I love pasta. I love anything cooked with white sauce and cheese. I also love seafood. So guess what the best combination for me is? Baked seafood pasta, of course! This recipe was inspired by this Seafood Pasta Bake by Paula Jones. Although most of my blog posts focus on Chinese and Asian cooking, this is the kind of dish that I can never get enough of, and it’s difficult for me not to blog about it.
To speak of my early encounters with Italian food, the truth is, I didn’t have any authentic dishes at all. There was only one Italian restaurant near my home, which was called “Spaghetti House”. Like every diner that serves unfamiliar foreign food and wants to survive, it had to adapt to the local palate, dining habits and preferences. This so-called “Italian” place served grilled chicken wings, fried cheese, onion rings, and Spanish seafood paella. They did not serve risotto, stuffed pasta, such as ravioli or tortellini, fresh mozzarella, or any salad dressing made with olive oil. Sound crazy enough? The first time I went to a real Italian restaurant, almost nothing looked familiar to me. However, there was one dish I did love from the Spaghetti House – baked seafood pasta. In this recipe, I tried to recreate the dish I loved, authentic or not. I’d say, mine tastes even better than the one in the restaurant, because it uses plenty of shrimp and squid, which make it very rich. This dish takes some time to prepare, but if you get everything half cooked and assembled ahead of time, the cooking will be very easy. It’s especially convenient if you cook it for a lot of people or use it for a party. You could also cook a big batch and freeze the leftovers.
