Winkles with Shallot Vinegar
Mussels with Garlic Butter
Dijon Moules Marinière with Clotted Cream
Thai Mussels
Marazion Mussels with Fettuccine
Griddled Scallops with Pea Purée and Mint Vinaigrette
Chinese Scallops on the Half-Shell
Coquille St Jacques with Bacon
Scallop or Squid Provencal with Basmati Rice
Squid with Tomatoes and Peas
All the boys growing up in Mousehole in the war years had nicknames: ‘Big Boo’, ‘Shonolly’, ‘Strom’, ‘Jinx’, the two ‘Nabos’, ‘Wackers’ and ‘Ben banger’. They would play cricket and rounders in the harbour at low tide, collecting the balls from under the hulls of the fishing boats. Another favourite pastime was collecting limpets and cooking them on a metal sheet over a fire on the rocks, when they weren’t fishing for whistlers and bull cats in the rock pools. The limpets didn’t taste particularly good – rubbery and salty – but they were edible and the thrill of knocking these clinging, conical molluscs off the rocks and cooking them over a fire by the sea more than compensated. I have a special relationship with one row of limpets, glued to the base of my favourite sunbathing rock. Where the ‘wall’ rock naps the flat rock, a row of limpets has been lined up like pointed, ridged pyramids for years. They don’t move much, but they are quite vocal. Every now and again they make a squelching noise, a sort of grinding which sounds a bit like little bubbles bursting. I imagine the limpets are stamping their tiny feet in unison, but as the sun beats down and the water laps against the rocks my mind begins to wander. There’s a particular bit of cliff nearby which is the courting ground for gulls and other birds. I watch the lovebirds smooching and pecking and finally nesting, as they always do, on the earthy crevices of the cliff. Once I woke from a little sunbathing snooze to see the beady, bright yellow eyes of a gull blinking perilously close to my face. I couldn’t get rid of him. When the tide goes out from my flat rock haven, the sea uncovers a mass of seaweed called sea-thong or thong-weed, which looks exactly like green spaghetti. Sometimes the gentle put-put of an outboard motor or the regular swish of an oar brings someone up close to check a lobster pot or shoot a line for mackerel. Occasionally the chalky backbone of a cuttlefish gets washed up on the rocks, or tiny soft-shell crabs, but the only reliably acceptable free seafood for landlubbers is winkles. They used to grow abundantly on the steps in the harbour below the village clock (the old sewage outlet) and less conveniently in the cracks of the rocks by Dicky Daniel’s Cove, out towards Lamorna. People used to collect them for sale and there was one particular man who worked the shore between the old Penryn quarry and the lighthouse quay at Newlyn.
The tiny grey-black winkles need to be carefully washed – agitated in several changes of cold water – to remove sand and mud before boiling briefly in salted water. Their little flat, shiny trapdoor is removed before they are ‘winkled’ out with a pin. Some people dip them in vinegar. Betty preferred shallot vinegar, the sort that goes with oysters, and served them for tea with bread and butter. Winkles are the starting-point for a plateau de fruits de mer and are usually served with a cork stuck with pins for winkling.
Tiny little mussels grow on the big rocks by the sea at Mousehole and, like winkles, must only be picked and eaten from clear, clean water. The mussels inside are so tiny they aren’t worth collecting, but it’s possible to find farmed mussels from nearby Falmouth. The beautiful black-blue shells come relatively clean but it’s wise to hack off any barnacles with a blunt, old knife. To clean the mussels, tip them into a sink of cold water and agitate thoroughly, repeating a couple of times until the water runs clean. Discard any mussels that are cracked or open. Their little whiskery ‘beards’ can be removed with a sharp tug.
There are vast quantities of scallops moving about on the sea-bed in local waters during the summer and fishermen come from all over the country for scallop fishing. The best are diver-caught, hand-sorted and graded. If they aren’t on sale graded as diver-caught, the scallops have probably been scooped up by a beamer which trawls the sea-bed with a chain mat attached to two big steel shoes. Many fishermen think beamers should be banned because they are systematically ripping up the sea-bed. The scallops they catch are likely to be full of sand.
There are two types: king scallops are large with one flat shell and one curved one; ‘queenies’, which are smaller and rated for their exceptionally sweet flavour, have two curved shells. The best way to buy them is live on the shell. Avoid frozen scallops, which are often soaked in water before freezing to pump up the size and make them seem better value for money.
To prepare fresh scallops, hold the curved shell in your cupped hand and slide a sharp, thin-bladed flexible knife between the two shells, keeping the blade pressed against the top shell. Feel for the muscle which joins the meat to the shell, slicing through it and thus releasing the shell. Pull away the frilly ‘skirt’ that surrounds the white scallop and orange coral. Rinse away any sand. To remove the scallop from the shell, slide the knife under the scallop. Cut off the thin white ligament at the side of the white meat, which is hard and tough.
Squid is quite common down here but still underrated and therefore extremely good value. The snowy-white, tube-like body or sac of this mollusc is tender and sweet and comes without a shell. It belongs to a group which also includes cuttlefish and octopus, called cephalopods or ‘head-footed’, referring to the way their tentacles come out of their head. If you are squeamish, most fishmongers will clean squid for you; but it’s a painless and simple enough job – just a bit slimy and messy. I like the bald description in The River Café Cook Book: ‘clean the squid by cutting the body open to make a flat piece. Scrape out the guts, keeping the tentacles in their bunches, but remove the eyes and mouth.’ If you want to keep the squid in its tube shape, begin this (slightly more detailed) cleaning process by holding the body with one hand and gently pull the head away from the body, taking the slippery, creamy intestines with it. If you want to retain the ink sac, look among the intestines for a silvery-white slim sac and carefully cut it away. Squid ink, incidentally, is sold in plastic pouches by most fishmongers. Cut the tentacles off just in front of the eyes and discard the head. Squeeze out the hard mouth from the centre of the tentacles and discard. Cut the tentacles in half if they are very big. Pull out the transparent plastic ‘quill’ inside the body and wash out the sac, removing any soft white goo. Pull off the two fins on the side of the body and remove the skin in sheets.
To cook flat sheets of squid, score it with a close cross-hatch on the inner side, taking care not to cut all the way through. Oil it lightly and griddle or fry. Slice into 5cm strips for stir-frying or deep-frying.
Carefully wash freshly picked winkles in cold water as described above. Put a pan of well-salted water on to boil, just sufficient to cover the winkles, and when boiling throw in the winkles. Return to the boil and boil for a couple of minutes, then drain and cool under the cold tap. Serve with the vinegar (see page 135 for dipping and slices of buttered brown bread. To eat, use a pin to remove the ‘lid’ and deftly hook them out.
A bit of a palaver to make – although virtually everything can be done in advance – but well worth the effort. Serve as a snack or first course with crusty bread.
1kg cleaned mussels
3 garlic cloves
handful parsley
75g butter
Cook the mussels, covered, with half a cup of water over a high heat, shaking the pan a couple of times, until they are all opened. Drain in a colander and leave to cool. Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the garlic. Finely chop the parsley leaves. Chop the two together and then mash them into the butter with a fork. Remove the empty shell from each mussel and put a teaspoon of garlic butter on each mussel. Arrange in a grill pan and flash under a pre-heated grill for a few seconds until the butter is bubbling hot. Serve immediately.
There are many ways of ringing the changes with moules marinière and this is one of them. Serve with crusty bread and butter or garlic bread (see page 319).
2kg cleaned, closed, uncracked mussels
1 large onion
3 garlic cloves
50g butter
1 flat tbsp flour
1 tbsp smooth Dijon mustard
300ml dry white wine or cider
4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
pepper
150g clotted cream
Leave the mussels to drain in a colander. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Heat the butter in large, lidded saucepan that can accommodate all the mussels. Stir in the onion and garlic and cook gently until soft and transparent. Sift the flour over the top and stir with a wooden spoon until it disappears into the buttery onions. Stir in the mustard, then add the wine in a steady stream, stirring to make a smooth sauce. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 3–4 minutes. Tip in the mussels, put on the lid and, holding the handle and the lid in both hands, shake the pan around a bit. Turn the heat very high and cook for 3 minutes. Lift the lid to check that all the mussels are open; if not, put the lid back on, shake again and continue for a few more minutes. Repeat again if necessary, continuing until most of the mussels are open. Add the parsley, several grinds of pepper and stir everything around for the last time. Tip into a large bowl or eat from the pan. Serve the clotted cream separately for people to stir into their soup.
The broth of this spicy version of moules marinière has all the hallmarks of a coconut-milk Thai soup, being all at once creamy, sour, chillihot and citrus-scented. This basic recipe can be changed with other seasonings – leeks, for example, instead of onion, with curry spices or saffron and cream – but Thai seasonings are the current favourite.
2kg mussels, cleaned, broken and unopened shells discarded
1 red onion
3 garlic cloves
1 small unwaxed lemon
2 red bird’s eye chillies
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
200ml coconut cream
freshly milled black pepper
50g bunch of coriander
Leave the mussels in a colander to finish draining while you prepare the broth. Peel, halve and finely chop the onion and garlic. Using a zester or potato peeler, remove the zest from the lemon in wafer-thin strips. Chop quite small. Trim and split the chillies, scrape away the seeds, slice into thin strips and then across into tiny scraps – don’t forget to wash your hands to remove the chilli juices that will burn eyes and other sensitive parts. Heat the oil in a large pan with a good-fitting lid. Stir in the onion, lemon zest, garlic and chilli and cook, adjusting the heat so nothing burns, for 6–7 minutes until the onion is soft. Add the nam pla, coconut cream and juice from half the lemon. Season generously with black pepper. Chop the coriander, including the stalks, which should be sliced very finely. Add the stalk half of the coriander to the pan. Simmer for a couple of minutes, taste and adjust the seasoning with lemon juice. Tip the drained mussels into the pan, stir a couple of times with a wooden spoon, clamp on the lid and cook at a high heat for 5 minutes. Lift off the lid, have a look to see if the mussels are opening – it doesn’t take long – and give the pan a good shake or another stir, trying to bring the already opened mussels on the bottom to the top. Replace the lid and cook for a few more minutes. Check again that all the mussels are open, returning the lid for a couple more minutes if necessary, add the rest of the coriander, give a final stir and then tip the contents of the pan into a warmed bowl. Do not eat any mussels which haven’t opened.
Marazion is a long, sandy beach opposite St Michael’s Mount beyond Penzance. It was there, one freezing, windy, rainy Sunday in October, that friends and I took shelter at an imposing pub overlooking the sea. As the rain lashed down outside and the sky blackened over the Mount, we chose our food from one of those impossibly ambitious pub menus. We were mindful to chose local produce and the grilled sardines (actually pilchards) were very good, but the Newlyn crab salad was spoilt for me by an overdose of fancy lollo rosso and chunks of raw green and red pepper. The best choice by far was pasta with mussels in a creamy sauce flecked with tomatoes. This is my interpretation of the dish, which owes a lot to a recipe in Rowley Leigh’s book No Place Like Home.
2kg mussels, cleaned, broken and unopened shells discarded
1 glass white wine or cider
1 medium onion
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp fresh thyme leaves
6 ripe plum tomatoes
200ml thick cream
500g fettuccine or tagliatelle
salt and pepper
Cook the mussels in the wine in a large lidded pan over a very high heat for 3–4 minutes. Lift the lid to check that all the mussels are open; if not, return the lid, give the pan a good shake and continue for a few more minutes until the mussels are open. Tip into a colander but retain the juices. Leave to cool and then shell the mussels. Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Soften gently in the olive oil. At the end of cooking, stir in the thyme. Cover the tomatoes with boiling water, count to 20, drain, core and peel. Scrape the seeds into a sieve placed over a bowl and chop the flesh into small, neat dice. Add the strained mussel liquor (taking care to hold back any shell, etc. towards the end) and tomato juices into the onion. Boil until the liquid is reduced to less than a cupful, then beat in the cream. Reduce the heat and simmer until thick and unctuous. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water until just al dente. Drain and return to the pan. Stir in the mussels and tomato. Season with black pepper, stir again and serve.
Clever Rowley Leigh, chef of Kensington Place, who invented this fantastic combination of crusty, sweet scallops with a creamy pea purée, the whole dribbled with a mint vinaigrette. It is inspired. Serve with crusty bread as a starter. Leftover mint vinaigrette keeps well in the fridge and is excellent with lamb chops on another occasion.
3–5 scallops per person, cleaned, corals intact
a little vegetable oil
for the pea purée:
4 spring onions
50g butter
1 small lettuce
250g peas, fresh or frozen
a few mint leaves
salt and pepper
½ tsp sugar
150 ml dry white wine
150ml thick cream
squeeze lemon juice
small bunch of mint
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
50ml cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
125ml sunflower or groundnut oil
Begin by making the pea purée. Trim and slice the spring onions and stew them in 50g butter. Shred the lettuce leaves and add to the pan, then stir in the peas. Add a few mint leaves and season with salt and pepper and a little sugar. Add the white wine and stew, covered, on a low heat for 30 minutes. Add the cream and simmer briskly to reduce until it is in danger of catching on the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat and purée in a blender until very smooth. Sharpen the seasoning with lemon juice and salt and pepper. Transfer to a small pan and keep warm.
To make the vinaigrette, chop 6 or 7 sprigs of mint roughly and put in the blender. Add a teaspoon of sugar and a big pinch of salt. Bring the vinegar up to the boil and pour over the mint. Switch on the blender and add the oil in a steady trickle. Check the seasoning and adjust with lemon, salt and pepper if necessary.
To cook the scallops, salt them lightly, leave for 10 minutes and then pat dry with kitchen paper. Lightly brush them with a little oil. Heat a heavy, dry frying pan or griddle until it is very hot and put the scallops in one by one. Do not move them for a couple of minutes, but let them brown well. Turn and cook for another 2 minutes, then remove. They should be just hot in the middle, but very moist. To serve, arrange the scallops around a mound of pea purée on each plate and drizzle the vinaigrette between them, taking care not to drown the scallops.
In my early days a restaurant critic I was taken to Chinatown by a Singaporean friend and introduced to this stunningly simple, utterly fabulous way of cooking scallops. The scallops are cooked in the shell and served with an exquisite ‘gravy’ made from the shellfish juices mingled with soy, toasted sesame oil and ginger, with a garnish of spring onions and coriander.
50g fresh ginger
16 scallops, cleaned but on the shell
3 spring onions
4 or 5 sprigs coriander
4 tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 tbsp Kikkoman soy sauce
Leave the scallops attached to the shell. Peel and finely slice the ginger and then cut into skinny matchsticks. Half-fill a steamer pan with water and bring to the boil with the lid on. Sprinkle the scallops with ginger and place in the steamer. Cover and cook for about 4 minutes until just set. Trim and finely slice the spring onions and coarsely chop the coriander leaves. Quickly heat together the sesame oil and soy sauce. Serve four shells per person. Sprinkle with spring onions and coriander and pour over the hot sauce.
This variation on Coquille St Jacques, the classic French way of cooking and serving scallops in their shell, makes a few scallops go a long way. The creamy mash acts as a wall to contain the smooth, silky scallops in their white wine sauce, a sublime combination. And when there are a few scraps of crisp, salty bacon with each mouthful and a crunchy, cheesy topping, it is hard to resist. Quantities given are for four starter portions or two main dishes.
salt and black pepper
50g butter
100ml milk plus 3 tablespoons
8 scallops, cleaned, round shells retained
1 bay leaf
150ml dry white wine
4 rashers rindless smoked streaky bacon
1 tbsp vegetable oil
bunch of spring onions or 1 leek
25g flour
4 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Peel the potatoes, cut into even-sized chunks and cook in plenty of salted water. Drain and mash with half the butter and 3 tablespoons of milk. Meanwhile, cut the orange corals off the scallops and slice each scallop into three thick pennies. Place the bay leaf and wine in a small pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat immediately and add the scallops and their corals. Cook gently for a couple of minutes, then scoop the scallops out of the pan and drain the wine into a cup. Discard the bay leaf. Slice across the bacon rashers to make skinny strips. Fry the bacon in the vegetable oil until nicely crisp. Scoop the bacon out of the pan and drain on kitchen paper. Trim and finely slice the spring onions or, if using a leek, trim, then quarter it lengthways and slice into small scraps. Cook the onion or leek in the bacon oil for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the remaining butter and, when melted, stir in the flour until smooth. Then gradually incorporate the wine, followed by 100ml milk, stirring constantly to make a smooth sauce. Season with salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes before returning the scallops and bacon. Edge four scallop shells – the mixture may require more, depending on the size of the shells – with a wall of potato. Spoon the sauce in the middle and use leftover mash to fork a thin lid. Dredge lavishly with Parmesan. Cook in the oven for 15–20 minutes until the top is crisp and gorgeous.
The combination of smooth, sweet scallops and fresh, vibrant cherry tomatoes with a quickly made garlicky, lemon–wine sauce flecked with flat-leaf parsley is as easy on the tongue as it is on the eye. There is a huge amount here for two, but it is so light and delicious that everyone always seems to eat more than expected. Serve it with bread and butter as a starter or with rice for a main course. Another simpler version is to slice the cleaned squid into rings or strips and fry it briefly in olive oil flavoured with garlic crushed to a paste with a little salt. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and a shower of freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley.
300g basmati rice
12 plump, fresh, cleaned scallops or 400g cleaned squid
salt and pepper
2 garlic cloves
250g cherry tomatoes
50g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of ½ lemon
½ glass dry white wine
flourishing bunch of flat-leaf parsley
1 lemon
Rinse the rice until the water runs clean and place in a pan with a tight-fitting lid with 450ml cold water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to very low, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat but leave the lid in place for a further 10 minutes so that the rice finishes cooking in the steam. Meanwhile, cut the white part of each scallop into two rounds, or three if they are very big. Put the corals in a separate pile. Season both with salt and pepper. If using squid, slice the sacs in chunky rings, approximately 1cm wide. Divide the tentacles into two or three pieces, depending on their size. Peel and chop the garlic, sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt and use the flat of a knife to crush to a juicy paste. Quarter the cherry tomatoes, then slice across the quarters. Heat butter and oil in a spacious frying pan, stir in the garlic and almost immediately the scallop pennies or squid, moderating the heat so that it cooks gently, turning the scallops to cook evenly. After a couple of minutes, add the scallop corals, cook for a few more seconds, turning to cook both sides, then squeeze in the lemon juice and add the white wine. Let everything bubble up, then add the tomatoes. Cook for 2–3 minutes for everything to mix and merge. Pick the leaves off the parsley stalks and coarsely chop; you need at least 4 heaped tablespoons. Stir the parsley into the dish before the tomatoes have had a chance to collapse. Season generously with black pepper and lightly with salt. Serve over rice with lemon wedges.
Apart from a few bungled attempts at re-creating the deep-fried squid rings I’d eaten in Spain, this was the first squid recipe I ever cooked and it’s slightly adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cookbook. It tastes fresh and luscious and converts would-be squid haters. Serve it with plenty of crusty bread to scoop up the wonderful juices.
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
8 ripe, firm tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
800g small squid, cleaned
salt and black pepper
350g frozen petits pois
lemon wedges and parsley to serve
Peel, halve and finely chop the onion and garlic. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes. Count to 20, drain, peel, cut out the core and halve the tomatoes. Scrape out the seeds and chop the flesh. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pan that can hold all the ingredients. Sauté the onion over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until it begins to soften and turn golden. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the tomatoes. Cook at a gentle simmer for about 15 minutes until the tomatoes begin to thicken and the onions melt into them to make a cohesive sauce. Meanwhile, slice the squid sacs (its body) into 1cm-wide rings. Cut off the tentacles. Squeeze out the hard mouth from the centre of the tentacles – it will pop out easily – and discard everything else. Divide the tentacle clusters in half. Add the rings and tentacles to the casserole. Season with salt and pepper, stir well, cover and cook at a gently simmer for about 20 minutes or until the squid is tender. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Stir in the peas and cook for a few more minutes until tender. Taste and adjust the seasoning, stir in the parsley and serve with lemon wedges.