This is our typical Feast of Seven Fishes Menu for Christmas Eve, with some honorable mentions. It's so fun to prepare this meal despite being chaotic and a lot of work. I'm going to give you some tips and tricks to make it doable!
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The Feast of Seven Fishes
Why is it 7? We don't know. There is no mention of "7" anywhere in the history of the feast that originated in Sicily, also known as La Vigilia. This feast of seafood comes from abstaining from meat until Christmas Day.
The seven happened somewhere in America. The Feast of "Seven" Fishes is an Italian-American tradition. Between appetizers and dinner, we try to get 7 different seafood dishes on the table, from baccala to branzino.
Our Seafood Menu for Christmas Eve
Our Feast of Seven Fishes changes every year, but we always manage to get seven fish on the table somehow. Here are some recipes you should try!
Seafood Appetizers
Seafood Pasta
Seafood Mains
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Top Tips and Tricks for Feast of Seven Fishes
- Prepare as much as you can the day before. Recipes like shrimp cocktail can be prepared a day in advance. Anything you can't do the day before, start in the morning. Clams can be stuffed in the morning, scallops can be cleaned and the muscle removed. All your breadcrumb mixtures can be combined.
- Have plenty of Italian Bread. The best part of a lot of these dishes is soaking up the juices with a piece of Italian bread or crostini.
- Know how to keep the seafood fresh. Filets can be kept in the fridge for a day in advance but live shellfish need to be able to breathe so they shouldn't be kept in closed plastic bags. They can be kept on ice overnight.
- Purge shellfish in the morning. Start purging the shellfish first thing in the morning because if you get behind on this it can push dinner back an hour.
- Shuck your clams. If you're not great at shucking clams just have the fishmonger at the seafood counter do it for you.
Other Vegetable Dishes and Appetizers for Christmas Eve
You may want to add some other little vegetable appetizers along the line on Christmas Eve. I suggest putting out some assortment of the following:
- Eggplant Caponata
- Easy Italian Stuffed Artichokes or Easy Steamed Artichokes
- Veggie Stromboli
- Marinated Eggplant and Onion
Although we love seafood, sometimes it's good to have options for everyone to have if they don't love all the seafood dishes!
FAQs
The seafood feast originated in Sicily as a celebration the night before Christmas while abstaining from meat. The seven part was added somewhere along the line in the Italian Diaspora here in America.
Some classic seafood dishes are baccala, cioppino, frutti di mare, branzino, linguine with clams, and mussels.
Comment below and let us know what your favorite seafood dish to serve on Christmas Eve is!
Cath says
All look so delicious looking forward to the mussels fra Diablo!!!