Sea Salad - General Cooking Principles
Seafood dishes are appreciated by gourmets around the world. The seas and oceans give us a huge number of its inhabitants: fish, plants and various invertebrates, which are the hallmark of Japanese cuisine and are considered indisputable delicacies in the west. At the mention of seafood, each person has their own associations. Someone's imagination draws the bottomless blue expanse of the ocean, in someone's mind there are memories of an exotic country or a heady sea voyage. In any case, tasting the sea salad, everyone at least briefly plunges into the atmosphere of a light holiday.
Crustaceans (shrimps, crabs, lobsters), clams (mussels, oysters, scallops), squid, sea fish, sea cucumbers, octopus, sea cabbage and other animals live in light sea salads, which bring great benefits to the body. All seafood is extremely useful and widely used in clinical nutrition, due to the high content of iodine and minerals. In addition, sea salad is a very light dish; the ingredients are easily digestible and do not contain many calories, so sea creatures are a frequent element in the diet.
If you want to preserve all the valuable properties of seafood, then we advise you to prepare the sea salad for you, which will certainly appeal to all family members. It is advisable to season such salads with olive oil (you can use other vegetable oils or their mixtures) by adding natural lemon juice or apple vinegar, salt, horseradish, mustard and ground pepper. Meals containing sea fish can be filled with mayonnaise mixed with salted caviar. Fried shrimps and mussels in a salad are extremely tasty with mayonnaise or tomato sauce. Scallops and shrimps are ideally combined with sour cream. However, in choosing a culinary material for refueling, be guided solely by your taste.
Seafood Salad - Food Preparation
When cooking, invertebrates do not require complex and painstaking processing. They usually go on sale in boiled, frozen form or as canned food and salads. If you purchase a frozen product, it should be thawed on a separate shelf of the refrigerator, periodically draining the released liquid. Subject to long-term cooking seafood can not be! Otherwise, they will turn into a banal "rubber".
Frozen shrimps are first thawed, then washed and boiled in salted water for about ten minutes (boiled dipped in boiling water and boiled for about three minutes). Before cooking, trepangs are soaked for 24 hours in cold water, after which they are gutted and boiled on a slow flame for 3, 4 hours. Boiled mussels are thawed in cool water, constantly changing it (to wash out the sand), and then boil for about 20 minutes from the moment of boiling.
Squids are first soaked to easily peel off the pulp, and then boil in boiling water for only 3 minutes. Shellfish in a salad can be added raw or slightly boiled. Scallop muscle is boiled for fifteen minutes, and after cooling, the meat is cut across the fibers or manually divided into thin slices.
Seafood Salad - Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Assorted Seafood Salad
A wonderful recipe, taken from the Greek cuisine. Salad of mussels, shellfish and other marine life, typical of Mediterranean cuisine, will appeal to all. Light and nourishing at the same time the dish fits perfectly into any festive or romantic menu. Supporters of a healthy diet will also be satisfied.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of mussels
- 500 gr. peeled mollusks
- 2 cups shrimp
- Squid 3 pcs.
- a slice of garlic
- olives (pitted)
- any greens to choose from
- vegetable oil (preferably olive)
- juice of 1 lemon
- salt, ground black pepper Cooking Method:
1. Boil the shrimp, cool, remove the shell, antennae, insides (from the back). Mussels boil on high heat for about 7 minutes, until they open. Then remove the pulp from the shells.
2. Boil the shellfish. Clean the squids, cut the torso into half rings and simmer in a heated pan under the lid until soft (in olive oil).
3. Next, lay out the browned squid in a deep dish. Shred finely greens (you can take parsley or celery), chop olives, grind garlic into pulp.
4. Prepare salad dressing: mix olive oil with lemon juice, pepper, salt, garlic, olives and greens.
5. Mix the ingredients: mussels, clams, shrimp and refuel the resulting seasoning. Ready-made salad is decorated with boiled shrimps. Serve the dish better chilled.
Recipe 2: Seafood salad with kelp
We offer a healthy, nutritious and delicious recipe for making salad based on sea cocktail or assorted squid, shrimp, mussels, etc. with the addition of kelp (seaweed) and avocado.
Ingredients:
- Sea platter (or cocktail) 400 gr.
- one jar of sea kale
- Avocado 1 pc.
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- greenery
- salt
Cooking Method:
Seafood slightly defrost and fry in a pan for about 3-4 minutes. Sea cabbage put in a salad bowl, drain the liquid. Cool seafood and mix with cabbage. In order to prepare the filling base, mix olive oil, lemon juice and beat the mixture until thickened. Avocado peel and cut into cubes, put in a salad bowl. Sprinkle with chopped greens (such as parsley) and season the salad with butter and lemon juice sauce. The dish is ready to serve!
Recipe 3: Seafood Salad with Mayonnaise
Squids, shrimps, mussels - sea cocktail everyone will appreciate, especially women. Light and tasty salad, the benefits of which are very great both for the figure, for health, and for achieving sexual harmony (seafood is natural aphrodisiacs - substances that increase sexual desire).
Ingredients:
- Seafood Cocktail
- green salad (leaves)
- 2 chicken eggs
- 2 fresh cucumbers
- parsley
- olive oil
- mayonnaise light (or fat) 2 table. l
- salt
Cooking Method:
Cook eggs, grind. Cucumbers, lettuce and parsley cut. Seafood slightly boil (if they are not boiled) chop into approximately the same pieces. All the ingredients are mixed and dressing mayonnaise salad. Before serving, cool the dish a little and pour it with olive oil.
Recipe 4: Sea Foam Salad
Chic salad, designed primarily for the holiday table. Airy, like sea foam, a salad will love everyone without exception. All incoming components will lay out layers.
Ingredients:
- 1 can of squid
- boiled carrots 1 pc.
- 2 chicken eggs
- hard cheese 100-150 gr.
- Red caviar
- a pair of garlic cloves
- mayonnaise
- salt
Cooking Method:
Boiled eggs cleaned, grated. Chop squid finely, rub carrots and cheese. Garlic skip through the garlic press and mix it with mayonnaise. We start to lay out the salad on a flat plate around the glass put in layers:
1 layer - grated eggs
2 layer - evenly distribute squid
3 layer - carrots
4 layer - grated cheese
Next, cover the salad with mayonnaise, salt, and on top - red caviar. Fat lovers can lubricate each layer (or through a layer) with mayonnaise. Before serving, do not forget to remove the glass from the center. Enjoy your meal!
Recipe 5: Seafood Salad with Smoked Chicken
An amazing combination! Smoked chicken, seafood cocktail, fruit and white wine. Excellent savory salad is perfect for a romantic dinner. It will take quite a bit of time to prepare it. Arrange yourself and your loved one a few minutes of pleasure. Ingredients:
- sea assortment 400 gr.
- Chicken fillet (smoked) - 300 gr.
- an Apple
- one orange
- salt
- mayonnaise
- white wine
Cooking Method:
Seafood boil. Chicken cut into small pieces, mix with sliced seafood. At the bottom of the salad bowl lay out grated apple. Mix mayonnaise with white wine (1: 1) and fill the chicken mixed with sea cocktail separately. Put the mixture on top of the apples and decorate with orange slices.
Sea Salad - Healthy Tips
Experienced chefs advise seasoning salads with dressing and salt just before serving. You can slightly cool them in the seasoned form, but not more than an hour, otherwise the salads will begin to limp.
Fresh clams should be with tightly closed sashes. It is on this fact that you need to pay attention when buying. Dead clams have open flaps and meat with a grayish tint. In addition, they no longer smell the sea. When buying crustaceans, pay attention to the shell - it should be solid, and the meat - dense and with a characteristic moist luster.
And the last valuable tip: defrost any seafood allowed only once. When re-defrosting they will fall apart and lose their unique taste properties.