Prawn Squid Chili Alfredo

Now does that just sound ultra tasty mates? Well to me it does! And since I uploaded a picture of the final, plated product to twitter and I have a few folks asking for the recipe, I suppose I should share it with YOU.

This is what the finished dish should somewhat look like:




Your plates and cutlery may vary of course.

 This is also one of dave's (tm) seat-of-the-pants whatcha-got-cuz-I'm-in-a-hurry creations.

The above being typed, this of course means that the following amounts may or may not be somewhere in the general vicinity of the amounts I used. But hey mates, I'm trying! Gotta give a bloke credit for that, right?

Here is what I *sorta* did:

What you need and do:

For the first part...
2 tbsp minced red onion
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp chili paste (try to find the kind at least 90% chilis)
1 small handful of fresh, minced basil leaves
1 small handful of fresh, minced, onion greens
1 tbsp olive oil
sprinkle of sea salt
Add all the above ingredients to a large cast-iron skillet.



Simmer and stir for a few minutes till the garlic is close to browning.

Then add 1 cup of white wine (or water) and let it simmer for a few minutes till the liquid is *almost* reduced to nothing.

For the next part you'll want to have these two things handy:
200 grams prawn meat, peeled and deveined
100 grams minced squid tube, cleaned of course

Perhaps your seafood may look something like this:


Your cutting board may vary of course.

Add that wonderful, delicious seafood to your that large saucepan that has just simmered down!



Oh yeah, I'm getting hungry just thinking about the wonderful smell from the saucepan last night.

Turn the heat up a bit and stir for a minute, then turn the heat to low. Add 1 cup water, cover and simmer till the liquid is gone.


Now you get to make it "Alfredo"!

Add 1 cup of full cream milk and 1/2 cup cream. Stir to combine while heating. Grate 1/2 cup cheddar cheese over the simmering mix, sprinkle on a pinch of sea salt. Stir to combine well.

Turn off the heat and cover.

Now you thicken it a bit. I use tapioca flour to thicken these type of sauces but if you only have cornstarch then that's ok.

Mix 1 tbsp tapioca flour with 1/2 cup cold water. Add to the saucepan with all your wonderfully smelling goodies in it; quick stir to combine. Wa-La!

Serve over any kind of pasta as takes your fancy. Garnish with fresh basil.

Note, MIL wanted spaghetti, Wifey-Poo wanted fettuccine, and I wanted angel-hair. Here's a pic of MIL's plate.



Enjoy!

How To Shuck Fresh Scallops

With pictures! With video! With words!

Can't beat that.

And when I say "fresh scallops", I mean FRESH! These babies were pulled out of the ocean the morning that I bought them at the Willunga Farmers Market. The wife and I really like the market. Every Saturday morning no matter what the weather: rain, hail, sleet, 120 F temps, no matter cus it's always there!

I especially like the stall from Nangkita that has the venison sausages from their own deer farm, but that's a different story.

Back to the scallops!

These juicy shellfish were taken from Kangaroo Island, which is just a hop off the tip of Cape Jervis. I've never been there, but it is on my list of many places to visit.

Anyways...

Let's say you've got a fresh load of scallops and you have NO IDEA how to get them out of their shells, nor do you have any idea what to do with them once you have "shucked" them.

That's why you are reading this. To Learn. From Me.

Fresh scallops are actually very easy to "shuck" from their shells. Oh, the part of the scallop you in the US eat is the adductor muscle that holds the two shells together and propels the little bugger all over, quickly. When you are outside of the US, you'll find that not only is the adductor muscle eaten, but so is the roe.

Roe is the bright pink part of the scallop. It's the reproductive part. And it is oh so tasty, smooth, and creamy! Seriously, I think the fresh roe is better than the adductor muscle!

Now, if you have been interested in learning how to shuck scallops you've probably seen that youtube video with the guy on the fishing boat shucking scallops at the rate of one every five seconds. Yeah, that's fast. That's also his job. But it's not your job and you also want to keep the roe.

That's why you are reading this post.

First, you need some fresh scallops:


Please note that is a butter knife. You do not need NOR want a sharp knife for shucking scallops. Also notice that one shell of a scallop is deep and concave, and the other is flat --in fact slightly convex.

Put the scallop in your palm with the concave shell down and the hinge towards your thumb. You'll notice a gap between the shell halves close to the hinge. Here I am pointing that out to you:




Just gently slide your butter knife into that gap. You want to work it all the way to the other side whilst keep the knife as close to the flat shell as possible.




Once you slice through the large, tasty, succulent adductor muscle the scallop will basically pop open:




Open that baby up and scrap out everything except the large muscle AND the roe! That pink stuff is the roe --gourmet food!




Then just slide your knife under the muscle and the roe still attached to the concave shell:




Don't worry if you can't keep the roe attached to the muscle of the scallop, but keep the roe anyways. Your plate should soon start to look like this:




Here's a short vid demonstrating the process. Please note, if you don't keep the roe (you idiot, you) then this can be done in about ten seconds. 30 of the 43 seconds is me saving the roe.




To cook these fresh, succulent, ultra-creamy, delicious scallops, all you need is a small saucepan and a bit of olive oil along with some butter. Or you can eat them raw --you'll be transorted to heaven! But don't eat them raw if they aren't ultra fresh. Anyways, half olive oil and half butter:




Do NOT over cook them! 45 seconds to a mins on each side in the sizzling oil/butter is perfect. Your plate of cooked scallops should now look like this:




Just eat them. Savor every tender, juicy morsel as you drool all over yourself and make very pleasant purring sounds.

Mussels in a Creamy Garlic Sauce

This turned out soooooo good a few nights ago that I just had to share it all of you. It's fairly simple and oh so tasty.


What you need:
1 kilo of scrubbed, de-bearded mussels in their shell --I used New Zealand green-lipped
1 small onion, fine chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
1 cup of white wine --I used chardonnay
1/2 cup (or so) of water
1/2 cup of cream

What you do:
Put the onion and butter in a wok or a wide frypan. Saute for a few mins and then add the garlic. Cook for a minute or two, while stirring regularly. Add the white wine and the water, bring it up to a simmer and then add the mussels. Put on the lid.

Once the mussels have opened, remove them from the sauce and continue to simmer till the sauce is reduced by half. While the sauce is reducing, remove the steamed mussels from their shells --obviously, discard any that didn't open.

Once the sauce is reduced, put the mussel meat and the cream into the sauce. Cook till it's hot (should only take a minute or two) and then serve it up! I served this over some jasmine rice, but there is a lot that can be done with this for serving so use your imagination.

Oh, keep the shells. They are great for serving seafood type hors-dourves (how the heck is that spelled?) on. And they also make great spoons if you are having a south-pacific style feast.

Maori Fried Mussels

And we all know how the Kiwis love their mussels! Heck, just look at the All-Black Rugby team! Ok, just a little humour there...

There are probably about as many different ways to fry mussels as there are chef's in this world so these are definitely NOT the end-all, be-all of mussel frying. BUT (and it's a huge butt) there is one key thing here: fresh ingredients and minimal seasonings.

Why? Cus that's the Polynesian way of cooking, and New Zealand is part of Polynesia.

I'm going to give you 3 "methods" of frying them, no real recipes, just the basics of how to do it.

Oh, if you can't get fresh mussels, then you can use the jarred ones for this, but it won't be as tasty. But you won't have to go through the prep work so it all evens out.

A quick way to de-beard mussels: hold the mussel in one hand with the hinge of the shell towards you. Grab the beard with your other hand and give a quick pull towards you; the shell, as it approaches the hinge, will neatly slice off the beard. If you have a LOT of mussels this is much quicker than using scissors or a knife, AND you always get the entire beard.



1st method:

De-beard the mussels and put them in a pan with enough water to just cover them. Heat em up and take them out of the water as soon as they open. It is important you take them out right when they start to open.

Take the mussels out of their shells and slice or cutaway the tough outer ring around the front edge. Lightly dust them with flour, dip into egg/milk mixture (1 to 1, so about 1/4 cup of milk for each egg), dredge through breadcrumbs, and fry in hot butter until lightly golden brown.



2nd method:

Same as the first, but once you've got them out of the shells and cut away the tough ring you give em a quick rinse in cold water. Then dust with a mix of flour, salt and pepper. Dip in egg wash (all eggs, NO milk), dredge through breadcrumbs, and fry in very hot oil.



3rd method:

De-bread the mussels and pry them shells open (this can be, ummmm, fun!), cut off the outer ring, dust with flour, dip in 100% egg mix and then fry immediately in hot butter. This method produces the MOST succulent fried mussels EVER! But it is also a bit of work gettin' them suckers open without lightly steaming them first.


Any of those methods can be used with jarred mussels, no worries. Oh, and if you can get New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussels... not only are they tasty but have some wonderful pharmacuetical properties too (I'll leave the googling for you).

If you do use a dipping sauce, DON'T use a strong flavoured sauce and DON'T use a lot of it.

A nice, crisp lager goes well with these, BTW.