How to properly clean shellfish before cooking them (and why is it absolutely necessary)?
Perfectly suited to summer: dishes with shellfish. A delicious pasta with shellfish and chorizo, a serving of mussels with fries, spaghetti vongole, cockles with sea lavender… They’re all treasures from the sea on your plate. But first: cleaning. What’s the right way to do that? A mini-course in cleaning shellfish.
If you’re wondering now: um, cleaning? Is that even necessary? Absolutely, it is. First, you don’t want to be crunching on sand while eating. And second, you don’t want to get food poisoning because you ate a sick shellfish. Cleaning the shellfish helps you prevent both. You check them carefully and make sure they’re free of dirt. Time to roll up your sleeves!
Cleaning shellfish: the preselection
Right, after a little grumbling, those sleeves are rolled up. How do you proceed? What’s the best way to clean shellfish? First, check whether the shellfish are still alive. Is the shell still intact and completely closed? Then it passes the selection. Is it open, but does it close when you tap it? Then it passes inspection too. Broken shells, or shells that don’t close or don’t close after you tap them, should be thrown away.
Bathing and scrubbing
Next: the salt bath. Did you buy your shellfish at the supermarket? Then there’s a chance they’ve already been in a salt bath. If you’re not sure, it doesn’t hurt to bathe the shellfish anyway. Did you get your shellfish fresh from the sea (lucky you!)? Then a salt bath is definitely recommended to clean the shells.
Why is a salt bath necessary? Because it ‘soaks’ all the dirt off the shellfish. Especially sand: there’s almost certainly still some inside and on the shells. Proceed as follows: take a large bowl, pan or dish and fill it with water and salt. For 3 liters of water, use approximately 100 grams of salt. First rinse the shellfish under cold water. Is there a lot of dirt on the shells that isn’t sand? Scrub it off with a small brush.
Soaking
Once the salt bath is ready and the shellfish have been rinsed and brushed, they can take a bath. The shellfish must be completely submerged in the water. If they aren’t, add more water and therefore more salt. Leave the shells in the water for at least 15 and no more than 30 minutes. That’s enough time to loosen the dirt properly.
Is the water very sandy and cloudy after soaking? Make a new salt bath and put the shellfish in it for another 15 minutes. Once you’re satisfied, remove the shellfish and let them drain in a colander. And that’s it. It may take you a sea of time, but you’ll soon be able to truly enjoy all that deliciousness from the sea.
Also read:
- Why anchovies actually deserve an award or a pat on the back
- 7 foolproof ways to prepare fish
- 25x our favorite fish recipes: from spaghetti vongole to homemade fish sticks
Source: bonappetit
