How To Prepare Moreton Bay Bugs At Home | Moreton Bay Bug Cocktail | Everyday Gourmet 2026

I was at my fishmongers this morning and something caught my eye. This wonderful and interesting crustacean. It's certainly not the prettiest crustacean, but may I say it is delicious. Now, this is a Morton Bay bug, also called a bowman bug. There's just a slight difference. They're part of the lobster slipper family. And controversially, I think they taste even better than lobster because they're smaller. I find their meat much sweeter. So I've brought some back to the kitchen. Many from Planet Seafood has just got the freshest ones here. It was hard to resist them. And I want to show you how to make a very classic dish with them. So before I prepare this, we're going to get onto the sauce. This is a Morton Bay bug cocktail. And it's something that we have every Christmas in my family. I think a lot of Australians have it in their family, too. So for the sauce, it's called a Murray Rose sauce. So we're going to start with some mayonnaise. So into a bowl, some whole egg mayonnaise, some creme fraiche. But you could also use some sour cream. And a lot of these ingredients that I'm now going to add, you probably already have in your pantry. So some good old tomato sauce, some Worcestershire sauce, which is going to give it a lovely, savoury flavour. And then just to give it an extra festive feel, I'm going to add a splash of brandy. You can absolutely leave that out if you like. To this, a pinch of cayenne pepper for some spice. I'm going to leave the rest for a garnish later on. And for extra hit, and this is a classic in a Murray Rose sauce, some Tabasco, a little splash. And not traditional, but I think it works so well, particularly because this is very much a Queensland style seafood. Some ginger, which is also very dominant in Queensland. We're just going to mince that into the bowl. Not too much. We want it to be subtle. I also like some lemon zest. So I'm just going to zest about a quarter of this. And a squeeze of lemon juice. All right, we'll give that a stir. And it should be that pale pink colour. All right, let's pop that to the side. A classic cocktail has some shredded iceberg lettuce in it, some chives and avocado. I'm also going to prep that before we get on with our Morton Bay bug. And I just want wedges of the avocado. So before I peel it, I'm just going to cut it into the smaller wedges. I just find it so much easier to take the skins off without ruining those wedges because it's all about presentation with this one. See how easy it is to take the skin off. So we'll just peel that and we'll just put it to one side. This is called mise en place, which just means getting everything ready to go before serving it. All right, let's prepare the Morton Bay bug. So we want to detach the head from the tail meat. And you can see it's a little bit spiky here. I always find it best just to use a tea towel and grab one side of it and the other and then just give it a firm twist, just like that. OK. And by doing that, we can pull the meat out. See how easy that was to do. So now we're just going to carefully jiggle that out. See how just being really gentle, we want all the meat. And then that comes out so easy. We're going to just place that to one side. Now, because these are so beautiful, I want to keep most of it intact for presentation. I've peeled these once, too. I've also taken the intestinal track out. And just to tidy it up, this bit here can be chopped off. And we're going to pop this through the sauce. Keep them over here. And then just roughly chop all of this delicious meat. Run your knife through it. And then we're going to place that into the sauce. And give that a mix. OK. And then it's just really easy to assemble this. I like to do it in that very traditional way in glasses. But you can actually do this in an entire dish on a platter. It's totally up to you. We start with some shredded lettuce on the base. Iceberg is the best for this because it's super crunchy and it's mild in flavor. And like I say, this is a real special treat to use the Mordbay bugs. You can absolutely use prawns for this. Some scallops, lobster too. It's up to you. Next, our wedge of avocado on each. And I want to dress this slightly. So just a little squeeze of lemon juice. Pinch of salt. And we are, of course, going to add some extra sauce to this. But I just want to do a base dressing. And then we'll go in with the bug. So spoon that on. And I'm being quite generous with it because after you mix this in and chop it in with the larger piece of meat, you want a lot of sauce to be touching every ingredient. OK, next, our gorgeous bug is going to sit right on top proudly. That's stunning. Some chives over the top, just in and around. Very finely chopped chives and an extra hint of cayenne. I just like that pop of colour right on that avocado there too. If that's not festive, I don't know what is. It's a special occasion kind of dish. And next time you're at your fishmonger and you see something interesting, why don't you talk to them and ask them how to prepare it? And then you'll see you can make something as extravagant and delicious as this.