Help with Recipes for Seafood

[hexi2]

Hi All,

I have copied as many recipes as I could for seafood but there doesn't seem to be a lot on offer....esepecially with crabs, crayfish, prawns and calamari. Would appreciate your ideas

[Nat]

Hi Hexi,

Some of my favourite seafood meals are:

Prawn Patties
I use prawns and I blitz them up in a mini food processor and add some finely chopped corriander, chilli, garlic, spring onion, salt and pepper and whatever other herbs/spices (just weigh them as part of your veg allowance) I feel like and form into patties and panfry on a touch of cooking spray. Serve on rocket leaves or other salad (from the rest of your veg allowance) and a touch of lemon juice (from fruit allowance).

You can also make up a batch of patties and freeze them cooked already and just take them out of the freezer when you feel like one and defrost in the fridge.

You can do the same things with other seafood - esp crab, lobster and fish.

Stuffed Calamari
You can get a piece of calamari and stuff it with spinach, parsley, garlic, a crushed up cracker, salt and pepper and a bit of tomato. Its better if you panfry the veg first so all the flavours combine and the spinach and tomato are soft. If you do this, your filling will be ready and when you put the stuffing in, its just a case of grilling the stuffed calamari until the calamari is cooked. Just roll your piece of calamari around the stuffing and hold it together with toothpicks. You can either use your whole veg allowance or only part and then serve stuffed calamari on a salad.

Crayfish - raw tails are the best bit which you can buy frozen and just defrost the cray in the fridge overnight and weigh out when defrosted and you're ready to cook. You can cut up your allowance into slices acrosswise and panfry with chilli, garlic, ginger, etc and a splash of diet sprite. Serve with a salad of rocket leaves, etc. You can also cook this in advance and freeze and just take it out of the freezer when you feel cray again and just add a salad.

Grilled Crayfish (can also do with prawns)
- Cut up your cray tail into medallions.
- Blitz up a cracker or two in a food processor, add some of your favourite herbs (I use spring onion, parsley, corriander and chilli), add them into the food processor and with a squeeze of lemon juice, blitz it up again till its nice and fine. Top your cray medallions or prawns with this mix, spray with a little cooking spray and then grill or bake in a hot oven till seafood is ready.
Serve with a fresh salad.

This herb mix is also great (depending on the herbs you use) as a topping over steak or chicken to give it some real flavour!

Seafood soup - 1 cracker smashed up finely. Allowance of seafood of your choice (or just the one type), Veg allowance - chives, garlic, shitake mushrooms, tomato, celery, (or whatever other veg you want to use), a small pinch of curry powder. Sautee the veg, curry powder, etc and seafood together, then add a cup of water and your cracker crumbs and simmer for 15 mins. Also you can also add whatever other flavourings you like.

Warm Fish salad with Mango dressing recipe - Allownce of fish left in 1 "fillet", 1 couple of tablespoons of mango and teaspoon of lemon juice (from fruit allowance), some grated fresh ginger, corriander, rocket or baby spinach leaves, bok choy leaves, spring onion (all from veg allowance) and some dried chilli flakes/powder.
- Grill your fish with a bit of salt and pepper.
- put the mango, grated ginger, chilli, spring onion, corriander and lemon juice (can use diet sprit if you want) into a small food processor and process until smooth. Then adjust to a pouring consistencey with 2-3 teaspoons of water.
- serve fish on a bed of baby rocket/spinach leaves and bok choy (which can be very lightly pan fried) with the mango dressing drizzled over the fish.

Thai Seafood Dressing (Cohens style) - can be used for any seafood.
- chilli flakes/powder (to taste), freshly grated ginger, garlic, spring onion, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaf - very finely shredded, corriander, (all must be weighed as part of veg allowance for meal).
- panfry quickly all ingredients then put into a small bowl and add:
- a tablespoon of water, vinegar or lemon juice, 1/2 tab of sweetener (to taste) and some salt to taste (how I wish we could have a dash of soy - but its not to be!!)
- mix all together and serve as either a dipping sauce or poured over a salad.

You can also use this dressing as a marinade and bake or poach some fish in it which is also very nice.

Baked fish with Lemon and Pepper.
Take your allowed fish fillet, salt lightly and sprinkle with freshly crushed pepper (or chilli if you prefer)
- sprinkle some fresh thyme leaves over fish and squeeze out a the juice of a slice or two of lemon.
- place the squeezed out slice or 2 of lemon (or orange if you prefer) on top of the fish.
- Wrap in a foil parcel and bake in a preheated oven (180 deg) for 10 mins then open up parcel and grill for a few more minutes.
Serve with salad leaves of your choice
Remember - lemon comes from your fruit allowance and the fresh herbs must be weighed into your veg allowance.

I hope this helps.

I'll post some more if I think of anything else.

Enjoy!

Nat

PS - just stating the bleeding obvious - all fresh herbs including ginger, garlic, etc need to be weighed as part of your veg allowance. Any fruit or fruit juice needs to be considered as part of your fruit allowance.

[hexi2]

Oh goody! Thanks Nat!!! Can't wait to try them :P

[Nat]

Not a problem at all Hexi.

Hope you enjoy them!

Nat

[YuLing]

Hi, try this - crabmeat patties... (i get frozen crabmeat from the local seafood shop and just thaw and weigh) =)

Crabmeat (allowance)
spring onion, chopped
tomato, chopped
mushroom, chopped

combine all ingredients together and form small balls with mixture
spray pan with oil, flatten balls into patties on frying pan
flip over till both sides are brown

serve with crispbreads and mayo (optional) =)

njoy!

[ropemaha]

ok i am sold, gonna get some seafood this week, its not taht i dont like it i just live in the desert and have always been a bit suspect of the fish we get up here. anyway i will look forward to it.

goodonya hexi, nat and yuling

cheers penny

[Wendy9]

These all sound great - I'm gonna try them too! Thanks Nat!

[Daisy]

Nat - you are a super star, I have printed this out ready for soem seafood sensations over the weekend.

[Nat]

Heres another one - a very versatile recipe!

Its a Kylie Kwong recipe adapted to Cohens (as best I could considering we can't use soy or sesame oil!), as well as me just playing around with different ingredients.

This recipe really works well with chicken, beef, prawns, calamari or even hard tofu (the one for stirfrying)!

The ingredients are not set in concrete - I've added chilli flakes before, as well as some finely diced capsicum and tomato - but leave the tomato raw and add it right at the very end. The tomato addition works especially well with beef and the pinch of curry.

Also you dont have to wrap the mix in the lettuce leaves - you can just chop up the lettuce and add it to the ready hot mix and have a warm salad - also very nice.

Sung Choi Bao

Veg to total allowance
1 - 2 Lettuce leaves depending on size - left in their natural "cup" shape. Or you can chop them if you want to eat this dish as a warm salad.
grated ginger
garlic (to taste - or garlic chives are really nice too)
Shallots
sh!take mushrooms (fresh or can be tinned in water) - Any mushrooms really, straw, oyster or even your normal white mushies!
Celery
A splash or sprite zero or diet ginger ale
Salt
Corriander
Chilli - optional - can use either fresh or dried flakes/powder
A dash of curry powder - also optional

Meat allowance - as I said above, you can use seafood, beef, chicken or hard tofu - just make sure its either minced or finely diced
.
Method: Have everything ready so that you can just quickly add the ingredients in. This dish is very quick to cook!
- Dice up all your veg finely. Not the lettuce of course if you're going to use it to wrap the mix.
- Stirfry very quickly (on a bit of cooking spray) the ginger, garlic (garlic chives) and seafood/meat/chicken allowance together. Also, if using dried chilli powder/flakes, add it at this stage.
- Add the mushrooms and half the spring onion.
- Splash in the sprite zero, add the salt and the curry powder (if using) and continue to cook till seafood/meat/chicken is cooked through. Add the other half of the spring onion, corrieander, celery and capsicum (if using) and stir through. If you are using fresh chilli, then you can add this now as well.
- Done!

All you do now is spoon it into 1 or 2 lettuce leaves, roll them up and enjoy.

Another alternative is if you use bokchoy instead of lettuce and just chop it up and add it to the mix when you add the mushrooms and you have yourself a stirfry! You can even use finely shredded cabbage for your stirfry.

LOL like I said, it was something I was playing around with and really liked. If anyone has any suggestions regarding this recipe or any of the other ones Ive posted - please let me know!

Nat

[drexyl]

Does anyone know if you can freeze green prawns or bugs, crayfish etc.? I don't eat alot of seafood as my husband hates it!
I've noticed that the green prawns at the supermarket are usually 'thawed for your convenience' therefore you wouldn't be able to re-freeze them would you?
Or if your wanting seafood, is it best to cook it the day you buy it? Not always possible?

Thanx for your help,
Sharlene

[hexi2]

I usually buy green prawns from the supermarket but always ask for 'frozen ones' then I weigh them while frozen with a bit extra and put them in the freezer. This means I have to weigh them again when they have defrosted...any extra ones go to my daughter

[Nat]

Hi Drexyl,

What you can also do is buy the thawed prawns and when you get home, weigh them out, cook each portion separately, then freeze them already cooked in the right weights.

I usually just boil them quickly because then I can easily add them to a salad or throw them into a stirfry at the last minute.

Just a tip - try to defrost the cooked prawns in the fridge because sometimes they can go a little watery - but if you are using them in a stirfry, then it doesnt matter.

Hope this helps

Nat

[YuLing]

I normally buy the 1kg individually frozen ones and seperate them in freezer bags. Then take them out and thaw and weigh when needed.. extras juz goes to whoever interested in them.. =)

[Jeannie]

Seafood in Alice Springs!!... Sure hope the truck doesn't break down on the way... Sorry Hexi I have a sick sense of humor....

[hexi2]

Yeh don't worry Jeannie - it is a struggle with thinking about where that seafood has come from...a hell of a long journey

[kgb]

sweet chilli prawns

prawns
chill flakes
parsley
garlic
diet sprite)
(may want to add curry, but not necessary

Mix and spices and let marinate overnight. Heat fry pan with a dash of olive oil add prawns then when almos cooked at sprite. Serve with salad

Enjoy!

[~Ang~]

Originally Posted by Nat

Stuffed Calamari
You can get a piece of calamari and stuff it with spinach, parsley, garlic, a crushed up cracker, salt and pepper and a bit of tomato. Its better if you panfry the veg first so all the flavours combine and the spinach and tomato are soft. If you do this, your filling will be ready and when you put the stuffing in, its just a case of grilling the stuffed calamari until the calamari is cooked. Just roll your piece of calamari around the stuffing and hold it together with toothpicks. You can either use your whole veg allowance or only part and then serve stuffed calamari on a salad.

I've just had this for dinner and I was praising you while eating every mouthful Nat ... it's fantastic!!!

[metamorphosis]

thanks, Nat! the stuffed calamari's simply delicious!