Arroz de Marisco — Portuguese Seafood Rice

Name: Arroz de Marisco — Portuguese Seafood Rice
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Portuguese (coastal)
Ingredients: 300 g Short or medium-grain rice; 300 g Raw prawns, shell-on; 500 g Clams and mussels, cleaned; 1 Onion, chopped; 3 Garlic cloves; 400 g Ripe tomatoes, grated, or chopped tinned; 100 ml Dry white wine; 4 tbsp Olive oil; Piri-piri or chilli; Fresh coriander; Salt

Portugal's answer to paella, but wetter and looser — a brothy, tomato-stained rice loaded with prawns, clams and mussels, finished with a fistful of coriander. Served soupy (malandrinho), not dry, so it comes to the table almost a stew.

Source

Recipe by Portuguese coastal kitchens · 🏺 Traditional · The Atlantic fishing communities down Portugal's long coast — the source of the country's seafood rice, fish stews and grilled sardines

Portuguese (coastal) · traditional dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article is brief: it confirms arroz de marisco is a Portuguese dish of rice and seafood (shellfish, squid, white wine, fish) and that it is similar to Spanish paella. The soupy 'malandrinho' style, the tomato-and-coriander base and the shell stock are widely-known features of the dish presented here as this book's own method; the article does not detail them. Quantities are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Just Cook With Michael Santos Celia Rego Max Käse

⏱ 55 min🍽 4 servings🔥 560 kcal🇵🇹 Portugal🌶️

PescatarianDairy-freeGluten-freeNut-free

Steps

Make a quick stock: fry the prawn shells and heads in a little oil for 3 minutes, pressing them down, then cover with 1 litre of water and simmer 15 minutes. Strain and keep the orange stock hot.
💡 This 15-minute shell stock is the whole flavour of the dish. Water alone makes a pale, thin rice.
In a wide pot, soften the onion and garlic in the olive oil, add the chilli and chopped coriander stalks, then stir in the grated tomato. Cook it down for 8 minutes until it darkens and loses its raw smell (this is the refogado, the flavour base).
Pour in the wine and let it bubble for a minute, then add the rice and stir to coat it in the tomato base. Pour in the hot stock — about three times the volume of the rice — and simmer, stirring now and then.
After the rice has cooked about 12 minutes and is nearly tender, add the clams, mussels and peeled prawns. Cover and cook 4–5 minutes more, until the shells open and the prawns turn pink.
💡 Add the seafood late. Prawns and clams need only minutes — put them in with the rice at the start and they turn to rubber.
It should be loose and brothy — add a splash more stock if it has gone dry. Discard any shells that stayed shut, stir through the coriander leaves, and take it straight to the table in the pot.

💡 Tips

Malandrinho means 'a bit naughty' and here means soupy — the rice should slump on the spoon, not stand up dry like a pilaf. Serve it the moment it is ready; it keeps drinking the broth as it sits.
It is close kin to the drier Spanish paella but the Portuguese version is wetter, tomato-led and finished with coriander rather than saffron. Adjust the stock to make it as soupy as you like.

Photo coming soon

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