The most inexpensive and relatively affordable way to treat yourself to shrimp, mussels, squid and octopus is to make a sea cocktail. You can buy it in almost any supermarket or other large megalopolis store, the choice of packaging options is also on the level. One trouble: very often when defrosting, seafood gives so much water that it becomes sad. It is unlikely that such a dense glazing (it is because of it, when thawing a frozen sea cocktail loses almost a quarter of its weight) is necessary. But we have no choice but to reconcile ourselves and to buy more than necessary in advance.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- - Seafood cocktail;
- - butter or vegetable oil;
- - spices;
- - vegetables;
- - rice or noodles;
- - cream;
- - White wine;
- - balsamic vinegar;
- - a frying pan;
- - stewpan;
- - spoons;
- - knives;
- - cocotte makers;
- - cutting board.
Instruction manual
1
If you decide to serve a sea cocktail as an independent dish, just place it on a heated frying pan, cover, reduce heat and hold until completely defrosted (do not defrost a sea cocktail in advance). Do not salt or season at this stage. Due to the large percentage of moisture that comes from seafood, it’s easy to overdo it with additives now. When the sea cocktail defrosts (usually it takes 2-4 minutes, the time depends on the degree of heating), remove the lid, add a piece of butter, season with spices to taste and increase the heat. This is a basic recipe, there may be variations.
2
If you want to please homemade Mediterranean-style seafood, pre-fry a couple of sprigs of thyme or rosemary, chopped shallots and crushed garlic clove crushed by the wide side of the knife blade. After 3-4 minutes add frozen sea cocktail, salt and pour some white wine. Keep on the stove until the liquid has completely evaporated, then remove the sprigs of greens and serve, garnished either with halves of sweet pepper baked on the grill, or eggplant, or concassage tomatoes, preheated and seasoned with a couple drops of balsamic vinegar.
3
When deciding to make a sea-style cocktail in an Asian style, get the appropriate dishes. The best option is a wok pan with a hemispherical bottom. For lack of such a pan, take a deep stewpan or a regular pan with relatively high sides. Frozen sea cocktail and in this recipe do not need to defrost. Fry finely chopped ginger root and garlic in soya or peanut butter, if any, add lemongrass (lemon sorghum) and galangal. The last two ingredients are a frequent seafood supplement in China or Japan. They are sold with us; in almost all more or less large stores they can already be bought fresh or dried for a long time. As soon as the oil in the wok absorbs the aromas of gingerbread vegetables, add a frozen seafood cocktail. Fry quickly over high heat and serve immediately with rice or traditional Asian noodles - udon, yourself, harusame.
4
Make a wonderful julienne from a sea cocktail. Place frozen seafood in a saucepan with a lid and keep on low heat until the glaze turns into water. Add heat and allow excess liquid to evaporate. Season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, in another pan, fry the onion in butter, sprinkle it with flour, when it becomes a little nutty, dilute with heavy cream and salt. Remove the cocktail from the fire, distribute among the cocotte makers - small, often ceramic or metal forms, in which julienne is traditionally prepared and served. It is important that seafood occupy no more than half in height. Pour in the creamy mixture, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake until golden brown. The "favorite" place of this hot snack is on the festive table.
5
The Italians, who know a lot about good food, for lack of fresh seafood at some point, would have prepared one of their national dishes, risotto, with a sea cocktail. Fry in a deep saucepan a couple of branches of thyme, then immediately remove them and add rice. One of the best varieties suitable for risotto is carnaroli and arborio. Their main advantage is that they perfectly retain their shape and necessary structure during a relatively long heat treatment, and in the finished form, the pictures are correctly connected to each other, but at the same time they do not turn into porridge, as happens when using cereals of other varieties. In fried rice, the grains of which have acquired the necessary transparency, slowly, literally on a ladle, pour the fish broth. When the rice swells, add a seafood cocktail and shallots pre-fried in butter, then pour in the cream, season with salt and white pepper. The consistency of the finished dish should remain pouring. If you take it on a spoon and turn it over, the risotto drains, not flops, as it inevitably happens with mashed potatoes. It is this risotto with seafood that is considered the reference. Unless in the middle of cooking it would be nice to add 100-120 ml of white wine - however, this is a matter of taste.
6
A frozen sea cocktail can make a good salad. Add seafood in one of the ways described above, cool. In the meantime, prepare vegetables, for example, multi-colored sweet peppers, which must be peeled, cut into quarters and, salted, baked until half cooked; tomatoes - concasse (diced, without skin and seeds), grilled garlic, olives or olives. Dressing from olive oil and lemon juice, taken in equal proportions, is suitable as a dressing for such a salad. Mix all the ingredients with dressing in a deep salad bowl, and as a final chord, decorate with fresh basil leaves. You just made a restaurant salad, so what if you used a frozen sea cocktail for it.
note
Sea cocktail gives quite a lot of water during thawing; initially take it more than you are going to serve.
Useful advice
Frozen sea cocktail is made in different countries, but the best is in Indonesia.
Related article
How to make a spicy sea cocktail