NO TOMATOES IN THIS MARINERA SAUCE

Does “marinera sauce” mean a tomato sauce for pasta? This Spanish version has no tomatoes and is not served with pasta but with fish or shellfish.

In Spanish, “marinera” means anything seafaring—a fisherperson, a song, a sauce. A sailor is a marinero. (As in the dance song, La Bamba, “Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán”.) Gastronomically speaking, it´s a preparation originated by fishermen cooking aboard boats or fishermen’s wives, preparing dinner with what’s left of the day’s catch. It´s simple food, often nothing more than fish with olive oil, garlic and wine, but really tasty.

The Andalusian version of fish in marinera sauce, as prepared in the Cádiz region, often does include tomatoes as well as green peppers. But today I´m making a recipe more typical of the Cantabrian coasts. No tomatoes in this marinera sauce. 

No tomatoes in this marinera sauce! Fish fillets cook with shrimp and clams in a sauce with wine, garlic and a touch of pimentón (paprika) for color.

 

Any white fish works for this simple fish dish. Here made with corvina.

The recipe can be made with fillets of any white fish—hake, cod, conger eel, turbot, sea bass, grouper, halibut, snapper. The addition of a few shrimp and clams adds to the marinero flavor. “White wine” can be a Basque txakoli or a Sanlucar fino Manzanilla, a dry Galician Albariño or bubbly cava.

Filleting fish. Bones and head are for fish stock.

Today I´ve got a whole corvina (also known as "drum,"  “croaker” or "white sea bass"). I filleted the fish and cut four fillets from the lomo, or thickest part of the fish. I´m using the head, bones and trimmings to make fish stock (fumet). Some stock is needed for the marinera sauce. The remainder, along with the scrappy pieces of fish from the tail and collar, will become fish chowder or, to use the sour oranges in season now, fish soup cachorreñas. 

If you are making homemade fish stock, buy whole shrimp in their shells. Use the heads and shells in the stock. (There´s a recipe for fish stock here.)

Fish with Shrimp and Clams with Marinera Sauce

Pescado a la Marinera con Almejas

Serves 2.

4 skinless fillets of white fish, each about 3 ounces

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Flour for dredging

Olive oil

1/3 cup chopped shallots, onions or leeks

2 small cloves garlic, sliced crosswise

Red pepper flakes, to taste

1 tablespoon flour

½ teaspoon pimentón (sweet paprika, not smoked)

¼ cup white wine

2 cups fish stock

8 scrubbed clams

12 small peeled shrimp

Chopped parsley

Fry fish before adding to sauce.

Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and allow to stand 30 minutes. Dredge the fillets in flour and pat off the excess. Add enough oil to a skillet to cover the bottom and heat on moderately high. Fry the fish until lightly browned on both sides. The fish does not need to be cooked through. Remove the fish and reserve it. Wipe out the pan.

Add 2 tablespoons oil to pan and heat on moderate. Add the shallots and garlic and sauté gently until softened, 5 minutes, without letting the shallots brown. Add the red pepper flakes and stir in the flour and pimentón. Stir in the wine and cook off the alcohol. Stir in the fish stock. Add salt to taste (fish stock may already be sufficiently salted). Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens slightly, 10 minutes.

Add clams to sauce.

Return the fillets of fish to the pan. Cook them on moderately-low heat 5 minutes. (If fish is cooked at this point, remove it and keep warm.) Add the clams and shrimp, cover the pan and cook until the clam shells open. Add chopped parsley immediately before serving. Serve the fish with sauce, clams and shrimp.

Fish in marinera sauce with clams and shrimp.

More recipes with marinera sauce:

Monkfish, Mariner´s Style.

Clams, Fishermen´s Style.

Cachorreás, an Andalusian fish soup, with sour orange.

For using the scrappy pieces cut from a whole fish, an Andalusian fish soup with the juice of sour/bitter oranges called cachorreñas. The recipe is here.