Recipe: Chef Sam Talbot’s Super-Popular Shellfish Salad

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The Top Chef alum's fresh-food stint at Montauk's Turf was just an early summer fling, but we scored a recipe with staying power.

Turf
Talbot's Shellfish Salad, which mixes shrimp and lobster with flowering pea shoots, raw ginger, lemongrass, and fresh basil and mint.

For just a few short weeks, Zachary Lynd's Turf‚ which has been known for its amazing lobster rolls since 2011, served haute healthy cuisine prepared by Top Chef alum Sam Talbot out of a 1967 Airstream Trailer parked in the sand at Ditch Plains.

For Talbot, however, it turns out the food truck (ahem, trailer), was just an early summer fling. At the beach on Sunday, customers who loved Talbot's fresh juices, fish tacos, and salads griped about the truck's return to the single mayo-heavy menu item (while scarfing down said item), and gossiped about his absence.

Talbot offered a cryptic explanation on Twitter. "And I will no longer be involved with TURF. I'm looking forward to announcing my next endeavor which I'm very excited about shortly," he wrote.

If you missed the short Montauk affair, you can get a tiny taste by whipping up Talbot's Shellfish Salad, one of the menu's most popular items, using the recipe we scored, below. —Lisa Elaine Held

Shellfish Salad with Summer Herbs and Sugar Plums

3 oz. cooked lobster
3 cooked 16/20 shrimp, split in half lengthwise
1 cup of flowering pea shoots
8 basil leaves hand torn a few times
8 mint leaves hand torn a few times
2 sugar plums, quartered
1 lemon juiced
1 tbsp chopped lemongrass, sautéed until translucent
1 tbsp chopped ginger, sautéed until translucent about 2 mins
1/2 tsp chili paste or Sriracha
2 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt
Cracked pink peppercorns

Toss gently all of the ingredients except the pea shoots. Add those last very gently. Season well.

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