Serves 4

Ingredients

• A mixture of seafood: picked white crab meat; Dublin Bay prawns; Atlantic prawns, the pink ones; cooked lobster tails; brown shrimps, peeled
• Extra virgin olive oil
• A squeeze of lemon juice
• 2 baby gem lettuce
• I small cucumber, peeled, deseeded and diced

For the cocktail sauce:
• 2 parts mayonnaise I part tomato ketchup
• A splash of brandy
• A dash of Tabasco sauce
• A pinch of paprika
• A squeeze of lemon juice

Method

• The quantities of seafood you use are up to you: just try to get a good mix of everything. How much sauce you make is really up to you, too. Keep tasting it, and adjust it until it makes you smile. Simon Hopkinson had a nice idea of mixing a little cottage cheese into a cocktail sauce; it lightens it up a bit and makes it less cloying, but you just know that no one has ever come up with anything as good.
• Mix together all the ingredients for the sauce. Take four old-fashioned cocktail glasses. Season all the seafood with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and a drop of lemon juice.
• To assemble, put some lettuce and cucumber at the bottom of the glass, which will give a lovely crunch, then layer up your seafood, put a dollop of sauce on top and let people mix everything up, or keep everything separate, as they choose.