dressed crab Archives - Time for a coffee

In August when we had the partial solar eclipse I wrote about my visit to Brixham back in 1999 to see the total solar eclipse we had in the UK. Since that visit, I hadn’t actually been back to Brixham, though had visited many other places in that area. I made a plan to go back there, and hopefully get a nice lunch from one of the many fish restaurants that surround the harbour. Brixham has a large fishing fleet, and had the largest fish market in England.

I had looked online before I got to Brixham, and had seen Rockfish, I liked how as well as serving fish, they had a restaurant. I liked the look of the menu too, they had a nice looking set menu, which I thought I might go for.

I hadn’t booked, but they were able to find a table for me. I looked over the menu and had essentially chosen my two courses from the set menu.

Then the waiting staff came over and asked if I wanted to hear the fresh fish they had in, I went yes. They had an amazing selection of fresh fish choices. It was a little more than the set menu, well much higher!

I thought about it and decided I would go with the fresh fish choices. For my starter I went with the dressed crab, and for my main course I chose the grilled sea bream.

The dressed crab arrived, with both brown and white crab meat, along with some slices of bread.

This was delicious, lovely fresh crab, which I really enjoyed.

For my main course I had the grilled sea bream. This was described as succulent, sweet and gloriously meaty – a highly prized whole fish with clean, white flakes. It came with a tomato sauce and unlimited fries (I could have had salad or new potatoes).

This looked amazing and was beautifully cooked. It had great flavour and I really enjoyed eating it. Obviously it was a while fish, so I did have to fillet it, to eat it. I also had to turn other to get the other fillet.

The whole meal was delicious, I was pleased that I went with the fresh fish choices, I paid more, but it was worth it.

Service was excellent, warm and welcoming.

What was interesting was that you could buy fresh fish from the fish stall at Rockfish and for £6 they would cook it for you.

This was my first visit to Brixham in twenty seven years, after such a nice meal, I think I won’t leave it so long next time.

For New Year’s Eve we decided to have a fish and seafood platter. It was an opportunity to cook and eat some great food. However one problem, as you may recall New Year’s Eve is not only part of Christmas, it’s also a Monday. As a result it was virtually impossible to find any fresh fish or seafood. Generally the fishing fleets don’t go out at weekends and I suspect that they certainly wouldn’t go out over a weekend during the festive season. As a result we went with frozen seafood, not my first choice, but with what we wanted it was better than nothing.

We got some frozen king prawns, scallops and squid from Sainsbury’s as part of their Taste the Difference range. One of the key things to do when using frozen seafood is to defrost and defrost safely. If you cook frozen seafood from frozen, generally what happens is that you overcook it and it becomes very rubbery. You need to take care when defrosting to avoid food poisoning. The best way to defost is in the fridge, but this takes time. If you do defrost at room temperature, make sure you move the seafood to the fridge once it has defrosted.

The prawns I cooked on my griddle, whilst the scallops were cooked very quickly on a hot flat frying pan, as were the squid rings.

The scallops were perfect and I was really pleased with how I cooked them. They were browned on each side, but were only just done on the inside. As a result they were melt in the mouth tender, and full of flavour. The prawns were very good, and served with some lemon were delicious. I was less impressed with the squid rings. In the past when I have cooked squid, I have bought frozen whole squid from Tesco and cut it into pieces of squid. I much prefer using this way of preparing squid, usually scoring one side to ensure even cooking and browing of the edges. The squid from Sainsbury’s comes ready sliced into rings. It cooked fine, but it lacked the depth of flavour I have had in the past with squid from Tesco. Why didn’t I get my squid from Tesco, well they’ve seemed to have stopped selling it.

Alongside this plate of seafood I also grilled some giant tiger prawns in their shells. These were placed under a really hot grill, after they were fully defrosted and brushed with some olive oil. The main reason for these prawns is twofold, one is the visual impact, secondly was flavour. They were delicious, though of course were quite messy to peel.

We also had some dressed crab, these were small crab shells filled with a crab pate and white crab meat. They looked really nice, but lacked the depth of flavour I would liked to have. This was served with some fresh crusty bread.

 Another successful dish was some clams. I got a pack of frozen Big and Juicy clams from the Big Prawn Company which I mananged to buy at Waitrose.

Again the key was to ensue they were properly defrosted before cooking, well they’re cooked already, all they really needed was heating up. I did this in a pan with some freshly chopped garlic and parsley. I thought they were delicious and very good value at £3.29. I think they would also work with linguine if wanted pasta and seafood.

We also cooked some salmon, this was roasted in the oven with a little olive oil.

Overall this was a delicious meal, we served it with some fresh salad and I also made a paella.

Tag: dressed crab

Dressed Crab and Grilled Sea Bream at Rockfish

Seafood Platter