Shellfish is marvellous food. It’s a lean, low in calories source of protein, full of important nutrients. And if it’s sustainably produced or harvested, both our bodies and the oceans are happy.
Shellfish means all edible aquatic animals that have a shell, so in practice it refers to any ocean fauna except fish: molluscs and crustaceans. Interestingly, it includes octopus which, although a mollusc, doesn’t have a shell. A bit like tomato being a fruit.
Oysters, mussels, scallops, clams, and their various exotic cousins are literally shell-dwelling creatures. Crustaceans, with lobsters, crab, prawns and crayfish wear their shells like an outfit and usually brandish (tasty) claws. Perhaps it would be fitting to rename them claw-fish, in the contrast to shell-fish?
Naming and jokes aside, have a look at this collection of reasonably easy and supremely tasty shellfish recipes.
Starting with a showy dish: scallops Thermidor. This surprisingly easy recipe has the fat little molluscs baked in creamy fragrant Thermidor sauce, and served on a bed of spelt and pancetta. Who needs lobster?
Buy it dressed or whole, once you got all your crab meat out, mix it with butter and chillies into a Thai flavoured spread, fantastic on toast or fresh bread. Chilli crab butter is super easy to make, but be mindful of tiny shell shards if you’re doing the crab preparation yourself.
The top boy: grilled lobster with flavoured butter. If you splash on a live lobster, learn how to boil, crack, split it in half and prepare it for grilling at home. Splitting a cooked lobster for grilling is easier than it seems and less of an injury hazard (claws!). My recipe includes delicious garlic flavoured butter for the lobster.
Grilled mussels with crispy topping of black pudding and breadcrumbs are an impressive but easy starter or lunch dish, moules and black pudding being a marvellous flavour pairing. Crispy, slightly cheesy crust over cooked mussels in their half shelves is simply delicious.
Grilled mussels with black pudding
RECIPE
Squid can be cooked in more ways than breaded rings. These calamari rings are flash-fried with chorizo slices and spring onions. Whether you call it calamari or squid, this recipe will make an excellent starter or a light lunch dish.
Clams steamed with white wine and garlic are perfect to toss with spaghetti or linguini, or make a start for a delicious clam chowder. I love them on their own, with crusty baguette to mop up the buttery garlic sauce.
Mussels in season are extremely good value. Cook them in white wine and cream sauce for classic moules marinières, which is arguably the simplest and best recipe for mussels. The only chore is cleaning and debearding the mussels: pulling off the rope-like tendrils stuck to the shells.
Unshowy but none the less delicious scallop recipe: seared and served with pancetta and spiced Chinese leaf cabbage. This recipe makes for an incredibly tasty dish, for lunch or for a starter. For a main course, serve with mashed potatoes.
They don’t only look attractive: they are super tasty as well. Hot butterflied tiger prawns in a spicy marinade by Ottolenghi can be grilled or pan-fried, as long as you’re quick about it. They only need a minute in the pan, overcooked prawns are a crime against shellfish.
And finally a Spanish seafood dish featuring prawns as well as chunks of monkfish and salmon, or whatever fish is available. Fideua is cooked exactly like paella, in an enormous pan, only with short vermicelli pasta replacing rice.