While working in a seafood restaurant nearly a decade, I heard the same thing over and over again about cooking seafood: “I don’t cook seafood at home. I don’t know how!”
Growing up in an Asian household, our diet consisted of seafood meals very regularly, so I was quite surprised to hear many people are uncomfortable cooking seafood. The most common concern I hear from people not wanting to cook seafood is that they are worried about spending a lot of money on the ingredient and ruining it by overcooking it. Another common concern is how reliable the source of the seafood product is. People want to buy safe, sustainable seafood options but don’t seem to know where to find it!
I love eating seafood and teaching people how to cook it and find sustainable options by checking for the MSC blue fish label is even more enjoyable! Sometimes we all need a little guidance to make the leap and start cooking a dish that intimidates us.
Here are a few tips on how to cook seafood if you are still shying away from it!
Cook Seafood at the Right Temperature:
Get a meat thermometer and use it to cook shellfish and fish; seafood can get a little tough and dry if it is overcooked and a thermometer will help you gauge when it’s done until you cook it often enough that it becomes more intuitive. Most seafoods are done cooking at about 145 F. If you use that as a guide, you will never overcook seafood again!
Keep Seasonings and Side Dishes Simple:
Seafood on its own is super tasty even without a lot of seasoning or sauces on it. So, if you are cooking seafood for the first time, I would recommend you start by cooking a simple piece of cod or other white fish that you are familiar with the taste and texture.
Add just a little salt, pepper and a splash of lemon juice and viola, you have a delicious piece of fish that is not only healthy, but very tasty!
There are also many already cooked options available, like canned fish and smoked seafoods, that you can add to a salad or easy dish if you are more of a novice chef! Really there are no excuses to not try adding seafood into your diet!
Don’t Be Afraid to Try Something New!
Another great thing about cooking seafood is how versatile it is. You can cook seafood on a grill, in a pan, baked or broiled in the oven, pan fried and even deep-fried!
I love cooking shrimp and lobsters on the grill; since they cook fairly quickly, it really absorbs the charcoal flavors and you don’t need to do much with them on the grill. For cooking in a pan or oven, I love throwing in a few pieces of salmon for a quick weeknight dinner. When broiling and deep frying, I like using thicker, fattier fish like cod to make classic dishes like fish and chips! And for pan frying, a great option is a thinner fish so that within a few minutes, your fish is cooked through!
The options are endless so you really cannot go wrong with cooking seafood in any of these ways!
Check for Certified Sustainable Seafood:
Another huge thing for me is to try to consume sustainable seafood whenever possible. Especially when I am cooking at home, I always check for the MSC blue fish label on my seafood products before purchasing. Choosing sustainable seafood is really important to me since our actions and what we put into our body matters not only for our health, but also for the health of the ocean and planet.
When you choose seafood with the MSC Blue Fish label for your recipes, you are taking a small action at the grocery store, but making a HUGE difference with our planet. You are choosing wild, traceable, and sustainably fished seafood so we can continue to enjoy seafood forever in a responsible way! When you are at the grocery store, all you have to do is to check for the MSC blue fish on the package to know you are choosing the right type of seafood!
Once you have mastered the basics of cooking seafood and are more comfortable with handling it, you can graduate to recipes that are a little more complicated. With the base knowledge of how to cook seafood under your belt, all seafood recipes will be a breeze!
If you are looking for more simple seafood recipes, you can check out my blog www.joyceofcooking.com and see a collection of recipes using MSC certified sustainable seafoods!
