Want To Cook Seafood? Good, Your In The Right Place.

From classics like fragrant Moules marinière, Bouillabaisse and lobster thermidor to the more contemporary chilli crab, curried scallops and crispy oyster fritters.

From simple fishcakes, chowder and cocktails to the more challenging terrines, soufflés and risottos.

From whole roast turbot to cosy fish pie and our very own prawns cooked in garlic butter and white wine.

We love it all.

And We’re glad you’re here because whether you’re just starting your seafood journey or a more experienced cook, we want cockles and mussels to be the place for you to find your passion for seafood.

Our mission is to help you cook amazingly delicious fish and shellfish with confidence from scratch at home using fresh, locally sourced, sustainable seafood.

The Recipes

Seafood’s got a reputation for being fiddly to prepare and intimidating to cook, but with a few simple techniques, a little practice and some great recipes, you’ll soon be cooking seafood like an old pro. 

We believe everybody should be comfortable cooking fish.

So the focus here is simple homestyle recipes that anyone can cook. The less you do with fish, the better it tastes. A quick fry in a pan, a slow bake in the oven, or a gentle poach is all it needs.

There’s no need to complicate things and get fussy. A simply cooked piece of the freshest fish can compare to anything you’ll find in the finest restaurant.

So stick around because we’ll be sharing all the recipes we’ve collected over the years as we moved from kitchen to kitchen. We’ll also be updating the classics and hopefully showing you some new, original and innovative recipes for fish and seafood.

The Food

We believe in finding the freshest possible seafood and teaming it up with the best ingredients you can find. Buy what tastes best and keep it local, seasonal and sustainable.

You’ll find that most of the recipes here on the site are designed to be easy, quick, and doable for the home cook. 

Besides, we all love a good food hack, so any tips or tricks that get you sitting at the table swiftly with a glass of wine in your hand are fair game. 

Nobody wants to spend all day in the kitchen, and that’s the great thing about fish. It cooks in minutes—No-fuss, no-hassle, fast, fresh, and full of flavour.

But nowadays, eating it comes with an environmental price tag. Because every fish we eat has a story to tell. Some are caught illegally, while others travel thousands of miles to arrive on our plates. Others are farmed irresponsibly with antibiotics and chemicals, causing massive damage to biodiversity and nearby ecosystems.

But some have been caught in well-managed fisheries by conscientious fishermen who take pride in their work and care about the oceans.

And these are the stories that need to be told………

Our Sustainability Seafood Journey

When I started cooking in pro kitchens, and even when I started this site, sustainability wasn’t the massive issue it is today. 

I’ve watched down the years the fish have got smaller and the prices bigger.

I can remember working in London as a young chef when huge turbot and seabass would arrive in the kitchen so heavy it would take two of us to carry them. Often they were just cleaned, cut into steaks on the bone, and then grilled over coals before being served simply with half a lemon and some deep-fried parsley.

Then there were fresh langoustines from Scotland still alive, hopping around and nearly as big as lobsters. Cod fillets thicker than your arm and big line-caught wild salmon with that beautiful deep red flesh that was poached in champagne and served with a big dollop of caviar.

I didn’t appreciate cooking all this beautiful wild seafood at the time and naively thought it would last forever.

Sadly, these big wild fish have all but disappeared because of overfishing and the constant catching of juveniles who never get the chance to reproduce. 

We’ve now turned to aquaculture to supply our demand for many of these species, but from what I remember, they just don’t taste the same.

Sustainable seafood statistics are scary. It’s estimated that eighty-five per cent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited or overfished.

So we’ve all got to do our bit. Going forward, we plan to focus on sustainable seafood in our recipes as much as possible, and we aim to give you alternative fish to use where it makes sense.

We’ve also just written a guide to help you hunt down sustainable species you can eat with a clear conscience which you can check out below.

We’re also slowly going back over our archive and updating our recipes with more responsibly sourced seafood or giving you a few sustainable substitutes to use. 

So, just who is doing all this hard work, you might ask…..

Meet The Team

At the moment, we’re a team of two seafood enthusiasts whose aim is to assist you to navigate the fish counter down the market and help you cook amazingly delicious dishes for your family and friends.

Elena

Elena loves seafood. And it’s little wonder as she’s originally from the port town of Hondarribia in the Basque country where seafood and fishing are a way of life. 

As a teenager, she worked in restaurants around the gastronomic mecca of San Sabastian before moving to Ireland to learn English and study at the world-renowned Ballymaloe cookery school.

These days she works in recipe development and is happiest at home in Hondarribia taking her dog Charlie for a walk on the beach and splashing in the surf.

Colm

Colm Is a seafood lover and freelance chef. 

He’s worked in pro kitchens all his life or about 30 years at this stage, mainly in restaurants in his hometown Dublin, Ireland. As well as London and Germany.

Don’t worry! we’re not going to bore you with his whole resume.

But having spent five years as a head chef in a seafood restaurant, he knows his stuff and has a massive passion for seafood and its sustainability.

How to get in touch

we’d love to hear from you. All feedback is welcome, and you can contact us here or follow along on social media.

If you want to make sure you don’t miss any of our culinary masterpieces, you can subscribe to the site below to get news, guides and recipes straight to your inbox.

And for anyone who isn’t Irish, you might be wondering about the name of the blog. It’s a line from an old Dublin song about a fishmonger called Molly Malone.

If you want to give it a listen, check out the Dubliners singing it here. We really hope you enjoy the recipes, and if you try one,  We’d would love to know how it goes.

Thanks for visiting…..

Happy cooking!

Cockles ‘n mussels team.