1. With the relatively shorter
cooking times of most fish and
shellfish compared to meat
and poultry, recipes featuring
these delectable ingredients
can be a convenient way to
whip up an impressive feast in
a relatively short amount of
time. The speedy cooking
time can however deceive
the novice cook who doesn’t
realize that small shrimps and
calamari can just take
seconds to cook and going
over by a a mere matter of
minutes will make the ends
product tough and rubbery.
The keys to good food
preparation especially with
seafood is freshness of
ingredients and mis en place
or putting “everything in place”. Especially with foods that cook quickly, it is wise to
have all the components of your dish ready on hand so that the addition of
ingredients need not be delayed because the cook forgets to peel, slice, chop,
mince or thaw anything.
Fresh shrimp, scallops, squid, mussels and other smaller sized marine animals should
be purchased as fresh as possible and stored properly in the refrigerator when these
will not be used immediately. Keep them in the freezer when they won’t be used in
a matter of hours. Note that the longer you keep them in the freezer, the more you
lose flavor, texture and nutrients. Using frozen pre-peeled seafood also cuts
preparation time because it eliminates the most tedious steps. Simply thaw and
you’re good to go. Stir fry shrimp, squid rings or fish fillets with vegetables and you
get a great seafood sauté.
Other straightforward simple recipes you can try at home include crab cakes which
are made with store bought fresh or frozen crab meat, a binder of eggs and/or
cream and flavoring components of vegetables, herbs and spices. Mash these up
together, coat with breadcrumbs and deep fry. A prawn cocktail also takes minutes
to put together. Boil or steam some large prawns, shell devein and assemble
creatively in a martini glass with a minced vegetable salsa. Even simpler would be to
curl the delicate cooked prawn on a slice of avocado or other fresh fruit.
Lastly, some dishes that look very easy to prepare and take a half second to eat, like
sushi and sashimi can be deceivingly difficult to prepare. In making these tasty bite-
sized raw seafood morsels, fine dining Japanese restaurants use very sharp expensive
knives, special ingredients like a short grain rice moistened with rice vinegar and
rolled with nori sheets on bamboo mats. Better leave that for the professional for the
meantime or be ready for quite a bit of trial and error.

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