Spring, sunshine and a small reprieve from lockdown is sending us outdoors. The park is our dining room and a blanket, our dining table. Its driving foodies everywhere to google gourmet picnic recipes, so if you want to impress then there’s nothing that sings ‘Sydney summer’ more than seafood. Steve Costi is Sydney seafood royalty, the family opening their first shop over 60 years ago, have now launched an online store.
Costi’s online range is fit for park-life-purpose, straight to your door. They offer a sumptuous range of ready made mixed seafood and sushi platters or you can pick up some of the most luxe offerings and prepare your own, we’ll show you how!
The ultimate way to commence your descendant picnic affair is with oysters and bubbles. The Sydney rock are magic right now, they need nothing but a squeeze of lemon. For the packed lunch with style, WA Rock lobsters are reasonable and delish, they make a great slider. Local jumbo prawns are the perfect sweet meat for sambos and both take mere minutes to prepare and are guaranteed crowd pleasers.
Prawn sambos
10 slices white bread (without crusts)
10 butter lettuce leaves
20 cooked king or jumbo prawns (peeled & deveined)
Seafood sauce
5 TBS mayo
6 cornichons, drained, finely chopped
2 TBS capers
2 TBS chopped chives
1 TBS tomato sauce
2 tsp chili oil
1 TBS lemon juice
Mix all the ingredients for the seafood sauce, adjusting seasoning and spice to taste. Add the prawns and keep refrigerated in an airtight container.
For the park-life version, pack the dressed prawn mix, lettuce & bread to construct at the picnic.
Assemble the Sambos by layering one bread slice with lettuce, top with prawn cocktail mix, put the lid on, cut in half and share.
Lobster sliders
2 cooked lobster tails (500g shelled and roughly chopped)
1 cup of baby rocket
5 brioche sliders
Dressing
4 TBS mayo
1 TBS olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp curry powder
1 TBS chives
Combine all ingredients for the dressing, adjusting seasoning to taste and transfer to a small squeezy bottle. Cut the brioche sliders in half and butter, and place them, buttered side down, in a frying pan and toast for 1 minute until golden brown.
For the park-life version, pack the brioche, rocket, lobster and mayo separately to put together at the picnic.
Squeeze a generous amount of dressing on each slider half. Top with a generous amount of lobster and then rocket. Put the lid on and hand around to your salivating guests.
A Costi’s top quality seafood spread is a wonderful way to show your posse how much you missed them. And with these recipes, you’ll be on everyones picnic A-list.
Steve Costi Online Seafood
Minimum $50 spend with a $15 delivery fee.
Order by 8pm for next-day delivery.
