Seafood platter at home
A cold platter is mostly buying and arranging, with very little cooking. The skill is balancing texture across the plate: sweet white crab meat, firm cooked prawns, soft oysters, meaty lobster or crab claws and briny cockles or whelks. Give us a day's notice and we prepare the lot free, so all you do is set it out on ice.
Ingredients
- 1 whole cooked brown crab, dressed (we pick and dress it free)
- 1 cooked lobster, halved (we cook, split and clean it free), optional centrepiece
- 8 to 12 cooked king prawns, shell on
- 12 live rock oysters (we shuck them to order free)
- 200g cooked cockles or whelks
- 6 to 8 cooked langoustines (optional)
- crushed ice and lemon wedges
- brown bread and butter
- mayonnaise, Marie Rose and mignonette to serve
Method
- Chill everything first. A cold platter must be properly cold. Fill a large tray or a tiered stand with crushed ice.
- Set the centrepiece down first, either the dressed crab in its shell or the lobster halves cut side up, in the middle.
- Arrange the prawns and langoustines around it with the tails curling outward.
- Sit the shucked oysters into the ice cupped side down so they hold their liquor. Put the cockles or whelks in a small bowl.
- Tuck lemon wedges and a little parsley into the gaps. Set the sauces and brown bread alongside.
- Serve straight away while everything is cold, with finger bowls and picks. Discard any oyster that had gaped and failed to close before shucking.
To serve: Crusty bread, thin brown bread and butter and a green salad. To drink, a chilled Muscadet or Chablis, an English sparkling or a cold lager. Tell us how many people and we scale it. As a rough guide, allow 150 to 200g of mixed shellfish per person as a main, or half that as a starter.
Shop this recipe: seafood platters, oysters, king prawns and the boxes. Cut to order at the counter, filleting free.
