Name: Alive, Alive-Oh! – Cockle and Mussel Salad
Yield: A Starter for 4
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: handful of porridge (rolled) oats; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 onion, chopped; 2 garlic cloves, chopped; 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar; big knob of butter; 300 g/10½ oz.live mussels; 80 g/3 oz lambs lettuce (corn salad); 1 level tsp fresh dill; 250 g/9 oz.marsh samphire (use pak choi if you really can’t find it), roughly chopped; ½ tsp ground black pepper; ½ tsp ground saffron steeped in a splash of boiling water; 175 ml/6 fl oz/¾ cup strong real ale

Preparation info

A Starter for
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Salmagundi

By Sally Butcher

Published 2014

About

Can’t be doing a chapter about fish and leave cockles out. This is clearly more of my East Coast heritage coming out, but when it comes to shellfish at least, the only way is Essex... all the way down to Old Leigh on the banks of the Thames Estuary. There are few finer ways to spend a summer evening than supping fine ale at the Crooked Billet on the quay while partaking of freshly caught shellfish from the adjacent kiosk. And cockles and mussels are, of course, good for you: they’re one of