Baked Seafood Newburg

New Year’s Eve, a night when many people are out on the town,  Mr. D.  and I are rather low-key in our celebration.  I like to splurge a little on the ingredients for a really nice dinner that includes a good bottle of wine.  After dinner we usually watch a movie.  That’s about as exciting as it gets around here.

This year’s dinner was a baked casserole of Seafood Newburg, along with a salad of mixed baby greens, green grapes, dried cranberries and pistachio nuts, with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.  A loaf of crunchy ciabatta bread and a bottle of Pinot Grigio completed the meal.   Amazingly I turned down having any dessert.  I know, I can’t believe it, but that casserole was so darn good I couldn’t stop going back for more.

Seafood Newburg with salad and ciabatta bread.

I must give credit for the original recipe  to The Ranting Chef Blog where on a Monday, the guest blogger Maggie, gave a recipe called Seafood Casserole.  It looked really good so I made note to try it.  Then using it as a basis I added some of my own “twists” to it to come up with this one.  So thank you Pat and Maggie at the Ranting Chef for a great recipe.

These are some of the additions I made.  I wanted this to be a rich and decadent kind of dish so I added the meat of one small lobster to the scallops and shrimp  called for.

Just your everyday friendly lobster.

I used a can of condensed cream of shrimp soup as the basis for the cream sauce, and thinned it with one cup of half and half;

Condensed cream of shrimp soup and spaghetti, broken into thirds.

and for the topping I mixed crushed Ritz crackers, a little melted butter and the Parmesan cheese for a more substantial topping with a lot of crunch.  This is without a doubt the best recipe for Seafood Newburg.  Instead of mixing the spaghetti with the seafood and sauce you could serve the sauce over spaghetti, or on toast points, or in a puffed pastry shell.  Once you have a good recipe like this one there are so many ways to change its presentation or how you use it.  I just love its flexibility!

BAKED SEAFOOD NEWBURG

SERVINGS:   about 6

INGREDIENTS

• 6 ounces spaghetti, broken into thirds,  and cooked as directed on the package 
  

  Scallops, shrimp and lobster.

• 1/2 pound scallops,  If large sea scallops, cut in half or quarters.
• 1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 pound cooked lobster meat,  ( 1 – 1/4 lb. lobster)
• 6 Tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 can condensed cream of shrimp soup
• 1 cup half and half
• 4 Tablespoons white wine or Sherry
• salt and pepper to taste
• 8 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• 10 Ritz crackers, crushed

DIRECTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 375*F,  Butter a large ( 4 qt. ) casserole

2.  Melt 3 Tablespoons butter in a large skillet.  Add the scallops and shrimp and sauté 6-8 minutes till opaque.  Add the lobster meat just to heat it; then remove all the seafood to a bowl and set aside.  Retain any liquid in the pan.

Saute all the seafood in butter.

3. Add 1 Tablespoon butter to the pan and melt it.  Add the mushrooms and sauté  until browned.  Remove them and set aside.

4.  Empty the can of condensed soup into the skillet and over medium heat stir to smooth it out.  Gradually add the 1 cup half and half, stirring all the while.  Add the wine or sherry and 4 Tablespoons Cheese.

Newburg sauce with peas added.

5.  At this point taste the sauce and add salt and pepper as needed.  Add the peas and heat through, then add back the mushrooms and all the seafood.

Mushrooms added.

Seafood added.

Heat slowly over low heat, while you drain the spaghetti.  Add the spaghetti to the skillet and stir to mix in.  Pour all of this into the buttered casserole.

Spaghetti added.

6.  Melt the remaining 2 Tablespoons butter.  Add the crushed Ritz crackers and stir to coat well,  Stir in the remaining 4 Tablespoons cheese.  Sprinkle evenly over the top of the casserole.

7.  Bake at 375*F for 25 – 30 minutes till brown and bubbly around the edges.

Brown and bubbly round the edges.

Baked Seafood Newburg

SOURCE:   adapted from The Ranting Chef Blog