Christmas Entrees: What to Serve With Cold Seafood

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

The best Christmas entree in an Australian summer is cold seafood served plain, with two or three good sauces beside it. Prawns, oysters or smoked salmon, a bowl of ice, lemon and bread. Count five or six large prawns a head as a starter. Nothing gets cooked on the day, and the whole course goes together in about ten minutes.

We do not sell prawns and there is no point pretending otherwise. What we sell is everything that goes beside them, which is the part most tables leave to a bottle of pink sauce from the supermarket. Two jars from the sauces and dressings range will do more for a seafood platter than another kilo of prawns.

How much seafood, and how to lay it out

As a starter before a big lunch we work on five or six large cooked prawns a head, which is roughly 200g of whole prawns once you allow for heads and shells. Half a dozen oysters between two people. For smoked salmon, 60g to 80g each is plenty when there is bread and something sharp on the plate. If the seafood is the meal rather than the opener, near enough to double it. Our guide to how much food per person at Christmas covers the rest of the day.

Lay it out on one large platter set over a shallow tray of ice rather than plating it up individually. It looks better, it stays colder, and people take what they want. Keep the sauces off the seafood and in small bowls beside it, so nothing goes soft and the guest who does not eat chilli is not stranded. Peel half the prawns and leave the rest whole. The peeled ones get eaten by the people who will not work for their lunch, and the shells on the others keep the platter looking like food rather than a buffet tray.

Three sauces, one jar each, five minutes

Three styles cover a table: something sharp, something smoky and hot, something green and fresh. Each one starts with a jar and finishes with a single fresh thing, and all three are better made the day before.

Sharp and lemony. Stir two spoons of Ottolenghi honey mustard dressing through half a cup of creme fraiche or thick yoghurt, then chop in a slice of preserved lemon, rind and all. The dressing is dijon and honey with preserved lemon paste already in it, so the extra lemon builds on what is there instead of fighting it. This is the bowl that empties first, and it works on oysters as well as prawns. At $24.95 for 250ml the bottle will outlast Christmas on salads.

Smoky and hot. Glasseye Creek Pretty Hot smoked chilli sauce is jalapenos smoked for three days, tamed with wood smoked roasted tomatoes and Canterbury blackcurrant. Prawns sit on the maker's own list of what it goes with, which is not a claim we had to invent. Put it out straight from the bottle for the chilli eaters, or fold a tablespoon through mayonnaise for a smoky pink sauce that tastes like something. $16.95 for 400g, which is more than one Christmas needs.

Green and fresh. Swirl a spoon of Ottolenghi green chilli shatta through yoghurt with a squeeze of lime. It is a fermented condiment, so it brings acidity along with the heat, and acidity is what cold seafood wants. The Ottolenghi kitchen suggests spooning it over grilled fish; it does the same job on cold prawns without the grill.

The bits around the edge

Bread and oil is the fourth sauce and the cheapest upgrade on the table. A good extra virgin olive oil in a shallow bowl with sea salt and a squeeze of lemon is what people go back to once the prawns are gone. Belazu Early Harvest is single varietal Arbequina, pressed from the first olives of the season while they are still green and purple, then stone crushed in Catalonia. The yield is lower that way, and the flavour is the reason Belazu do it. At $59.95 it is a finishing oil rather than a cooking one, so keep it off the heat and pour it at the table.

For something to scoop with, artisan pita crisps are oven baked in Australia with olive oil and sea salt, $6.95 for 100g, and they stand up under a wet sauce better than a water cracker does. Two bags for a table of eight. The rest of what belongs next to seafood, the mustards, the tapenades and the chilli jams, sits in gourmet condiments, and any of them goes straight from jar to bowl.

What you can do the night before

All three sauces, for a start. They improve on day two and they hand you back the morning. Mix them, cover them and keep them cold. Slice the lemons, sort the bread, get the platter out of the cupboard and clear a shelf in the fridge, because a tray of ice is the thing that never fits at the last minute.

The seafood is the one part to leave alone until the day. Buy it on the morning, keep it cold on the way home, and do not dress it until it goes on the table. If you would rather a first course that is not a platter, our smoked salmon tartlets with lemon and dill use pre-baked pastry cases and take about fifteen minutes.

Christmas entree questions

How many prawns per person for a Christmas entree?

Five or six large cooked prawns a head, which is around 200g of whole prawns once you allow for heads and shells. Double that if the seafood is lunch rather than the opener. Buy a few more than the maths says for a table with teenagers at it, and peel half of them before they go on the platter so the course actually starts.

What sauce goes with prawns?

Three styles cover it. Something sharp and creamy, such as a mustard dressing folded through creme fraiche. Something hot, either a smoked chilli sauce straight from the bottle or stirred into mayonnaise. Something green and acidic, like a fermented chilli condiment through yoghurt with lime. Put all three out in small bowls and let people choose rather than dressing the seafood yourself.

Can you prepare a seafood starter the night before?

Prepare everything except the seafood. The sauces are better a day ahead, and the bread, the lemons and the platter can all be dealt with the night before. Buy the seafood on the day, keep it cold, and dress it only as it goes to the table, so nothing sits in acid and turns opaque at the edges while you are carving.

If you are building the platter this year, two or three jars from the sauces and dressings range is the shortest route to a course that looks considered. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday leave our Corio warehouse the same day, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. For the rest of the day, from the nibbles to the leftovers, start with our guide to Christmas food in Australia.