Best Seafood Salad

Chef Aurora Stranges offers her delicious Seafood Salad recipe, seafood buying tips and cooking tips to provide you with an arsenal of good food and good ideas.

A marinated seafood salad is the perfect summertime repast - full of citrus-fresh flavours. The best seafood salad will be made with the very freshest seafood you can find. Before attempting Chef Aurora Strange’s recipe from La Vecchia, here are some of her handy tips for buying seafood that will help ensure the most flavour-perfect results.

Chef Aurora’s Tips about Selecting and Buying Seafood:

• First of all you need to distinguish the freshness of the fish. The smell should be your first clue - fish should have a light smell almost of the sea.
• The body should be very rigid, if the fish has been dead for long time the body and the abdomen start to swell.
• The scales should be lucid and the eyes should be luminous and lifelike, not cloudy.
• A good olive oil and fresh herbs and of course wine are the imminent ingredients of cooking a spectacular fish.
• Garlic and parsley are my main ingredients along with lemons, and of course good wine. What the wine does to the fish is almost undescribable....it just turns everything around; it lifts up the aroma and leaves a super satisfied taste.
• To read Aurora's Cooking With Wine Tips- click here.

Seafood Salad - Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 8 Shrimp large
• 8 Scallops
• 112 grams Calamari rings
• 1 Octopus whole
• 1/4 c + 1/2 litre white vinegar
• 112 tsp cloves
• 1 /2 tsp thyme
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic-chopped, divided
• 2 lemons - one sliced / one juiced
• 1/4 c chopped parsley
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

1. Bring water to boil in a large stockpot. Add 1/4 c vinegar, 1 clove chopped garlic and drop the octopus in carefully.
2. Check the texture of the octopus by gently poking with a fork or your fingers to reach a soft texture that yields to the touch and springs back quickly.
3. Once it has cooked, take it out of the pot and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
4. In another pot, fill with 2 liters of water and 1/2 titer of vinegar and bring to a boil.
5. Once boiling, add the calamari rings and let them cook for about 15 minutes.
6. In the same pot, add the shrimp and scallops and cook for 5 minutes.
7. Once cooked, remove from heat and strain the seafood to a serving / salad bowl.
8. Lay the seafood evenly around the bowl and add the octopus pieces on top.
9. Add olive oil, 5 T white vinegar, chopped parsley, juice of one lemon, salt and pepper to taste, and 1 tsp chopped garlic.
10. Toss to coat all the seafood.

Chef Aurora’s Terrific Cooking TIP:

• In order to make the octopus tender, add a few wine corks to the boiling water. This also speeds up the cooking process. To determine if tender, test it between your fingers until it feel soft and yield slightly to the touch. It should spring back gently. Overcooking will make it tough and rubbery.
• The secret to this salad is to let it marinate overnight in the refrigerator. Serve it alone or on a bed of mixed organic greens or mixed with arugula salad. Garnish with lemon slices and a few sprigs of fresh Italian parsley.

Seafood

Print Article

Email Article

View All Articles

How to subscribe to feeds