Seafood Lasagna — Pearl’s Kitchen, Carried Forward

Still carrying Sapelo with me, baby. Still tasting Miss Cornelia's okra soup in my dreams. Still feeling that porch under my feet and the island air in my lungs and the shock of hearing someone say, "I remember Pearl." My great-grandmother. Remembered. Still alive in the mouth of an eighty-nine-year-old woman on an island most people have never heard of.

I came home from Sapelo and I went straight to the kitchen and I made crab rice. Pearl's crab rice, or the closest I can get to it. Blue crab from the dock, tomatoes from the garden — not Earl's tomatoes, not yet, Denise's are still green, but farmers' market tomatoes that are close enough — and rice cooked in the crab broth until every grain is stained red and heavy with flavor. I ate it at the table and I cried because it tasted right. Not like Mama's. Not like mine. Like something older. Like the island.

Kayla framed one of the photos she took on Sapelo — the live oak near where Miss Cornelia said Pearl's house was. Just a tree. Just an old, twisted, beautiful tree draped in moss. Kayla put it in a frame and brought it to me and I hung it in the kitchen next to the photo of Willie James. My brother on one side of the window, my ancestor's tree on the other. The kitchen is becoming a gallery of the dead and the remembered, which is the same thing.

The garden is peaking. Tomatoes everywhere — more than I can eat, more than I can give away. I'm canning tomato sauce this week, same as I do every July, filling mason jars with summer to open in January when the world is gray and cold and you need to remember that warmth exists. Earl used to help with the canning — he'd sterilize the jars while I stirred the sauce — and this year I did it alone, which took twice as long and felt three times as heavy.

But I did it. I did it alone. I am learning that doing things alone is not the same as being alone. Alone is a state. Doing is a choice. I choose to do.

Now go on and feed somebody.

When the crab rice was gone and the mason jars were cooling on the counter and the kitchen had finally gone quiet, I still needed something to do with my hands — something that would use the sauce I’d just put up and let the crab keep speaking. This seafood lasagna is what came out of that need: layers of summer tomato sauce, sweet crab and shrimp, and soft cheese, all built together into something that feeds a table. Pearl fed people. Miss Cornelia fed people. I am learning, in my own kitchen with my own hands, to keep doing the same.

Seafood Lasagna

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 25 min | Servings: 9

Ingredients

• 12 lasagna noodles
• 1 lb lump crab meat, picked over for shells
• 1 lb medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, and roughly chopped
• 3 cups tomato sauce (homemade or good-quality jarred)
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, drained
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 15 oz whole-milk ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
• 3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Cook the noodles. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions until just al dente. Drain, drizzle lightly with olive oil to prevent sticking, and lay flat on a clean surface.
2. Build the seafood sauce. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant. Stir in tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Simmer for 8–10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add chopped shrimp and fold in crab meat gently. Cook just until shrimp turns pink, 3–4 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Mix the ricotta layer. In a bowl, stir together ricotta, egg, parsley, 1/2 cup mozzarella, and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
4. Assemble the lasagna. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread 1/2 cup of the seafood sauce across the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish. Layer 3 noodles over the sauce. Spread one-third of the ricotta mixture over the noodles. Spoon one-quarter of the remaining seafood sauce over that. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup mozzarella. Repeat layers twice more. Finish with the remaining 3 noodles, the last of the seafood sauce, and the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan spread evenly over the top.
5. Bake covered. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Bake uncovered. Remove foil and bake an additional 20–25 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and golden at the edges.
7. Rest before serving. Let the lasagna rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting. This keeps the layers from sliding. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 36g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 820mg