Seafood: cooking time
To prepare a good seafood platter, the only thing you need to worry about is getting the best products of the sea, for example in food markets or the hatcheries in Vigo’s fish market. Follow these steps for a great result!
Ingredients: seafood, water, sea salt, bay leaf.
How to cook seafood: put the live seafood in a pot with abundant cold water (preferably sea water or, alternatively, water with lots of coarse sea salt). Add a bay leaf, put the pot on the fire and when it boils cook for the time required by each type of seafood.
If the seafood is not alive or frozen, wait until the water is hot before placing it into the pot.
Finally, drain the water thoroughly and serve cold.
Type of seafood |
grams of salt/litre (35oz) of water |
Minutes |
Medium crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
20 |
Large crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
25 |
Prawn |
60 (2 ozs) |
1 or 2 |
Large spider crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
20 |
Medium spider crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
18 |
Large crayfish |
60 (2 ozs) |
1 and 1/2 |
Large prawn |
60 (2 ozs) |
3 |
Medium lobster |
60 (2 ozs) |
20 |
Large lobster |
60 (2 ozs) |
30 |
Medium king prawn |
60 (2 ozs) |
1 and 1/2 |
Large king prawn |
60 (2 ozs) |
2 |
Medium clawed lobster |
60 (2 ozs) |
25 |
Clawed lobster |
60 (2 ozs) |
30 |
Small velvet swimming crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
6 |
Large velvet swimming crab |
60 (2 ozs) |
8 |
Barnacle |
60 (2 ozs) |
1 or 2 |