Necessity is a mother.

I have a current version of Spaghetti Sauce that I make in my Instant Pot Mini (3Qt.). It includes ground beef, green bell pepper and white button mushrooms. Well, with the cost of beef, and ground beef being about $7 a pound, I decided against buying enough at Food Lion to make my usual spaghetti sauce. I actually thought I had at least one patty of hamburger in the freezer, but when I got home I couldn’t find it. So, what to do?

I came up with the idea of replacing the ground beef with clams & shrimp. Odd, in my imagination, but worth passing through the AI. The AI thought it might be a “souped – up” form of a “Shrimp fra diavolo” which is an Italian-American classic dish featuring succulent shrimp tossed in a spicy, garlicky tomato sauce. The name fra diavolo translates to “brother devil,” a nod to the fiery kick from crushed red pepper flakes.

I had “Shrimp fra diavolo,” perhaps the only time I have had it, at a small restaurant in Washington, North Carolina. I was visiting Leo and we stopped there. I was surprised by the heat of the dish and started coughing uncontrollably.

So here is what I ended up making, and it was delicious. Would definitely do it again.

I decided against adding any shrimp, but might do it at another time. I used chopped clams which I added after the High Pressure cooking in the Instant Pot which I only did for 5 minutes and it was perfect, except the sauce was watery, but I just used a slotted spoon to add the sauce to my Angel Hair pasta. I added white button mushrooms and green bell pepper, and onion, and diced tomatoes with Roasted Garlic and RAOs Marinara starter sauce. But the additional item was a small diced zucchini. Oregano, garlic powder, S&P, red pepper flakes. *Tried this with both shrimp & clams in the one sauce and did not like it. Changed the flavor.