Seafood Guacho

I was planning on posting this recipe during Lent or Holly Week because it is perfect for those days, but you know how life gets in the way…But it’s ok! because it truly is a perfect dish for any occasion, big or small.

I have to confess that when I was little it was not one of my favorite dishes, but it is clear that wisdom is acquired over the years… in addition to a good palate! Hahaha.

To make this recipe from Madrid I made several adjustments to make it easier and surely any Panamanian living abroad longing for these dishes that are so part of our country DNA will be able to adapt this recipe to what is available to them wherever they are (in addition to their budget 😉

I’m going to leave the ingredients from the original recipe (reducing the quantities by half), taken from chef Charlie Collins’ recipe book T’ACH, but below in the notes I’ll tell you the adaptations I made to make things easier for myself.

I hope you like it a lot, that you do it and that you come back and tell me about it!

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons annatto oil
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 chopped onion
• 4 chopped Creole peppers
• 100 g of clams *
• 250 g shrimp or prawns *
• 125 g squid rings *
• 100 g squid heads (spiders) *
• 125g black shell *
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce
• 4 cups of fish broth
• 250 g of rice
• Salt, pepper and chili pepper to taste

Directions

We will start by making a sofrito by sautéing in two tablespoons of annatto oil, the onion, garlic and the criollo chili. When the vegetables are tender, add the seafood and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and a little fish broth, approximately one cup. Lower the heat and let it simmer for about 15 more minutes.

In another pot we will make the rice. Heat the other two tablespoons of annatto oil and add the rice, stir so that the grains are well coated with the oil and then add the fish broth. Cook for 15 minutes over high heat and then add the seafood with he sofrito. Lower the heat, stir and finish cooking until the rice has a soft and thick texture. If necessary, you can add more broth because the result should be a soupy rice. Finally check the flavor and season with salt, pepper and a little chili if you want.

*Notes:

To make things easier, I bought a bag of assorted frozen seafood that they sell here to make paella. It is a good idea especially if you do not want to make large quantities or if you are not able to find certain seafood easily, like black conch (concha negra) in my case. I replaced the Creole peppers with frying or Italian peppers. Fish broth can be made with fish bones and kept frozen at home for these occasions or you can use a brick one that also works. Finally, the type of rice I used was basmati because it is my favorite, but for this type of dish the ideal rice to use would be a round or bomb rice that absorbs much more and better the flavor of the cooking broth. Ah! I almost forgot!! Although it is not mentioned in the recipe, I added a little cilantro (in the absence of culantro) which gives a Panamanian touch to any dish.

If you want to see a video summary with the preparation of this recipe and many more, visit my TikTok or my Instagram. 🙂

See you soon!