Fish and non-fish products of the sea have enormous nutritional, technical, feed and even medicinal value. Seafood, as you know, contains a large amount of protein, amino acids, so necessary for the proper development and good human health.
Today, most restaurants offer their customers a variety of dishes from fish and non-fish seafood. They are fried, stewed, boiled and served with original sauces. But at home, you can cook various seafood dishes quickly and easily. The main thing is to know the secret recipe.
Non-fish seafood
In the seas and oceans, in addition to fish, a huge number of different animals and plants live. These are marine mammals, and algae, and invertebrates. In the market, non-fish sea products are in great demand. In terms of content, for example, protein, many seafood are ahead of the list even of chicken eggs and breast. And according to the richness of taste and satiety acquired after dinner, seafood can even surpass beef and pork.
A person eats a large number of marine inhabitants. Non-fish products of the sea include octopuses, mollusks, crustaceans, and even algae. Very popular are dishes, in the preparation of which the main role is played by:
• squid;
• crabs;
• mollusks;
• crayfish;
• lobsters;
• lobsters;
• sea urchins;
• oysters;
• mussels;
• octopuses.
If several decades ago it was quite problematic to get non-fish products of the sea, now most of them are freely sold in ordinary chain supermarkets. Of course, in our country, lobsters or octopuses are a real exotic, worth quite decent money. But in the countries of the East, in France, Portugal or Italy, seafood is completely affordable food that appears on the tables quite often.
The high price of seafood in our country is due to the fact that storing and transporting them over long distances is quite problematic. All non-fish products of the sea have a very short shelf life, therefore, for transportation to other countries they are gutted and subjected to emergency freezing. Huge amounts are spent on proper transportation. For example, mollusks can only be transported in special containers, which, as you know, cost money.
Seaweed
Seaweed is very popular throughout the post-Soviet space. Seaweed is certainly not an exotic dish and has long been present on the tables of Russians. The nutritional value of seaweed is incredibly high. Cabbage contains 13 percent protein, amino acids, iron, phosphorus, a huge amount of iodine, zinc and bromine, potassium and magnesium. It is used as an independent dish, as a component of salads, as an additive to various side dishes.
As a rule, non-fish products of the sea are not eaten as separate dishes. They are often in addition to other dishes and recipes.
Non-fish seafood
In cooking, seafood and fish are very often used. Recipes from non-fish products of the sea are diverse and multifaceted. Most often, cooks use squid, crayfish, shrimp, mussels and seaweed for these recipes.
We offer you some simple and easy-to-cook dishes that will become real finds for your cookbook, will please you with the speed of cooking and will decorate any festive table.
Fried mussels with potatoes and onions
To prepare the dish you will need:
• 75 grams of mussels;
• 100 grams of potatoes;
• 20 grams of vegetable oil;
• 10 grams of onions.
Cooking process
To begin with, you need to cook or stew mussels. This is done as follows: non-fish food products of the sea, that is, mussels, are poured with cold water and put on medium heat. You can also add a little greens (dill, parsley), celery root, carrots, half an onion, a little salt and a couple of peppercorns to the water. They cook, as a rule, about half an hour (20-40 minutes).
If you only want to let the mussels go, then this is also done with water. Instead, you can use broth or milk. Roots and greens can also be added (optional). The cooking process lasts about twenty minutes.
After you cook the mussels in any of the proposed ways, they should be cooled and cut into small pieces. On a heated frying pan flavored with vegetable oil, put the sliced mussel pieces and add finely chopped onions to them.
Serve mussels fried with onions with boiled potatoes. It can be mashed potatoes or large undiluted pieces of potato.
Fish and squid balls
Of course, any seafood goes well with fish. Fish cakes, zrazy, meatballs are favorite dishes of many. But they will become even tastier if you add seafood to the minced fish.
To prepare the meat and squid meatballs you will need:
• Fish fillet - 100 grams.
• Squids - two pieces.
• A small slice of loaf or white bread.
• 30 grams of milk.
• Salt, pepper (to taste).
• One raw egg.
• Onions - two small heads.
• Breadcrumbs.
• 20 grams of vegetable oil (for frying).
Cooking process
For this dish, it is best to take ready-made boneless fish fillet. We cut it into small pieces, weighing about thirty grams each, and pass through a meat grinder. Also, with the help of a kitchen "assistant" we grind onions, boiled squid. To this mixture we add one chicken egg and a loaf soaked in milk. Stuff the minced meat thoroughly, salt, pepper and add the seasoning for the fish (optional).
From the resulting mass we form small meatballs - meatballs, and bread them in breadcrumbs. Fry in any oil until crisp on both sides. If you are preparing such meatballs for children, it is better to change the frying to stewing in the oven.
Serving such dishes from non-fish seafood is possible with any side dish, such as mashed potatoes, boiled rice, buckwheat, pasta, stewed vegetables.
Shrimp with Rice and Onion
Shrimp is another type of non-fish seafood, which today is very popular among culinary specialists. A huge variety of dishes can be prepared from them, starting with light salads and ending with complex stews. Shrimp goes well with various side dishes, but rice and seafood are a particularly popular combination.
Required Products:
- 150 grams of rice;
- one onion head;
- 150 grams of hard cheese;
- shrimp - 300 grams;
- vegetable oil for frying onions.
Cooking process
To cook shrimp with rice and onions, first you need to properly cook rice. It should turn out friable. For this dish, it is better to take long-grain rice, which during cooking does not form into sticky porridge. Onions must be cut into half rings and fry in vegetable oil until a slight blush.
Shrimps should be boiled in advance so as not to spend much time after assembling the dish. Everyone knows for sure how to cook shrimp, because these inhabitants of the seas are very similar in the cooking process to our “native” crayfish. Boil the shrimp in slightly salted water, remove, cool, free from the shell. Shrimp can be cut arbitrarily, but we recommend making small pieces so that they do not stand out actively against the background of other ingredients.
In a separate bowl, mix the fried onions and sliced shrimp. Salt the mixture and pepper to taste.
In another bowl, mix the grated hard cheese and boiled rice.
Cooking tomato sauce. You can buy it ready, but it is better to spend time and make a homemade sauce, which will be more saturated to taste and cheaper at a price.
We form a dish. On a plate we lay out a small slide of rice and cheese. We place shrimps with onions in the center of the slide and pour tomato sauce on top. It turns out an amazing color combination. If you add a little bright greens to the dish, it will turn out to be even more saturated in color and aromatic in taste.
Enjoy your meal!