Seafood Platter in Cream Sauce

If you are following my Instagram, you will know on Mondays, it's usually one-pot dinners for us.  Mainly because the wet market in our neighbour is closed on Mondays.  But it's also one-pot dinners for us whenever I feel lazy too. :P

So, anyway, we had seafood last night.  I bought some marinated Dory Fillet and got that oven grilled and served it on rice with broccoli and carrot.  You can have a look at that HERE.

I added a little bonus (bcos I was a little less lazy than usual. :P).  I wanted to clear the little bits and pieces of seafood that I had in the freezer.  I bought some really small squids (the are more tender than bigger ones) from the supermarket to add on to make this seafood platter.

I'm using the same recipe I shared earlier but I tweaked a little since there are also 'fresh' (as in uncooked) seafood here.

Ingredients:

• 6 frozen mussels, thawed and cleaned
• 6 Prawns, remove shell, leaving on the head and tall intact
• 3 small Squids, head and innards removed, cleaned and cut into thick rings
• 6 Scallops

Sauce:

• 20g Butter
• 3 - 4 Garlic, minced or grated (you can use a garlic press)
• 200g Cooking Cream
• 1/2 teaspoon Dried Thyme or a small handful Fresh Thyme
• 1 to 2 teaspoon Lemon Juice or to your taste
• Salt and Ground Black Pepper to taste
• Zest of half a lemon (optional)

How to to it:

1. Melt butter in a pan.
2. Add garlic and saute till soften and fragrant but not browned.
3. Add cream and Thyme.
4. Cook in medium low heat till the sauce bubbles.
5. Continue cooking till the sauce starts to thicken.
6. Add in the remaining ingredients for the sauce.
7. While the sauce is cooking, prepare the seafood. 
8. Make sure the mussels are thawed, cleaned and dabbed dry and set aside.
9. Season the remaining seafood with a pinch of salt and arrange them in a dish.
10. Steam on high heat for 2 mins.
11. Remove and dab dry.
12. Arrange all seafood together in a oven proof dish.
13. Once the  sauce is ready, pour it over the mussels.
14. Bake in preheated oven at 230C for 7 mins.
15. Serve immediately.

Notes:

• I pre-cook the fresh seafood before baking them because these seafood will have liquid when they are cooked.  Hence, pre-cooking them help to reduced it during the baking which will make the sauce too watery.

{ Little Lunch Box #85 } 小饭盒

The last sheep that I tried making was not very convincing and I told myself, I shall try again.

So here it is but I'm not quite happy with how it turned out.  Mostly the ears.  I think I got the ears wrong and I doubt the little one would recognise that I was trying to shape a sheep out of her lunch.

But surprisingly, she could tell from first look!  What a consolation!

What's here are ...

• Ham & Cheese Sandwich, which was slightly toasted so the bread was the warm enough to melt the cheese a little but not tough when it's cooled.
• Lava Egg, which I don't recommend you making it for lunch boxes as it's not completely cooked.  I bring the lunch box straight to my daughter after making it so the egg wasn't kept long out in our weather.
• Milk, which you can hardly see in the background.

Mussels in Buttery Lemon Garlic Sauce

This is just one of the dishes that I loved and won't mind having it often. 

I wished that I had prepared some toasted bread to clean up the sauce.  The sauce was cleared up anyway, because I mixed my rice with it and ate it all up.  Burp!

Ingredients:

• 8 to 10 frozen mussels, thawed and cleaned

Sauce:

• 20g Butter
• 3 - 4 Garlic, minced or grated (you can use a garlic press)
• 200g Cooking Cream
• 1/2 teaspoon Dried Thyme or a small handful Fresh Thyme
• 1 to 2 teaspoon Lemon Juice or to your taste
• Salt and Ground Black Pepper to taste
• Zest of half a lemon (optional)

How to to it:

1. Melt butter in a pan.
2. Add garlic and saute till soften and fragrant but not browned.
3. Add cream and Thyme.
4. Cook in medium low heat till the sauce bubbles.
5. Continue cooking till the sauce starts to thicken.
6. Add in the remaining ingredients for the sauce.
7. While the sauce is cooking, prepare the mussels. 
8. Make sure the mussels are thawed, cleaned and dabbed dry.
9. Arrange mussels in a oven proof dish.
10. Once the  sauce is ready, pour it over the mussels.
11. Bake in preheated oven at 230C for 7 mins.
12. Serve immediately.

Notes:

• If you do not have a oven, you can also cook.
• Place the mussels down on the pot; shell facing up.
• Simmer for about 10mins till mussels are completely heated thru.
• I preferred oven baking as it will brown the surface a little and has a more even cooking for the mussel.