What are your 7 fishes?

[mickey&minniealways]

I've never heard of this. Can you tell me what it is?

It is an Italian Tradition. It is held on Christmas eve. My grandmother died in 89. She always had it at her house. She had 5 children, 12 grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren, 10 spouses. That was a total of 38 right there. There were other assorted family member and friends at any given time. Over the course of the afternoon and evening there could be up to 50 people. Unfortunatley we don't do it anymore. Only my parents house would have held everyone, and it was to far to expect everyone to come. We always had pasta with either calamari in it or with a clam sauce. Sometimes with both dishes. Gram always made the pasta herself. We always had what the rest of us called fish head soup. It has another name but I am clueless. All the other dishes seemed to change with some regularity. My grandmother lived in a coastal town when she lived in Italy so she made many different seafood dishes.

 

[gina2000]

We do a variety of fish and the selection changes on a whim. Garlic shrimp, king crab legs, baked whitefish, stuffed calamari, sushi, clams, crabcakes, scallops, linguine with calamari in white sauce have all graced our table at one time or another.

I think this is also a Neopolitan tradition. My family has always served fish on Christmas eve and my grandparents on both sides are from the Naples area.

 

[jcc0621]

We do! As my MIL and I are the only one's eat seafood, I don't make alot of anyone thing. We have scallops, shrimp, crab cakes, flouder, and lobster tails, also fish sticks for my son For our 7th fish, I put a can of tuna on the table For the non fish eating family members (my DH, SIL, and FIL) I make spaghetti and ravioli!

 

[Queen2PrincessG]

As the OP, I am not Italian either.... and we're not actually doing 7 fishes, but 4 or 5. I have to get a recipe for octopus salad... that one sounds GREAT!

So far we know we have

1. Conch chowder

2. Salmon Cakes

3. Shrimp with pasta

and most likely we will add lobster or calamari.

This sis the one I stole from epicurious.com about 3 years ago. It has since become a mandatory dish. You can get most of the ingredients at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.


Octopus Salad
For octopus

* 1 (2-pound) cleaned frozen octopus*, thawed
* 3 fresh lemongrass stalks**
* 1 small onion, quartered
* 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, chopped
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro stems
* 1 teaspoon salt


For dressing

* 1/2 cup olive oil
* 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
* 2 teaspoons packed light brown sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon minced seeded fresh hot chiles, or to taste
* 1 teaspoon minced fresh lemongrass (from lower portion of stalk)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper


For salad

* 1/3 cup 1/4-inch strips bottled roasted red peppers
* 1/4 cup torn fresh cilantro leaves
* 1 scallion, minced
* 2 (1-pound) firm-ripe papayas, peeled, seeded, and cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick wedges


* Garnish: fresh cilantro leaves

print a shopping list for this recipe
Preparation

Prepare octopus:
Rinse octopus under cold water, then cover with water by 2 inches in a 5-quart heavy pot.

Using a rolling pin, smash lemongrass stalks. Cut into 3-inch lengths and add to pot with onion, ginger, cilantro, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, until octopus is tender, about 4 hours.

Transfer octopus to a colander using tongs, then discard cooking liquid and any solids remaining in pot. When octopus is cool enough to handle, remove and discard head, then peel, discarding skin. Cut tentacles into 3-inch pieces, then cool to room temperature.

Make dressing:
Whisk together all dressing ingredients.

Assemble salad:
Toss together octopus, roasted peppers, cilantro, scallion, and 2/3 cup dressing until octopus is well coated.

Divide papaya among 4 plates and top with octopus salad. Drizzle remaining dressing over salad.

 

[Big Cuddly Bear]

This sis the one I stole from epicurious.com about 3 years ago. It has since become a mandatory dish. You can get most of the ingredients at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.


Octopus Salad
For octopus

* 1 (2-pound) cleaned frozen octopus*, thawed
* 3 fresh lemongrass stalks**
* 1 small onion, quartered
* 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, chopped
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro stems
* 1 teaspoon salt


For dressing

* 1/2 cup olive oil
* 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
* 2 teaspoons packed light brown sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon minced seeded fresh hot chiles, or to taste
* 1 teaspoon minced fresh lemongrass (from lower portion of stalk)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper


For salad

* 1/3 cup 1/4-inch strips bottled roasted red peppers
* 1/4 cup torn fresh cilantro leaves
* 1 scallion, minced
* 2 (1-pound) firm-ripe papayas, peeled, seeded, and cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick wedges


* Garnish: fresh cilantro leaves

print a shopping list for this recipe
Preparation

Prepare octopus:
Rinse octopus under cold water, then cover with water by 2 inches in a 5-quart heavy pot.

Using a rolling pin, smash lemongrass stalks. Cut into 3-inch lengths and add to pot with onion, ginger, cilantro, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, until octopus is tender, about 4 hours.

Transfer octopus to a colander using tongs, then discard cooking liquid and any solids remaining in pot. When octopus is cool enough to handle, remove and discard head, then peel, discarding skin. Cut tentacles into 3-inch pieces, then cool to room temperature.

Make dressing:
Whisk together all dressing ingredients.

Assemble salad:
Toss together octopus, roasted peppers, cilantro, scallion, and 2/3 cup dressing until octopus is well coated.

Divide papaya among 4 plates and top with octopus salad. Drizzle remaining dressing over salad.

Thank You! We couldn't find octopus, but I'll keep looking for another time. This sounds WONDERFUL!

 

[MomRN]

I've never heard of this. I'm not Italian, but right now I wish I was. Sounds much better than the Denny's we had tonight.

 

[mackeysmom]

Just finished cleaning up after the last of 15 people left my house.

My fishes were:

Seafood salad (not homemade - I buy it at the local gourmet Italian store - $19.99/lb. this year ) - contains 4 different types of seafood.

Also:
- crab cakes
- panko-breaded shrimp, and
- and a can of tuna in middle of the antipasta platter (anybody else do this?).

In addition to the seafood - I did an antipasta with close to a dozen different meats, about six different cheeses, roasted peppers, olives, artichoke hearts, chickpea salad, marinated mushrooms, hot stuffed peppers, a few loaves of semolina bread.

I also had penne ala vodka for the pasta course.

By the time coffee and cake comes around - we are all stuffed.

The whole meal takes about 6 hours - my nieces/nephew/friend's kids open their stockings after the antipasta and then we open gifts between the main course and dessert.

 

[mom2rb]

So I told my dad about The Feast of the Seven Fishes last night. We had a lot of seafood and he thought it was a great idea. He was very happy that we had enough to count. My DH and children are Italian but they had never heard of this before until I read this thread a few days ago. We had 23 people over for dinner and it made my dad happy to tell everyone that he was doing something special for his Italian grandkids.

Here is what we had.

Huge sushi platter with Tuna, Salmon, Eel, and Shrimp
Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp and Scallops
Trout and Red fish stuffed with Spinach and topped with Craw fish Bisque.

So that is eight different kinds of seafood but only three courses. I hope that still counts.

 

[Polyluvr]

So I told my dad about The Feast of the Seven Fishes last night. We had a lot of seafood and he thought it was a great idea. He was very happy that we had enough to count. My DH and children are Italian but they had never heard of this before until I read this thread a few days ago. We had 23 people over for dinner and it made my dad happy to tell everyone that he was doing something special for his Italian grandkids.

Here is what we had.

Huge sushi platter with Tuna, Salmon, Eel, and Shrimp
Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp and Scallops
Trout and Red fish stuffed with Spinach and topped with Craw fish Bisque.

So that is eight different kinds of seafood but only three courses. I hope that still counts.

It counts !!!! I hope it was a wonderful Christmas for all of you

 

[Big Cuddly Bear]

We ended up having:

Crab legs
Scallops in a honey butter with cracker coating
Shrimp the same way
Sushi
Calamari


There was still way too much food with these. We chose not to make the salmon.

And I made homemade mac & cheese with fresh stewed tomatoes.