Breton style seafood platter



Back home in Brittany, Christmas will traditionally see a seafood platter (plateau de fruits de mer) throne at the center of the table on Christmas day. It will generally consist of brown crab, Dublin bay prawns, oysters, periwinkles, mussels, cockles, shrimp, velvet crab and some time a lobster or a crawfish. The seafood platter will be accompanied by some mayonnaise, lemon wedges and sauce mignonette (red wine vinegar with shallots and cracked pepper).

This what you will need for a seafood platter for 6 people:

  • 36 oysters, opened
  • 3 brown cabs, cooked and broken in pieces
  • 36 medium size Dublin bay prawns, cooked in the shell
  • 60 bouquet shrimps, cooked in the shell
  • 36 cooked mussels, traditionally they are eaten raw
  • 36 cooked cockles or clams, they are traditionally eaten raw
  • 6 large velvet crabs, cooked
  • 1kg of cooked periwinkles
  • optional : 3 lobsters or 3 crawfishs, cooked and cracked
  • 6 lemons
  • 1/2 litre of mayonnaise
  • 2 shallots
  • 1 teaspoon cracked pepper
  • 2 cups good red wine vinegar

This is very simple, despite the fact that it is quite time consuming. Gather, cook and chill all the shellfish and crustaceans. Place them on a tray, arrange them the way you like.

The sauce mignonette is done in this way:

Finely chop the shallots, place them in a nice bowl and pour the vinegar onto them. Finally, add the cracked pepper.

Cut your lemons into wedges and place the mayonnaise into a nice bowl.

Serve chilled with a nice bottle of chilled Muscadet.


May be cause to allergies, not suitable to pregnant women, gluten free, lactose free, nut free.

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