Seafood is gaining more and more hearts and stomachs. We all learn different recipes, learn to cook exotic dishes, but still carefully pass by those sea animals that we don’t know “by sight”. The trumpeter belongs to them - the mollusk, which is not too often found on shelves. But if you still manage to buy it, you need to be fully prepared and have in stock several recipes by which you can cook seafood.
In order not to spoil the purchase
Most often, all this exotic goes to us in a frozen state. So before you cook seafood, you need to properly defrost it. Each of them has its own limitations. In particular, the trumpeter (mollusk) must in no case be thawed in water. It should thaw in the refrigerator. If you do not have enough time in stock, it is permissible to defrost it at room temperature, but it is still advisable to avoid this. And for cooking, knowledgeable people advise pouring extremely cold water - up to adding ice to it. They say that this way the meat is much softer.
And, like any marine inhabitant, the trumpeter must not be digested. To do this, some cooks recommend not boiling it at all, but taking off just before boiling water. However, other sources indicate cooking, although it is very short. What tips to follow, you have to choose yourself.
Trumpeter with mushrooms
About two times more than champignons go into this dish of mollusks. In order for the mushrooms not to lose much in volume, they are cooked almost until ready after cleaning and washing. Having cooled, the champignons are cut, if possible, not with slices, but with straws. Fried in butter; how to get gold - add strips of bell pepper at the rate of one pod per 100 grams of mushrooms. The pepper is browned - a couple of spoons of flour are poured. For two to three minutes, the contents of the pan are fried with stirring, then an incomplete glass of milk is poured. When it boils, a trumpeter cut into slices is laid. The recipe involves turning off the gas as soon as the dish boils again. As a side dish served rice or boiled potatoes (can be in the form of mashed potatoes).
Trumpeter in batter
Before you cook the trumpeter according to this recipe, you need to make a batter. For him, the eggs are beaten with flour until smooth - you should get batter, like pancakes. Each peppered piece of mollusk is dipped into the mass, excess drains, and on a very high fire the trumpeter is fried in sunflower oil. First fry only one clam - per sample. His meat is brackish, but natural salinity may not be enough for your taste, then you will have to salt the batter.
Pickled Trumpeter
First, seafood should be boiled. The rules of this process are already described above. Onions are crushed in large half rings, salted and poured with diluted vinegar for five minutes. The cooled meat is cut into strips and folded, for example, into a jar, alternated with strained onions, garlic slices, carrot sticks and pepper (chili, if you like spicy, or Bulgarian, if you prefer sweet). The trumpeter (clam) should be on top. How to cook marinade? Boil water (as much as the blower took in volume), pour salt, sugar and cinnamon into it, put black and sweet peas of pepper, lavrushka and tomato paste - all in the ratio you like. When the sauce has cooled, add a spoonful of vinegar and pour the clam marinade. After a couple of hours they can be eaten.
Trumpeter Salad
The recipes for making salads with this clam are quite diverse. All of them basically have boiled trumpeters. Here are a couple, in our opinion, of the most successful combinations.
- 1.5 kilograms of finely chopped clam, a can of peas (can be replaced with corn), two steep chopped eggs, four pickled or pickled cucumbers (also crumbled), a little rice and a little onion, soaked in vinegar or scalded. Dressed with mayonnaise.
- It’s rather a summer salad, but you can write it in your cookbook right now. 1.5 kilograms of lettuce or leafy lettuce, an egg, a fresh long cucumber and two hundred trumpeter grams are cut in proportionate slices and seasoned with low-fat mayonnaise or salad dressing. It turns out very juicy if you add a couple of tomatoes there.
How to decorate is already the tenth matter. Greens will definitely not be superfluous; olives, olives and lemon slices are also good for tasting.
Clams with mushrooms and beef
This is one of the most interesting ways to cook a trumpeter (if you, of course, got it right in the sinks). Shells (about forty) should be carefully cleaned after thawing, even with an old toothbrush. After they are poured with brackish water (cold) for about an hour. At this time, a dozen dried Chinese mushrooms are soaked in warm water. Then they need to remove the legs, and cut the hats into narrow stripes. The trumpeter is boiled in boiled water for 6-7 minutes under the lid, after which the meat is removed from the shells and cut. A third of a kilogram of beef is grinded and mixed with clams, mushrooms, chopped onion feathers and four cloves of garlic. A raw egg is driven in there. Stuffing is flavored with soy sauce, sugar, peppers (red and black), salt and a spoonful of sesame oil. The resulting filling is scattered on the shells in which there was a trumpeter (clam), and shells are cooked in a double boiler for about ten minutes. In the absence of a much-needed apparatus, they can be folded into a metal colander, put it on a pot of water and cover. Due to the loose fit, the cooking time will increase to twenty minutes, but the result will be no worse. Such a trumpeter (mollusk) is eaten hot.
Cream stewed trumpeter
Most often, aquatic inhabitants are boiled, but this is not the only way to cook seafood. The same blower can be prepared as follows: soak for half a day in low-fat (10%) cream in the refrigerator. For 400 g of clams, a glass or a little more cream is enough. The next day, a large onion is chopped and fried - preferably in olive oil. The trumpeter is cut into small pieces, added to the roasting and filled with cream, in which he soaked - half a glass is enough, the rest, unfortunately, will have to be poured (or fed to the cat, if you have one). The dish is flavored with salt, pepper and basil and stewed until soft. Make sure that softness does not turn into rubber! The most harmonious side dish to such a trumpeter will be the most ordinary mashed potatoes or pasta.
Trumpeter fricassee
For this dish, 1.5 kilograms of clam meat is boiled for a couple of minutes and reclines to drain water. A little more than a kilogram of tomato is scalded, the skin is peeled off, the seeds are removed if they are large (this procedure can not be done with cherry), the tomatoes are diced and fried in vegetable oil with finely chopped or crushed four cloves of garlic to a pulp state. Small slices of a blower are laid in it, they stick, peppercorns and languish on the stove for no longer than three minutes. Delicious! Especially with boiled rice, a salad of fresh vegetables or a variety of salts.
Finally
Recipes, we recall, can be modified and adapted to your preferences. This is especially true for spices and herbs. Salads can also be supplemented with some vegetables or cheese - it goes well with seafood, especially feta cheese and feta. As for gas stations, do not limit yourself to one mayonnaise. Seafood can make friends with many ingredients. In addition, shrimp, squid, rapana and trumpeter (clam) can be successfully combined in one dish. Photos of dishes described in the article will help to cope with cooking. Do not be afraid to experiment: maybe you will someday make the world a completely unique recipe.