Shellfish and eels recipes
Pulpo potatoes
Slice some new potatoes - peeled or unpeeled - into rounds, sauté in butter until golden. Plate them and top with octopus, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with smoked paprika and chopped parsley.
Mussels with chickpeas
Slice a garlic clove and pan fry in olive oil for about a minute until golden, add chickpeas and season with paprika and salt. Pour in half of the escabeche from the tinned mussels and reduce, but leave some juices in the pan. Add mussels and garnish with chopped parsley.
Crab salad
Start with a base of basil leaves in a bowl, top with the drained snow crab. In another bowl mix together one diced tomato, a handful of chopped sweetheart cabbage leaves, and 1 tbsp of mayo. Top the crab with the mix, add a squeeze of lime juice, some cracks of black pepper, and garnish with chopped chives.
Squid and mint salad
Quarter or dice some cherry tomatoes, add 1/2 red onion, diced, lime zest, lime juice, a good pinch of caster sugar, and salt. Drain the tin of squid in olive oil and add to the salad. Add chopped mint. Garnish with almonds.
Clam tapenade
Mash capers and black olives and, instead of anchovy fillets, roughly slice some clams because “clams are a milder halfway house” between oysters and anchovies.
Mussel salad
Toss mussels with rocket and cucumber slices, and use the escabeche as a dressing
Sea urchin salad sandwich
Mix sea urchin roe with wasabi and soy sauce and spoon over torn lettuce leaves and slices of boiled egg and tomato in a salad sandwich.
Mussels with cream cheese
The Pepus mussels in punchy, sharp escabeche make a lot of sense on crackers with cream cheese. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, or try a basil leaf between the cream cheese and mussel.
Caramelised squid
Fry baby squid in a little olive oil until it turns golden and starts to caramelise. Add sea salt.
Surimi eels with asparagus and mushrooms
Heat a tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and gently brown 3 or 4 asparagus spears and set aside. Sauté a clove of sliced garlic in the same frying pan - add more olive oil if you need to - for about a minute and then add 100g of sliced mushrooms. Cook for about six minutes and set aside. In the same pan heat the drained surimi eels for about two minutes and keep stirring. Chop the asparagus and add to the pan with the mushrooms and garlic. Season and enjoy!
Clamamole
This is a ceviche-y guacamole, the avocados swapped out for clams. Dice a tin of clams, then “all the greens”: coriander, lime, spring onion and a shallot. Dice a red onion too, and if you want something finer than dice for the red onion, “twang the onion with the side of a knife like a guitar and get the spray off it instead.” Sprinkle with sriracha and have on toast soldiers.
Clam chowder
Make a fish stock with prawn heads, carrots, onion, celery, garlic and black pepper. When the stock is ready - after about 30 minutes - add whole milk and cream to taste, add potato and white fish that will hold its shape (halibut or small pieces of monkfish). The clams go in at the last minute, add salt or the brine the clams come packed in, and pepper.
Panko razor clams
Carefully roll patted-dry razor clams firstly in seasoned plain flour. Then in two whisked eggs, and finally in panko breadcrumbs. Lay them out on a tray covered with baking parchment. Heat some vegetable oil in a deep pan. Lower the razor clams into the oil, two or three at a time, and let them cook for ten-fifteen seconds until golden. Remove and scatter with sea salt and serve with lemon wedges and mayo.
Smoked mussel omelette
Melt butter in a frying pan on a low heat. Add 1/2 diced onion and one diced red pepper and soften for ten minutes. Add one clove of minced garlic for the last minute. Then add three beaten eggs and a pinch of salt. Finally add Fangst smoked mussels to the eggs before it's set. Flip over each side of the omelette and garnish with chopped parsley or chives.