Matt Dean Pettit - The Great Shellfish Cookbook

v5.2

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CONTENTS

This cookbook is dedicated to my family and friends who have always been there to support me through every crazy idea and leap of faith I take. I cant thank you enough!

Heres to the next chapter in our lives. I love you all so much.

xoxoxo

MDP

HI, EVERYONE! Im Chef Matt Dean Pettit, chef and co-owner and founder of Rock Lobster restaurants and Mattys Seafood Brands. Whether youve been to one of the restaurants, picked up some of our food from your local supermarket, or experimented in the kitchen with lobster recipes from my first cookbook, The Great Lobster Cookbookor even if weve never crossed virtual or real-life paths beforeyoull probably realize pretty quickly that seafood is one of my true loves and I keep it at the core of my daily life.

The Great Shellfish Cookbook takes any level of home cook on a delicious seafood tour that focuses on my personal top nine favorite kinds of shellfish. In much the same way as I demystified lobster in my first book, Ill teach you Shellfish 101 and show you how and where to buy fresh shellfish, how to store it, and, of course, how to cook it. Well cook some fun and manageable types of shellfish, such as crab of different varieties, oysters, mussels, scallops, squid, octopus, clams, prawns, and, of course, lobster. And to help you bring it all together, Ive included some delicious side dishes and cocktails to pair with your meals. Of course, every cook needs a selection of staples to keep on hand or to whip up at a moments notice, and youll find some of those here too.

Im sure youve noticed, but there are a lot of seafood products in grocery stores today, most of which are owned by large global companies. In 2013, I knew I had to do something about this and I realized that I wanted to create products that were new, different, and fresh. That fall, I was presented with the lucky opportunity to create a seafood brand line. Everything in life is a journey, and this venture was nothing different. I remember wondering how on earth I would teach myself the seafood retail game in just two months. My retail customer needed products on their shelves for January 1, 2014. The timing was crazy, but I was determined.

What better way to get acquainted with all the products than to run to the nearest grocery store? This is what any young savvy businessperson would do, right? It was important to look at the back of every single product in the store to see who made what, and who co-packed this, and so on. The truth, I knew, was that unless you have A LOT of money, its almost impossible to have your own manufacturing facility to produce your own goods. Right away I understood that it was important to search out who could help co-pack and produce the products I intended to sell. At times the journey felt endless, although after researching for weeks, cold-calling manufacturing plants, and having countless doors shut in my face, I was able to find two amazing gentlemen who each owned large, federally inspected co-packing facilities. After several meetings and sales pitches, they finally agreed to take a chance on me. My determination paid off, and I felt on top of the world, as Im sure you would have too.

After much blood, sweat, and tears, on January 1, 2014, I launched three products through Mattys Seafood Brands, in 12 Sobeys Urban Fresh stores in Toronto, Canada. The grocery game works quickly, and in less than 1 year, not only had we grown to four productschowder, a lobster roll (an obvious choice as thats what we were best known for in our award-winning Rock Lobster restaurants), lobster mac n cheese, and an amazing lobster bisquebut we had gone from 12 stores of distribution to approximately 275 throughout Ontario. And now? Our products are currently available in over 700+ stores across Canada and the United States, with a total of 10 Mattys Seafood Brands productsand growingfor you to enjoy! Right now, our products include lobster bisque, east coast chowder, mac n cheese, sous vide lobster tails, scallops, and snow crabs, and a variety of seasoning mixes.