You will find frozen mixed seafood in supermarkets under any of these names: seafood medley, seafood mix, or seafood selection. In any case, you will have a mixture of small shrimps or king prawns, calamari, mussels, scallops, and sometimes baby octopuses. There are a lot of methods to cook seafood selection: grilling, frying in a skillet, or boiling. In this article, we will give a step-by-step recipe for boiling seafood mix in a pan on the stove. You will learn how to prepare a frozen seafood selection to make it juicy and tasty without making seafood rubbery.
I understand that you cannot have only a seafood mix for dinner. One of my favorite options is to make pasta using seafood. If you are struggling with getting your spaghetti or rotini pasta tasty, I have prepared helpful guides for you:
How long to cook frozen seafood mix in boiling water?
Frozen seafood selection requires minimal boiling time after you defrost it. That is why there is no better ingredient for pasta or salad than a seafood medley. Here is information on how long do you need to cook seafood medley in boiling water:
- How long to boil frozen seafood mix? You need to boil frozen seafood mix for 5-8 minutes in a pot on the stove. If there are mussels in your seafood mixture, there is the following rule to boiling: when water reboils, check mussels when their shells open; when they open, boil the mix of seafood for additional 3 minutes.
There is no “best way” to cook seafood mix. Every technique has its admirers, although not everyone has a grill at home, all the rest have an opportunity to fry frozen seafood mix or to boil it. You can find a seafood mix recipe below in the article.
Note that there are two types of frozen seafood selections: the one that had been precooked and the selection of frozen raw seafood. You should always cook frozen raw seafood! However, frozen precooked seafood mix can be only also only defrosted. Always check the section with instructions!
How to cook frozen seafood selection in a pot on the stove?
We would not say that thawing frozen seafood beforehand is a strict requirement, but it will be better if you defrost the seafood mixture beforehand. It will prevent seafood from overcooking, becoming rubbery. You can do it by leaving the seafood medley in the fridge overnight or putting frozen seafood mix into a colander, then taking it to the sink under running cold water. It can take you up to 20 minutes to thaw seafood. When you have your mix of seafood thawed, follow these steps.
Easy Frozen Seafood Mix Recipe
Ingredients
- seafood medley
- salt
- water
- seasoning and herbs to your taste
Instructions
- Pour cold water into a pan or a large saucepan. There is a ratio to boiling seafood: have 2 liters of water for every 1 kilo of seafood mix. Let the water boil on high heat.
- When water boils, add salt (0.5-1 teaspoon for 2 liters) and your favorite seasoning and herbs (bay leaves, pepper, parsley, etc.). Let the mixture boil for a minute for herbs to release their flavoring, and then add seafood mix into a pot.
- When water reboils, lower the heat on the stove and cook seafood medley for acquired time. See info above.
- When seafood mix is ready, get it out from boiling water with tongs or drain them with the help of a colander. Now you can add them to any sauces, pasta, or salad.
Notes
There are such types of seafood medleys that apart from the fact that they come precooked, they are also sold already in sauces. All you need is to preheat this type of frozen seafood mix. Nevertheless, before experimenting, always read the instruction!
You may also like: How to cook boiled mussels or How to cook shrimps in a pan
As always, leave all your questions and comments in the section below. If you liked our article, please share it with your friends. There is a popular misbelief that cooking seafood is a hard thing to do. However, with our recipes, you will learn easy techniques on how you cook a perfect seafood mix, how you can prepare seafood for salads, different types of pasta, and just as a stand-alone delicacy.
2 Comments
What if the package doesn’t say whether it’s raw or precooked. Is there any way for me to figure it out?
Totally understand your strugles! As it is very important not to overcook or undercook seafood. Unfortunately, I have never came across packages where there is no even mentioning of ingredients (there is possibility that you will have such type of information mentioned there). The only thing that straight away came up in my mind was Shrimp. You can easily tell whether shrimps are cooked or raw by there color: pink – cooked, grey – fresh. So, if you have shrimps in your medley it will easier to guess.