Shellfish-free recipes from whatever's in your fridge

Shellfish turns up where you weren't looking

A shellfish allergy usually lasts for life, and the reactions can be serious, so the prawn cocktail is the easy part. It's everything around it. A spoon of oyster sauce in a beef stir-fry. Dried shrimp ground into a curry paste. A seafood stock under a risotto. The paella that "might" have had prawns in it before they were picked out. The shellfish is rarely the star of the dish you have to worry about; it's the sauce somebody added for depth.

Grublin knows the obvious names and the ones inside other words, and the rule holds whether you're using up the fridge or asking for a dish by name.

What the check catches

Crustaceans. Prawn, shrimp, crab, lobster, langoustine, scampi, crayfish and crawfish.

Molluscs. Mussel, oyster, clam, scallop, cockle, whelk, winkle, conch and abalone, plus sea urchin and krill.

Squid and octopus. Squid, calamari, octopus and cuttlefish are molluscs too, so they are on the list.

The catch-all words. Shellfish and seafood, so a frozen seafood mix or a seafood stock is caught even when it doesn't say what's in it.

Shellfish inside other names. Oyster sauce, shrimp paste, prawn crackers and crab sticks all contain a word on the list and are caught. XO sauce, made with dried scallops and shrimp, and belacan, a shrimp paste also spelled blachan, are caught by name, as is surimi, the processed seafood in crab sticks.

Plurals and kinds. Prawns, king prawns, tiger prawns and soft-shell crabs all match.

If any of these appears anywhere in the finished recipe, Grub writes another, and you only see the one that passed.

What the check does not catch

• Names from other cuisines. Gambas, langostinos and fruits de mer, written without an English name alongside, are not on the list. The request still tells Grub that shellfish is off limits, but the code would not stop them.
• Curry pastes. Many Thai and Malaysian curry pastes contain shrimp paste without naming it. A recipe that just says "red curry paste" is not caught.
• Shellfish in products. Some stock cubes, fish sauces, ready-made paellas and frozen seafood mixes contain shellfish without the recipe needing to say so. The check reads ingredient names, not product labels.
• Cross-contamination. Shared fryers, batter used for scampi, and fish counters.
• Oyster mushrooms. These trip the check the other way: the word oyster is on the list, so a recipe using them is rewritten. That costs a retry, never safety.

The check lowers the chance of shellfish reaching your plate. Read the label on anything from a packet or a jar.

Shellfish-free and something else

• Shellfish-free and pescatarian. Fish yes, prawns never. Pescatarian on its own is steered; adding the shellfish allergen means the mussels and squid are kept out by code.
• Shellfish and fish. Set both for a full seafood allergy. Fish sauce, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce and dashi go too.
• Shellfish-free and kosher. Kosher already rules out shellfish using the same list, so setting kosher covers it.
• Shellfish-free and gluten-free. The common pair in East Asian cooking: oyster sauce and soy sauce are both out, so a stir-fry has to get its savoury depth another way.

What you'll actually cook

Grub writes from your fridge or your craving, so there is no fixed list, and shellfish-free leaves almost everything on the table: roasts, pies, curries, pasta, stews, stir-fries, traybakes, and fish dishes if you eat fish. The dishes that usually lean on shellfish come back built on something else. Ask for "something like a paella" and the version you see has no prawns, mussels or squid in its list; ask for a stir-fry and its sauce isn't oyster sauce. If a dish normally relies on a shellfish paste, check the jar you use.

Set your kit too, so a shellfish-free fakeaway from the air fryer is written for the air fryer.