Seafood a la plancha with salsa verde, and seafood spaghetti
To bring out the best in fresh seafood, keep it simple. Both these dishes let the sweetness of the ingredients shine
Dishes made a la plancha are usually cooked over an open flame, but a combination of stovetop and oven will suffice here
Text Susan Jung / Photography Jonathan Wong / Styling Nellie Ming Lee
Fresh seafood has so much flavour, the only way you can ruin it is by overcooking. Both of these dishes are simple and let the sweetness of the seafood shine.
I recently ate a version of this at my favourite casual French restaurant, On Lot 10. It's a quick, simple and delicious dinner party dish to share with good friends; it's hard to be formal when you have to roll up your sleeves and eat with your hands.
Depending on what's in the market, you can add or substitute other types of seafood. The larger shellfish should be put in the skillet first and allowed to cook briefly, before the smaller varieties, which need less time, are added.
Most a la plancha dishes are cooked over an open flame. For this amount of seafood, you'll need a very large pan (ours was 50cm in diameter). Most stovetops can't evenly heat a pan that large, so I start off cooking it on the stove, then transfer it to the oven to finish. If you don't have a large pan, use two skillets - the layer of seafood shouldn't be too deep.