Hi podcast listeners. I hope you've been enjoying our seafood interviews with Christina from The Weekday Pescatarian. Today we have another episode to add to the series, this time we're talking about how to bake seafood to perfection.
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Here is a transcript of the interview
Eric: Hi everybody, I'm here today to continue our series on how to successfully cook seafood. Um, if you haven't checked it out, last month we discussed grilling seafood. And now I want to go more into baking today. So once again, I have Christina from The Weekday Pescatarian on the podcast. So welcome again.
Christina: Oh, it's so great to be here. Thanks, Eric.
Eric: So you've been on a couple of times already now here. So I think this time around, I want you to say who are briefly here, but also, give us a little fact about yourself that people don't know.
Christina: My name is Christina Jolom, and I'm a seafood focused recipe blogger at www.weekdaypesquetarian.com. And let's see, do I have a fun fact? My favorite cooking related experience to date was taking a French sauces class in Paris, where we made, I think, five or six different French sauces and then stood around this, um, you know, industrial kitchen counter and tore up chunks of like, hot baguette and just dipped them in all the sauces and ate them until we wanted to cry.
We were so happy. So that is my fun fact for the day, Eric, French sauces in Paris. I would like that to be my life every day.
Eric: Oh man, that's, yeah, that does sound great. What was your favorite sauce you had?
Christina: They did a, I mean, Yeah, so many, but we did, we did like this red wine reduction sauce that had mushrooms in it that I just, yeah, it'll be with me forever. We did like Bernays and, you know, a lot of, you know, Hollandaise, some, you know, we did all of them other sauces and then some more interesting, I think I loved sauces before that because why else would I sign up for that, but, um, yeah, since then I've just been obsessed, obsessed with the sauces.
Eric: Oh, that's, that sounds great. So maybe we'll have to do a whole seafood episode on sauces.
Christina: I love it.
Eric: All right, so today we're talking about baking seafood. Um, so, um, what are some of your best tips?
Christina: So I love baking seafood, and I really think that it is a great option year round. I know a lot of us think of baking as kind of a fall and winter kind of cozy, turn the oven on, warm up the whole house kind of situation. But, Seafood is such a quick cooking protein that it really makes baking seafood an option all year round.
You can, you know, put the oven on for 20 minutes and your fish is done and you have a really delicious dinner on the table in no time. So I really like to think of baking or roasting fish as a great year round option. I really like the Um, fish fillets, or you could also do a whole fish. That's a little bit more, um, advanced, but fish fillets or very large shrimp, I think jumbo shrimp, colossal shrimp do really well in the oven. It's the easiest cooking method, super hands off. You know, you season it, you put it in the oven, you leave the door shut, you don't do anything else. Um, if you or people that you're cooking for don't love the smell of seafood hanging around the kitchen, Even after you've eaten, baking is a great option for that because it kind of keeps those odors contained a little bit better than say, if you were cooking on the stovetop, I think baking is a great option for a one pan dinner as well.
So I've got a recipe for a lemon garlic butter walleye on my site, which you could also use cod or haddock or whatever white fish you love. You make a simple lemon butter sauce. You put your asparagus or fresh green beans on there. You could put parboiled potatoes, pour that lemon garlic butter sauce over everything.
And you know, 10 to 12 minutes later you're eating dinner and it is delicious. So think about seafood in the same way that we all love sheet pan dinners when it's, you know, chicken, or steak bites or something like that. Well, your fish is going to cook much faster than all of those options. So think about quick cooking veggies you can add to that, parbaked, you know, baby potatoes.
Those are great options for just a really quick sheet pan dinner for you and your family.
Eric: Oh, that's, I think that's a great idea. I love the idea of doing the parboiled potato thing too, because you want to get everything cooked at the same time and you want to have your protein kind of be the star. So you want kind of everything to kind of work around that. So like getting the potatoes cooked ahead of time is so good.
And people don't know the beautiful thing that is green beans that are roasted. They come out just like fries, they're amazing!
Christina: I was going to say the texture, if you get some browning and caramelization, whether it's asparagus or green beans, the flavor is so different and so much better. I don't want to say better because I know a lot of people love steamed, but it is just much more complex. I'll say it is a much different experience than just a kind of boring steamed green veggie experience, um, which is a great transition to thinking about texture. So when I think about baking or roasting fish, I'm also thinking about texture. So baking is a little bit gentler way to cook fish. You know, you're not searing it on the stove. So if texture, kind of a crunchiness is important to you, then think about looking for recipes that have Say sliced almonds on the top of them or crushed corn flakes as a, you know, simple breading or panko crumbs.
So all of that can be added and, you know, through your breading process or through your baking process in a really easy way. But do think about texture because if, if that's an important component of your dining experience, you want to make sure you add that crunch to whatever it is you're making. And then my final tip, Eric, kind of circles back around to my fun fact, which is how much I love sauce. Um, sauces add so much fresh flavor to seafood. So if you're doing a simple bake in the oven, like I said, with the walleye recipe, you could do a simple lemon butter garlic sauce over the top and then hit it with some fresh herbs when it comes out of the oven.
But you can also just do a simple dry seasoning on your fish, bake it off with a little olive oil. And while, you know, the 10 to 11 minutes that it's baking,you can be whipping up a simple sauce, whether that's like a fresh herb and garlic sauce, like an Argentinian chimichurri or an Italian salsa verde or spicy remoulade, if you want more of a cream sauce with it.
You have a lot of great options and all of the things I just mentioned, you probably have most of those ingredients in your fridge or your cabinets right now. These are not complex dishes, but they add so much flavor. And so really think about introducing a new sauce, new flavor combinations where, you know, your oven's not on longer, you're not dredging fish, you're not doing a bunch of complicated things, um, you're just making a small dish of really delicious sauce.
So, those are my top tips around baking.
Eric: All that, yeah, that sounds really good. I wanted to do the corn flake idea. My kids keep seeing it on the box of corn flakes you get at Aldi. Like says to like use them for breading. Kids keep saying that. I haven't got around to it yet. Um, but it sounds delicious.
Christina: You're in luck, Eric. I have a recipe on my site for cornflake breaded, uh, walleye. But again, you can use... Cod, haddock, whatever. It is one of the most craveable recipes. I don't know what it is about cornflakes, but when you mix them with butter and some savory spices, there's this undertone of sweetness, that crunchiness that's so, it is completely craveable.
So yes, if you, Or, to that point, let me send you the recipe. You will love it. And it's also great on chicken. This was my mom's recipe for cornflake chicken that she made when I was growing up. And so I just made it into kind of a pescatarian and put a few different spices in it that go with fish.
But, uh, yeah, it's, it's really delicious.
Eric: That definitely sounds so amazing and it's nice to have something to add textrure. Sometimes the texture of the fish is more of a softer type thing, s it's good to have a way to kind of balance that out, but to kind of get away from having to do like a whole deep fry thing. I mean, trust me, I love a good fish fry. I mean there's no doubt about that. But it's sometimes a little difficult to pull it off on a on a regular basis. So something like that on top I think is a really really good idea. All right, um, so I want to get into what are some of the things that you've encountered here that people have trouble with when it comes to baking fish?
Christina: Yes, so a common question I get really about all forms of, you know, all methods of cooking fish, but again on baking is, is the fish cooked through? Like how do I know when it's cooked through? So as a general rule of thumb, if you're baking fish in the oven around 375, you want to plan for about 10 minutes per one inch of thickness.
I say a general rule of thumb because certainly some fish have a denser texture than others. Some fish are going to take longer. Um, So I'm going to give you like an 8 to 12 minute window of how long you want to cook that fish, but as we've talked about in previous, um, discussions, really, if you're not comfortable with cooking fish, or if this is a point of stress for you, getting an instant read thermometer that works, you know, just as well with a chicken or a, you know, pork or a beef.
That would also work with fish perfectly. Um, this is a way that you can very quickly, very simply temp your fish and know exactly, you know what you need to be pulling it out. So white fish is done around 140 to 145 degrees. That's what you're going to be looking for on salmon or tuna. That's really dependent on, you know, what you want the cook to be because you can serve tuna rare or you can serve tuna well done and same with salmon.
I mean, you can serve salmon, I would say, you know, medium rare, all the way, to well done. So those have more variation, but an instant read thermometer that was between 140 and 145 is what you're looking for.
Eric: Great tip yeah, I use them all the time. And also there's the thermometers that you could put into the fish and then have the probe stick out of it. You could do that do that as well. It all depends on how well that fish will hold that probe.
I know maybe there's some of the flakier fishes that they could fall out, or if you have a firmer fish that might be, you know, easier to kind of keep that probe into the flesh.
Christina: something like a swordfish or something like that.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah. So that's something you can look at it depending on the type of fish you have.
Christina: Yeah, another question I get from folks who've baked off fish is that their fish came out of the oven and it was like soggy or I'm using air quotes that people can't hear, mushy. Um, so there's really kind of two potential issues that I see here. Possibly we've used frozen fish that was maybe not properly thawed.
It was too quickly thawed and the extra moisture wasn't removed from it. So thawing fish, uh, does best if you can put your frozen fish into the refrigerator and let it thaw overnight. If you are in a fish emergency and you did not do that, but you have to cook fish tonight, take it out of the freezer, let it soak for about 30 minutes in the sink in cold water.
Not warm water, cold water. And it should thaw up, depending on how thick the fillets are, in between 30 minutes and an hour. And then you really want to use a good amount of either paper towels or an absorbent tea towel. And press, gently press, as much water out of the fish as possible. So that you get a drier fish, even when baking.
Now this is super important when you're trying to sear fish, because you want to get a good crust on it. But even when baking, if you're concerned about kind of a waterlogged fish experience, or kind of soggy, make sure you dry that really well. The other potential issue is if you've used a marinade on your fish that has high acidity.
So if it has a lot of lime juice or lemon juice or vinegar, um, of some kind, it's your, your base, it's, you're turning it into a ceviche. So you're cooking your fish partially, chemically cooking your fish before you bake it. And that can really have an impact on the texture. So as a rule with marinating fish, I wouldn't recommend doing it for more than 30 minutes before you put it in the oven. Now, if you have a low acid marinade or no acid marinade that you're putting on the fish, you can probably tolerate it for, for longer than that. But if you've run into some issues with a kind of a mealy texture on your fish, then consider either using a dry seasoning or using a marinade that does not have a high acid content. And then the final problem that I hear about is that my fish is sticking to my baking sheet. This is maybe the easiest fix of all time. Use some parchment paper or foil and then just spray it with either nonstick spray or use, you know, drizzle it with olive oil. Make sure it's well distributed.
That not only helps your fish not to stick, but it also makes cleanup so easy. So those are my troubleshooting tips for baking fish.
Eric: Yeah, parchment paper saves your wrist. I'm going to scrub something after we eat. So especially stuff like that, you could definitely do that. Um, I definitely like your point about marinating fish here. Um, especially this thing is fish, it is different marinating fish than chicken. It's a different ballgame. With steak or chicken you could marinate for two or even 24 hours. With fish you just can't do it like that with an acid. Um, so do you marinate fish very often? Or do you just kind of just go with like, I'm just going to season it and cook it.
Christina: So I, I have a recipe for a miso marinated European sea bass and it has a very long marinade time, basically as long as you can tolerate, as long as you can wait. So it'd be great if you could wait 24 hours on this, but it is, you know, a very low acid. It's a miso marinade. As a rule though, I find that... I would much rather do a simple preparation on the fish, simple dry seasoning, you know, lemon, garlic, butter, something like that, and then invest the time in a fresh sauce.
So a chimichurri or a salsa verde or something like that, for me, is going to exponentially increase the payoff at the end. The flavor, um, is going to be phenomenal. The presentation is beautiful. And so for my money, that is where I'm going to veer off, is to do a finishing sauce for the fish rather than a pre marinade which can sometimes play with the texture in a way that I'm not willing to risk.
Eric: Exactly. I'm with you right there. I don't do like tons of tons of marinating. I prefer to like you said, you know, make a nice sauce or something here, season the thing very well. There's a couple of things that I, I do more on some deep cuts, on like certain beef cuts that do a really good job of like absorbing marinade and are tough to begin with.
If you just season your food very well, you know, get that food in the oven and make a sauce instead, you'll probably end up with a better result. I do find that, like, putting a sauce on something, I feel like it's more flavorful most of the time than just doing something and marinating it.
Christina: Well, and you brought up a good point about the steak and also I think when I think about those kinds of meats. I think about chicken thighs, which take to marinade really, really well, they can, they can tolerate a long cook time before they get dry, but those are very dense meat. Right. And so to get flavor in there, you do have to soak it a long time.
Right. And so with fish, I mean, the densest fish you're going to make is still, it's going to pick up the flavors you're adding to it much more quickly than those things. So yeah, that's a great perspective on it. Like things, how you think about marinating steak or chicken, particularly bone in chicken, is really not how you want to think about.
You've got to shift your mindset a little bit if you want to think about marinating or adding flavor to seafoods.
Eric: Absolutely. I agree. Uh, so before we wrap up this episode here, um, what are some of your favorite favorite recipes people can find on your site, um, for baking seafood?
Christina: Sure, so I'm going to walk through just a couple of different methods and different types of fish that you can do. So something that I get asked a lot is about crab legs like how, you know I buy these crab legs at Costco or Trader Joe's or something like, how do you make them? So all most of the crab you're buying in the US is pre cooked crab legs crab claws.
Those are all pre cooked ingredients, right? And so when you buy them, whether it's frozen or thawed, my preferred method is to bake them. You put them in the oven. They're basically steaming the meat in the shells. It comes out tender, like that faint salty sea flavor in the crab meat. It is so delicious.
So baking is a great option for seafoods that are really quite expensive that you don't want to mess up. Baking is like your low risk way of doing that. Um, of course, cod and all white fish are probably some of the most popular options for baking. Again, if you're looking to add some great crunch and flavor, I've got a cod recipe, where you brush on some, uh, just store bought pesto onto it and then do a mixture of panko and parmesan and sprinkle that over the top and bake it off, and it is lovely. And then, Eric, when you were talking earlier about the Fish and chips. Kind of that deep fried fish option. Um, I have a recipe for a breaded, crispy baked cod recipe that you bake off in a cast iron skillet in the oven. And so heat is a key component there. You want to preheat your skillet and get it nice and hot.
Um, and also kind of the, the color of the skillet, that dark color really helps browning the fish as well. And so that's a healthier option that doesn't require a deep fryer or splattering all over your kitchen. So I love that one. Um, another great option in the oven that I think a lot of people don't think about is making casseroles.
Um, I'm from the Midwest originally and we love our casseroles in the Midwest and you can also make casseroles with seafood. So I've got a great, um, fish pie casserole. It's basically a shepherd's pie, but with kind of a creamy white sauce and white fish. Those bubbly golden brown mashed potatoes over the top.
It is so lovely and so delicious, and it's a pretty quick cook time. I think people would really love that. I also think like for Large scale cooking, whether that's holidays or Sunday supper, you could do something like a stuffed shrimp cannelloni, which are the big tube pastas stuffed with, you know, as a great like spinach ricotta mixture and then do a creamy shrimp sauce over the top.
I have a recipe for that on the site that I like to make for Christmas Eve most years. So that's a great way to do it. And then slow braising. I know that's not something we think about when we think of fish. And of course with fish, slow braising is, you know, 20 minutes, maybe 25. But I love doing like a swordfish, which we've, you know, obsessed about before on here, um, the chicken thigh of the sea and doing that in like a nice rosemary, garlic, white bean stew and then putting the seasoned, uh, swordfish steaks over that with some lemon slices and baking that off in the oven for, you know, 2025 30 minutes, depending on how thick your steaks are.
It is such a comforting and delicious meal. Serve it with a little bit of steamed spinach on the side. And again, cooking that off in the oven kind of keeps everything in one pan. It contains any kind of odors from the fish that you may not like, and it's just, it's a great solution for your weeknight cooking. So those are some of my favorites. I think I have two bonus ones, Eric, and it's not baking, but it is in the oven, and that is broiler seafood. I've got a couple of recipes for really quick cooking broiler seafood. I've got a broiled scallop recipe with a fresh Italian herb salsa verde that will just knock your socks off.
It is so impressive and like you should not tell people how easy it is to make because they're going to come and sit down and think like this person obviously went to Le Cordon Bleu or something because it is so delicious, but super easy. I mean, how long can it take to broil even sea scallops in the, uh, in the broiler?
It's very quick.
Eric: Yeah.
Christina: And then the other broiled option that I have that I love is my crab cake recipe. because you're boiling it and not, you know, breading it and putting it in a pan and having to turn it. You just, it is. You know, 98 percent crab meat. So there's very little filler. It's just a little bit of seasoned binder.
Um, it gets so beautifully golden brown and speckled in the, under the broiler. And it is, it's really a fail proof way to treat, you know, a more expensive product like crab meat. So those are some of my favorite options for the oven, but it also gives you some great like brunch options, holiday options, you know, whether that's a quiche or, you know, a smoked salmon flatbread.
So it's using the oven is really something that allows you to integrate seafood into your diet really for any meal of the day. So it's definitely one of my favorites.
Eric: I think the, the broiler is, I think, it's something that's underutilized by a lot of people that people don't even think about using their broiler. But I mean, it's basically an upside down grill. And that's really what we're kind of talking about here is what a broiler is. Um, I think Alton Brown said that before, so I stole that from him. So I'll give him credit for that.
Christina: Yes. Brilliant.
Eric: Thank you. Um, so thank you. Those are all wonderful ideas. I mean, guys, if you aren't hungry right now, I don't. Maybe, maybe you are, you are currently sick. Haha.
Thank you so much. But you inspired me to want to try a bunch of new things for sure. I'm definitely gonna do that, uh, cast iron idea with doing the, doing the crispy fish in the cast iron. So good job.
Christina: And I totally convinced myself it's healthy. So don't, don't, don't predict me if you, if you feel otherwise.
Eric: That's great. Uh, so where do people go and find, uh, some of these recipes online?
Christina: Yeah, you can find all my recipes at www.WeekdayPescatarian.com. I'm also super active on Pinterest and all the socials, but on Pinterest, of course, you can save the recipes if there's something that you want to cook. And I love talking about all things seafood, so hit up the contact page on my website, shoot me over any questions that you have, and I'll be happy to answer, and maybe I'll come back on and talk to Eric about it, and then the rest of the world can hear, too.
Eric: Sounds great. And definitely go on there and, and save those recipes on Pinterest here and, and spread her great knowledge to more people that we definitely, as food creators, love when people pin our stuff on Pinterest. So definitely do that. Um, so thank you for being on today and we look forward to the next episode of our series.
Christina: Can't wait. Thanks, Eric.
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