Scampi/langoustines in buzara (busara) sauce is a one pot main fish course, and a recipe that proofs that cooking fish can be incredibly easy.

This is a very simple, flavourful and delicious dish that makes seafood lovers very happy indeed.

The dish is kind of a super tasty stew where the scampi are cooked in a simple tomato sauce, known as red buzara sauce (as supposed to white buzara sauce without the addition of tomatoes traditionally used to cook the mussels).

During the cooking process the langoustines release their juices and together with the rest of the ingredients make the most delicious sauce.

You will need plenty of fresh rustic crunchy bread or polenta to soak up all the sauce. It is a very informal dish as it it traditionally eaten with hands.

Great for dinner parties and kids have great fun unpeeling the langoustine tails. They feel a bit special and grown up, and it is a great way to get them familiar with the seafood from a very early age.

This special dish is very much loved and typically found and enjoyed in Dalmatia (Croatia), along the coast of Istria (In Croatia and Slovenia), in the town of Trieste and in the regions of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto in Italy. The meaning and the origin of the term busara or buzara is still unclear.

It is not surprising that this dish is so popular in this areas as scampi found ideal conditions in the Kvarner Bay, offering the perfect environment for the scampi, being renowned to be the best in the world.

Along the Slovenian coast this dish is normally prepared and cooked in the households to mark a special occasion, as the langoustines, although readily available, could be a bit pricey. It can also be found on the menu in almost every seafood based restaurant as Škampi na buzaro.

My dad used to make the best one. On Saturday morning he would go to the local fish market and come back with full bag of fresh langoustines. Keeping the quantities small when it came to food was surely not his strength. We all knew there would be a feast in the evening with friends coming over. When my father cooked langoustines our family friends never minded a last minute invitation.

I am sharing here the family recipe for this simple yet wonderful and successful dish.

Recipe

Ingredients

Serves 4

5 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion (about 70g), peeled and finely chopped
1kg langoustines, fresh or frozen (can use prawns instead) If using frozen langoustines or prawns make sure they are defrosted safely beforehand.
400g tin good quality chopped tomatoes or plum tomatoes, chopped (you can use fresh tomatoes if you prefer, but make sure they are well ripen and sweet, remove the skin and chop them)
100ml white wine
1-2 Tbsp dry breadcrumbs
fresh flat leaf parsley, a handful (about 10g), finely chopped, plus some extra for garnishing, optional
1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
sea salt, to taste

Wash the langoustines under cold running water and place them into a colander.

Take a pair of kitchen scissors and one individual langoustine in your hand, turn it upside down, facing the soft shell side of the tail towards you. Insert the scissors at the bottom of it and cut through along the length of the entire tail.

This is quite an essential part as the juices will go out of the langoustines and give a sauce a rich taste, but it will also really help you to remove the tails once cooked.

Put extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet or saucepan, big enough to accommodate all the langoustines, preferably in one layer, they can overlap a bit.

Add finely chopped onions and cook on a medium-law heat until the onions are translucent and soft. Add crushed garlic and cook together with the onions for a minute or so stirring constantly in order to avoid garlic burning.

Place the langoustines in a pan and cook for about 10 minutes giving a pan a good shake now and again.

Pour white wine, deglaze the pan and let it evaporate.

Add chopped tomatoes, dry breadcrumbs, finely chopped parsley, 400ml of water and a pinch of sea salt.

Cook with the lid partially uncovered on a gentle heat for about 15-20 minutes.

During the cooking give a pan a little shake now and again. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. If the sauce is too thick just add a splash of water or, on the contrary, if you think the sauce is too thin, add a pinch of breadcrumbs.

Serve the dish with soft cooked or grilled polenta, or simply, how it is traditionally done, with plenty of rustic crunchy bread. Not cutlery needed here, the dish should be enjoyed eaten with your hands.

Just a thought

You can use a bit of dry chilli flakes if you like a bit of a heat in your food and wish to add a bit of a kick to the dish. The langoustines, however, are quite mild and delicate in taste with a sweet note, so try to not over do it with the chilli as you will cover the taste.

The scallop, which is also known as coquille St-Jacques in French, is probably one of the best known, appreciated and loved types of shellfish, even by those that are generally not so keen on fish or seafood.

I have always adored gratinated scallops, so simple and quick to make. Plum, juicy scallops are covered with enriched breadcrumb mixture and then quickly baked. Despite its simplicity, they feel so luxurious and festive and very impressive, especially when served in their shells.

The use of the scallop shell goes back to medieval times when it was used to pour holy water on the head of the baptized members of the congregation, and it had a very practical purpose and served as a replacement for a bowl so the pilgrims could use them to hold their food and drink on their long journey on the Camino de Santiago, or in English the Way of St. James, i.e. the pilgrim trail leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia in north-western Spain, and the shrine of St. James, one of the original apostles, and it is widely travelled today.

The scallop shell scoop would also serve as the measure for the food the pilgrims would receive, donated by local churches and other establishments.

This is a great and very tasty starter for special occasions and there are a lot of variations of this dish. The most familiar variation of it to me, which I grew up with, is eating it in the Venetian style (called Capesante a la Selvadega in Venetian dialect). This is another example of a dish that left significant footprints in the region due to strong presence in the territory of the Serenissima (i.e. ‘the Most Serene Republic of Venice’).

No matter how you prefer making them, scallops are a healthy eating option as they mainly consist of protein and healthy omega-3 fat, are rich in vitamin B12 and zinc, all of which are essential for a healthy brain.

Great to freeze and can be prepared in advance.

For this recipe, you can buy fresh scallops and clean them yourself or buy the ones that have been cleaned already by the fishmonger but still sold in their original shell. You can, however, buy already cleaned fresh or frozen scallops without the shell and use the ramekins to cook and serve them in.

If you buy the fresh scallops in their original shell, I would suggest you keep them for the future use. Brush them well, wash them in a hot soapy water or you can even put them in the dishwasher.

Whether you buy them fresh or frozen you really want to make sure they are caught using sustainable fishing methods.

Ingredients

Serves 4

12 large fresh scallops (separated from their shell and cleaned)
12 clean concave scallop shell to be used as cooking and serving dishes (or ramekins)
120g breadcrumbs
1 clove of garlic (peeled and pressed)
vegetable stock, 1-2 Tsp per scallop (using a good quality instant vegetable stock is perfectly fine)
fresh flat leaf parsley, about a handful (7g), very finely chopped
fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan cheese) (about 30g), finely grated
extra virgin olive oil (about 4 Tbsp)
sea salt, to taste
butter, few knobs
lemon wedges, for serving

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C static.

First of all, make the breadcrumb mixture. In a mixing bowl put the breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, parmesan cheese and extra virgin olive oil. With the fork stir and mix so that all the ingredients combine well. You should end up with a moist breadcrumb mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning with sea salt.