Seashore salad
Sep 23rd, 2008 | By admin | Category: Foods
We developed this recipe when we opened Hix Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis a few months back. We have plenty of wild sea vegetables on the beach, and herbs like wild fennel growing on the cliffs. With a daily changing menu featuring everything from razor clams, surf clams, scallops, mussels, lobster, crab and, of course, oysters, it seemed a shame to have a dish that didn’t give the customer a bit of everything going. If you’re struggling to get wild sea vegetables then samphire and a few small salad leaves will do.
A couple of handfuls of sea vegetables like small leaves of sea beet, samphire, sea purslane, wild fennel, trimmed of any woody stalks and washed
4 scallops, cleaned
A couple of tablespoonfuls of freshly picked white crab meat
150-200g mussels, cleaned
150-200g cockles or surf clams, cleaned
50ml white wine
4 medium scallops removed from the shell
4 oysters, shucked and left in the half shell
Other seafood such as cooked lobster or prawns, etc
For the dressing
The juice of half a lemon
1tbsp white wine or tarragon vinegar
4-5tbsp rapeseed oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Put the cockles and mussels in a pan with the white wine and cook on a high heat with a lid on for 3-4 minutes, shaking the pan every so often until they are all open. Tip into a colander, reserving the juices. Strain this liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Halve the scallops; lay them in a small dish and pour the hot liquid over them and leave to cool.
Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil and blanch the samphire, sea purslane, or whichever sea vegetable you are using, for 20 seconds then refresh under the cold tap. Whisk all of the ingredients together for the dressing with a little of the liquid from the scallops and season to taste.
To serve the salad, remove half of the mussels and cockles from the shell and arrange with the rest of the ingredients on individual plates or one large serving dish. Spoon over the dressing and sit the oyster on top.
Tags: cockles and mussels, crab meat, half shell, mesh sieve, rapeseed oil, sea beet, sea purslane, sea vegetable, sea vegetables, surf clams, tarragon vinegar, white wine, wild sea