Whelks, winkles and cocklesOnline Catalogue | Shellfish | Whelks, winkles and cockles These shellfish should be more popularWhelks, winkles and cockles are shellfish that your grandmother would have loved and we can't understand why they have gone out of fashioin. They are cheap, taste great and so easy to serve. Join us in bringing them back into fashion!
|  |  Get to know whelks
If you buy live whelks cook them by boiling them. Don't cook them for more than 10 minutes or they will be rubbery. They are great eaten warm.
If you buy cooked whelks warm them in boiling water for a few minutes because they are always best eaten warm.
Our best recipe is simple - serve with mayonnaise stirred with crushed garlic and chopped parsley. 5 or 6 make a good starter, so one of our portions of 200g will serve two or three. Just arrange them on a plate with the mayonnaise, sprinkle some mild chilli powder or smoked paprika on the mayonnaise and add a slice of toasted brown bread. Couldn't be easier!
We've seen lots of other recipes, for example for minced whelks in a fish burger and stir fried with red peppers, but we think the simpler the better.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Get to know cocklesWe usually sell cooked cockles at The Smelly Alley Fish Company, they are the easiest!
If you would like live cockles we can get them for you, just ring 0118 939 3076.
They are cooked in the same way as mussels or clams. The way of checking that live cockles are fit to eat is the same as for clams and mussels - if the move when tapped, they are alive and good to eat. Discard any that don't move. They often carry a lot of grit in their grooved shells, so if you order live cockles, rinse them well. Cook by steaming them, or cooking them in the same way as our mussel recipe - in white wine. They are cooked when the shells have opened for a few minutes, don't overcook them.
We have seen a few different recipes, but they are mostly simple (serve with a sprinkling of black pepper and balsamic vinegar as an accompaniment to pre-dinner drinks), or fried (as cooked cockles, or in their shells) with smoky bacon. If you are a fan of laverbread try the cockles with this as well.
A smoked haddock soup ("chowder") often has a few cooked cockles added.
Here's a recipe for Red Hot Cockles
For 2 or 3 as a starter
250g cooked cockles
One finely sliced red chilli
Four finely sliced spring onions, including part of the green tops
Four finely sliced sundried tomato pieces or two finely sliced pieces of red peppers in oil (the ones in a jar)
One finely sliced garlic clove
Two tablespoons of olive oil
Some chopeed parsley to garnish
Fresh chopped Parsley, to garnish
Mix all the ingredients together, except the cockles and parsley.
Microwave on high for 2 minutes.
Add the cockles and cook on HIGH for a further 1-2 minutes.
Sprinkle with the parsley and serve immediately as a starter with bread, for example ciabatta bread, we used strips of garlic and coriander naan bread.
This recipe was from Seafish, but we took the photograph!
| |
Copyright 2007-2012 The Smelly Alley Fish Company, including photographs unless indicated. |
