Tony Tobin - Build up your mussels

Originally published in Surrey Life October 2008

Kitchen Diaries - Our resident celebrity chef Tony Tobin on why it pays to be shellfish!


I’m on a seafood diet at the moment. I see food and I eat it. Ho ho!

Nothing like a bad joke to start a good column off, particularly as the clocks go back this month and we need a few laughs to keep the bouts of SAD depression at bay across Surrey. However, it wasn’t just a joke for the sake of it – I really am going to discuss seafood this month.

Seafood, particularly shellfish, is a dangerous area for the chef – especially the dinner party chef. At my restaurants, I’ll also have beef, chicken and mainstream fish on my menus, but when you’re cooking for others, serving up seafood is a bit like putting all your chips (another seafood pun to cheer you up) on one roulette number. Very risky... but wonderful if it works!

Everybody knows somebody who claims adamantly that seafood/shellfish doesn’t agree with them. In my experience, when you open up the oyster of truth on this kind of claim, it is usually down to a past encounter with a one-off bad specimen or else a dinner party host who didn’t know the correct way to check and cook shellfish. There are, of course, people who are simply badly allergic to shellfish, but agreement shouldn’t come into it. If you source them well and sauce them well, shellfish and seafood dishes can be exquisite.

The world’s your oyster

So, on to Tony’s tips…

First, learn the basic rule of shellfish: if the shell is open before cooking, bin it. And if it’s still closed after cooking, bin it. It’s not a waste, it’s saving your guests’ weekend and your reputation as a host.

Second, if you have a real seafood virgin on your hands who is not allergic, then you can introduce them gently with scallops. It’s hard to find a top restaurant that doesn’t serve king scallops because they are the Charolais fillet steaks of the seafood world. Gently seared with a beurre blanc sauce, perhaps a little pea puree and garnished with lamb’s lettuce, scallops look as if they are going to taste fishy but actually ooze a tender sweetness that can crack the hardest heart (see the photo if you don’t believe me).
Third, mussels with thin salty frites, fried shallots and a dash of white wine sauce. Enough said!

Fourth, oysters are a gamble but you’ll rarely get a bad one. Personally, I wouldn’t try to wean a novice on to oysters at a dinner party. I think that you should be taught the joys of oysters from relatives and close family friends because teaching someone to eat them is a bit like teaching a child to blow their own nose... gooey but worth the effort. The good thing, though, is that oysters are incredibly well screened by fishmongers before they are sold. There shouldn’t really be such a thing as a bad oyster.

Fifth, the lobster is a prince among food and one of the few seafoods that you can be reasonably confident in serving unannounced. Lobsters are not cheap, and they’re a bit grisly if you plan to kill them yourself, but they are relatively easy to cook once prepared and the taste – wow... lobster with chilli and tomato linguine is like heaven on a summer afternoon. My main recipe this month (see right) is up there with my all-time favourites (plus, it’s one that I won with on Ready Steady Cook!). If it’s pay day or you’ve won the pools or just had enough of the credit crunch, buy a fantastic lobster and shell out (sorry, but I have gone four paragraphs without a pun).

A bit of prawnography

Lastly, don’t forget the joys of some shameless prawnography. Prawns are like cheap scallops – delicious, safe and easy to cook. Oriental dishes with prawns, ginger, a few shredded vegetables, noodles and some soy sauce can be cooked and served in five minutes flat. You can pick up a pack of prawns to serve four people for less than a single fillet steak and they are delicious.

So, finally, why shellfish in October? Well, whereas most farmers and fruiterers have probably spent the last few months tramping through wet fields and orchards bemoaning the lack of sunshine and warmth they needed to yield the perfect crop, the fishermen know a very simple truth. The many delicacies that live out their lives under the surface of the water really couldn’t care less about the rain. And sometimes it pays to be shellfish!

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Tony’s Lobster, Chilli and Tomato Linguine

This is for the chef who is not afraid of taking on a lobster and winning! In fact, if you needed any further proof, I emerged victorious from an episode of Ready Steady Cook with this simple but delicious linguine! Using a simple cooked lobster tail, this fantastic recipe removes a lot of the faffing about you usually get with lobster. The preparation time is less than 30 minutes, and the cooking time less than 10 minutes! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped 
• 1 green chilli, chopped 
• 200g/7oz baby plum tomatoes, halved 
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh flatleaf parsley 
• 100ml/3½fl oz white wine 
• 1 cooked lobster tail, chopped 
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh chives 
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper 
• 250g/9oz linguine, cooked according to packet instructions and drained

Method 

• Heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the garlic and chilli and fry over a low heat for one to two minutes. 
• Add the tomatoes, parsley and wine and simmer for three to four minutes. Add the lobster and cook for two minutes. 
• Stir in the chives and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 
• Add the cooked linguine to the pan and stir to coat. 
• Serve garnished with lime wedges and fresh basil leaves.

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Tony Tobin has been a regular on the BBC’s Ready Steady Cook for over a decade and runs two acclaimed restaurants in Surrey: The Dining Room in Reigate and POST in Banstead.

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