of fish.""
 
Download
photo by a food.com user photo by a food.com user
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
15
Serves:
4
Advertisement

ingredients

  • 29.58 ml vegetable oil
  • 2 large onions, thinly sliced
  • 2 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 celery, thinly sliced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 453.59 g canned tomatoes, drained, seeded, and chopped
  • 2 medium potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice
  • 1419.54 ml fish stock (fish stock preferred, clam juice can be somewhat salty) or 1419.54 ml bottled clam juice (fish stock preferred, clam juice can be somewhat salty)
  • salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 0.25 ml saffron thread
  • 12 small clams, scrubbed, preferably Little Necks
  • 453.59 g lean fish such as cod, flounder, bass or 453.59 g red snapper, cut into 2-inch pieces
  • 226.79 g medium shrimp, shelled, de-veined, and halved
  • 12 small mussels, rinsed and beards removed
  • 59.14 ml finely chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
Advertisement

directions

  • Heat the oil in a large kettle or soup pot over medium-high heat.
  • Add the onions, carrots, and celery and sauté, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes; add the garlic, stir, and sauté 1 minute.
  • Add the tomatoes and potatoes, stir; reduce the heat to medium low then cover and simmer until the potatoes are just softened, about 10 minutes (make sure to check it to make sure it doesn't scorch, you can add a few tablespoons of fish stock to keep it safe).
  • Add the fish stock, increase the temperature to high, and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium, then season to taste with salt and pepper.
  • Add the saffron and simmer until the potatoes are cooked completely through, about 10-15 minutes.
  • Add the scrubbed clams and cook until they begin to open, about 5 minutes.
  • Add the fish, shrimp, and mussels and cook until the shrimp is pink and the mussels are opened, about 10 minutes.
  • Discard any clams or mussels which did not fully open, check seasoning and adjust as necessary (with salt and pepper).
  • Serve hot in warmed bowls, garnished with chopped parsley.
  • Note: if you don't have saffron, you can leave it out - but it's more authentic with it.
  • Also, for a good fish stock, check White Wine Fish Stock recipe #51186.

Questions & Replies

Got a question? Share it with the community!
Advertisement

Reviews

Have any thoughts about this recipe? Share it with the community!
Advertisement

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>
 
View Full Profile
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Find More Recipes