A seafood platter should be a treat, not a test. If you have ever hesitated to order one because you were not sure how to tackle it, this guide is for you. We will walk you through eating lobster, cracking a crab claw, peeling prawns and the lovely French trick for mussels — so you can dive in with confidence.
Seafood guide
A simple route through buying, storing, cooking and serving seafood at home without making the page feel busy.
Eating Shellfish is here to make seafood feel easier at home: what to buy, how to handle it, and how to cook it with confidence.
Start with seafood that looks and smells fresh, then keep the plan simple. Good fish, shellfish and coastal ingredients do not need a complicated route to the plate.
Read straight through, or use the seafood notes above to keep buying, cooking and serving simple.
A guide on how to tackle a seafood platter including how to eat a crab claw, how to eat lobster in its shell, how to peel a prawn and how to eat a mussel.
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Hand-picked Down The Cove ranges that pair with this read.
Keep seafood chilled, unpack it when you get home, and cook it while it is at its best. A calm kitchen starts with good storage.
Use gentle heat, short timings and a little patience. Most seafood rewards simple cooking more than heavy sauces or overworked methods.
Serve seafood with clean flavours, enough time to rest, and a little confidence. Lemon, herbs, butter, good bread or a simple salad often do the job beautifully.
We have met many people who have said how they would love to order shellfish in a restaurant but are reluctant to because they are not sure how to eat it. This is especially true for seafood platters where you have a variety of different shellfish to eat.
On this page we will demonstrate how to eat lobster, crab, mussels and prawns so that these wonderful foods can be enjoyed by everybody.
All the tools and utensils required to eat shellfish are available in our cook shop. This includes all items being used in the videos below.
- The meat in a lobster's tail is easy to pull out and eat. There is also some delicious meat in each of the legs, which is best sucked out.
- If you have crab on a shellfish platter then it will normally be the claws and occasionally the legs too. The meat from the body of the crab is normally removed for you before serving a crab.
Whole prawns became very popular a few years ago with the introduction of dishes in pubs and restaurants such as 'a pint of prawns' or 'a bucket of prawns'. The larger king prawns or tiger prawns are easier to peel. However, even small prawns are pretty easy to eat as demonstrated in this video.
Eating mussels is very much hands on! With a bowl of mussels cooked in a delicious sauce such as white wine and garlic, it is a good idea to serve some nice crusty bread.
Our mussel pots are an all in one solution. You can cook and serve them in the pot and then the lid becomes the container for the empty shells. They look good too!
