Ready to make a (small) crowd pleasing dish? A seafood tower is where it’s at!
We’ve ordered seafood towers for special occasions when we’re in a Vegas restaurant or brunching by the beach. When the tower arrives at the table, there’s an instant reaction of ‘wow!’ But did you know they are not very difficult to make? And since we’re still spending lots of time at home, we want to share how to make a seafood tower for your next special occasion, like Easter!
We made one for our first gathering after we got our vaccines and we couldn’t help but go a little overboard. Our dear friends loved it! Here’s how to make it.
What you need for the tower structure
You’ll want a large bottom platter, a medium cake stand, and a narrow container for the top.
If you don’t have these exact items, shop your home for platters that you can use. The key here is to find platters that can be stacked on top of each other to add height, but make sure they have a lip or bowl so the items inside don’t spill. You will be adding a lot of ice to your platter, so you don’t want to use something that’s too flat where water can spill.
For our tower, we used a circular platter I got from Costco as the base, a glass cake stand for the middle, and a wide clear vase for the top. I also used a low-profile tupperware container to add height in between the bottom and middle layers.
Make sure you build the platter at or very near where it will be placed for your gathering. Since you’ll have three layers of platters, moving it around can be tricky.
Ingredients
For this seafood tower, we kept things pretty simple. All items were purchased at Costco except the parsley.
- 6 fresh oysters raw, in the shell
- 1-2 pounds tiger prawn shrimp or large fresh shrimp
- 6 lobster tails, cut in half longways
- 4 large king crab legs and claws, cut into quarters
- 4 lemons, cut in half
- 1-2 cups of butter
- 1 cup dry white wine
- Bunch of parsley
- Ice
- Tabasco sauce
We went with fresh seafood, but if you have anything that’s frozen, let if thaw overnight in the fridge.
Instructions
- Prepare seafood for steaming; peel the shrimp, and cut the lobster tails in half.
- In a double boiler, add 1/2 cup of butter and 1 cup of dry white wine.
- Steam shrimp and lobster for 8 minutes.
- Use scissors to cut crab legs into individual servings by cutting them in quarters at the knuckles and along the claw.
- Slice open one side of the crab pieces so it’s easier to pull out the meat
- Scrub the oysters and then (carefully) open them
- Put all the items to the side and get ready to arrange them on the platter
Assembly
- Crush the ice to create smaller pieces. We used a blender to break down some ice, and also used the refrigerator’s crushed ice setting.
- Add ice to the platter. Be generous! It looks much cooler when there’s lots of ice to the platters.
- Start adding seafood to the platter. Alternate putting different pieces of seafood so you don’t add too many of the same kind next to each other. You may end up starting with one approach and then change things around once you stand back and take a look. Most importantly, you don’t want to overcrowd the platter because you want every piece of seafood to be touching ice.
- For the top of the platter, add some flair, like the shrimp cascading out of the vase, and the crab claws sticking out of the top.
- Give your platter a spin and make sure it looks good from all angles.
- Add some parsley to jazz it up.
Be sure to warm up plenty of butter for dipping. Try to give everyone their own bowl of butter so you don’t have to worry about anyone double dipping.
Then, enjoy! And be sure to take a bow, you’re going to get lots of compliments.
