Hi podcast listeners. I hope you have 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 cook seafood on your stove top. Find out what ingredient from the grocery store she shares that I never thought about buying before.
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You can listen to this podcast episode below or listen on any of these podcast players - Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts. If you would prefer to read the text, you will find a transcript below.
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Here is a transcript of the interview
Eric: All right everybody, we are here again today for another episode in our series on how to successfully cook seafood. And we have covered um, grilling already, we've covered baking, and today we're going to talk about cooking seafood on the stovetop. So I have Christina here from the Weekday Pescatarian, so thank you for coming on for yet another episode.
Christina: Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks, Eric.
Eric: All right. So before we get into things today here, um, I wanted you to kind of share with people a little bit about where you source your seafood from.
Christina: I live in a little seaside village in Portugal, which is right by the sea, obviously. So, I have a lot of great options. We have several seafood markets in our town. And this is a kind of a fishing village, so they bring the seafood in and I can buy it there. But if you want to know a secret, I actually buy most of my seafood at the grocery store.
And I would say at least a third of the seafood I buy is frozen. Because frozen seafood is super high quality, a lot of these, you know, fishermen are freezing it on the boat as soon as it's caught. And so, if I, of course I always have frozen shrimp in my, in my freezer, because that's such a quick cooking, um, dinner I can throw together quickly.
But yeah, so I do local fish market, I do the local grocery store, and an interesting fact in Portugal, and probably other places too, the only day that you don't buy fish. They sell it, but you don't buy it is Monday because Sunday is the only day that the fishermen don't go out. So any fish you buy on Monday is older than you want to eat.
So if you're looking for fresh fish... You don't buy it on Monday.
Eric: That's a good tip. I hadn't thought about that before.
Christina: I first moved here, somebody was recommending a sushi restaurant and they said, Oh, but just don't go on Monday. And I was like, Oh, are they closed? And they were like, no, you don't eat seafood on Monday. And I was like, Oh, apologies. I didn't know that. Sure.
Eric: Things you learn. All right. Um, so today I wanted to talk about cooking seafood on the stovetop here. So what are some of your best tips for that?
Christina: So we've talked about this in some of our previous episodes, but moisture really is your enemy if you're trying to get a sear on any protein. So whether it's chicken or pork or beef or fish, you really want to make sure that you dry your fish well before with either paper towels or like an absorbent tea towel before you season and then cook it.
Removing the excess moisture is going to be really important in stovetop cooking. Um, seasoning, seasoning is important for any cooking. I think if you're a home cook and you really are looking for how do I replicate some of those restaurant flavors at home, if you talk to professionally trained chefs, they're going to tell you that as a rule, home chefs under season their food.
They also under butter it, but that's a topic for another time. Um, so using a good amount of seasoning now, now fish is more delicate than some of these other proteins that can be very dense. So it is possible to over season fish, but kind of using this solid baseline of salt, pepper, and then some kind of fat, whether that's butter or oil, olive oil.
Um, and then whatever genre you're cooking in, you know, if you're doing something Middle Eastern or Mexican or Asian, you know, you can add other seasonings from there, but making sure that you've got a good seasoning base on your fish is going to be important. If you're searing fish and you're looking for kind of a crispy sear, crispy crust on that fish, I have found that Wondraflour is a fabulous option.
And I learned this trick from Eric Ripert, who's a very famous French chef. Um, he didn't tell me personally. I read it on the internet. But if you dust your fish fillets in this Wondraflour, which wonder is, it's an instant flour, so it has been pre cooked and dried. It's got a very fine, almost gritty texture to it, but that is one of the best ways to get just the most beautiful sear on your fish fillets. So if you're looking for that beautiful, crispy restaurant kind of sear. Um, second to the last tip is to let your pan get hot before adding seafood, and that's a pretty good rule of thumb for most proteins, but making sure that you have a really well heated pan that helps that also helps your fish not to stick to the pan if you're searing, and then if you're cooking fish with skin on it, let's say just salmon hypothetically, even if you don't love salmon skin and you don't plan to eat it.
Go ahead and leave the skin on. It helps your fish kind of hold together as you sear it and cook it skin side down first and then flip it over. If you don't want to eat the Skin, cooked skin comes off salmon much more easily than trying to slice it off of raw salmon. So just use your little fish spatula or your thin metal spatula and, um, slide it between the fillet and the skin.
And it'll separate very easily, but then you're going to have a really beautifully cooked fish fillet. Um, and you won't have the headache of cutting off raw skin from the, from the fish. So those are kind of my basic tips for stovetop cooking of seafood, especially fish fillets.
Eric: You know, while you were talking there, I was trying to look up because I'm like, what is Wondraflour? I never heard of it before. And then, and then when I looked it up, I'm like, Oh yeah, I've seen that a billion times in store before. So I think, I think most of us can find it in the grocery store, it'll be in like a blue canister. Um, so I've seen that a billion times, but I've always passed over it.
Christina: And I think, I think traditionally, and Eric, you're on the internet, so maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but that they, uh, used it for like making gravies, like it made a very creamy lump free gravy was kind of their, um, pitch that they used. But there's something about the, the texture of this flour that just does a beautiful sear.
And it's not something that I've been able to find anywhere in Europe. So it's something that every time I cook recipes in the U. S. for the blog, I always make sure that I have it there and it's always available. Um, but it's not something that's easy to find here. And you know, of course you can dust in regular flour, depending on the recipe, you could dust in cornstarch.
So there's lots of options, but my top tip is if you can just keep one of those canisters of wondraflour around, um, I'm sure there's many uses for it, but a beautiful seared fish filet is, is one of my favorite.
Eric: yeah, thanks for sharing that. I will have to go look into that here. Uh, you know, I'm a big grocery guru person here. I've never actually used that product before. I've seen it before, you know, I never really like caught my attention. So now I will have to take a second look at that now. So thank you.
Christina: I feel like you're going to make a whole series of blog posts now about wondraflour and I cannot wait to watch it.
Eric: we'll see. Um, all right. So, uh, how about some troubleshooting tips for the stovetop fish?
Christina: So, you know, number one is just like with grilling, just like a lot of things is that the fish, the people are worried about the fish sticking to the pan, or they've had an experience where the fish stuck to the pan. So there's a couple of reasons for that and a couple of ways that you can troubleshoot it. Number one, if you added fish to the pan before the pan was hot, that can cause the fish to stick to the pan. So make sure your your skillet is very hot before you add the fish to it. Often your fish is just not finished cooking. Just like when you're grilling, as the fish cooks and as the it comes to temperature, it's going to pull away from your skillet.
And so, you know, you can slide in your fish spatula or your thin metal spatula and flip that over pretty easily. If you are, um, concerned about oil, if you're not seeing much oil or fat in the pan, you can add a little bit more oil and usually that may help kind of jar it loose. When we talk about pans for cooking too, I have found that a cast iron skillet is a great option.
Um, I don't love using traditional nonstick skillets for searing fish, but for a lot of other applications for seafood cooking on the stove, they work perfectly well. And so if this is something that you've got a lot of anxiety about, then go ahead and grab your favorite nonstick skillet. And, and use that. Another troubleshooting challenge that we hear is that, you know, the texture of the fish just seems a little bit off.
Like it's not what people are. A lot of people order seafood fish specifically in restaurants, and they're nervous about making it at home. And when I talked to them about why they say, Oh, the texture is just never quite the same. So, if you're getting mushy fish when you're cooking it on the stove top, it's likely because of a defrosting issue if you used frozen fish and it defrosted too quickly. Or the excess water that was held in the fish didn't have a chance to dry.
It's going to create a little bit of a waterlogged effect on your fish. And so really, if you have the time, putting your fish in the refrigerator, your frozen fish in the refrigerator overnight, letting it thaw, putting it on paper towels, letting that soak up all the excess water. And then if you're trying to get a hard sear, like we mentioned earlier, use that wondraflour, some sort of kind of, you know, pre cooked flower that'll really help you, um, get the texture that restaurant quality texture you're looking for. And then the last question I get or comment I get about cooking fish at home is, particularly on the stovetop, is that people don't love the smell in their kitchen, and I have no fabulous advice about this, except maybe just open a window. I've seen a lot of, um, articles online about, oh, if you have vinegar and cut lemons and you're open in your kitchen, it'll help.
I've not found something, of course, I love the smell of seafood, and I've not found something that really solves the problem of no odor. Um, so ventilation is, a good option, or look at some options for baking, because baking certainly is a way to kind of keep the odors down.
Eric: Yeah, that could be a tough one there. I mean, obviously make sure you wash your hands good, I will be sure anyway, but you know, you don't want the fish smell on your hands. You may realize, wait, it's, oh, it's just me. Cause I didn't wash my hands good up here.
Or keep a lemon in your face the whole time, I don't know. Um, yeah, that kind of condition. I mean, obviously you may enjoy the fish here, but if you're like, oh this smells bad here, it doesn't really get you an appetizing mood for dinner.
Um, so I can see that could definitely be a problem with some people, especially those who are just trying fish out. Do you think there's like certain fishes that are less smelly when they're cooking than other fishes at all. Do you notice any differences?
Christina: So, um, for me, I feel like something fresh. Fresh fish, first of all, is going to be a very, it's going to be more mild. So something like, um, a sardine or a mackerel, these are a little bit more aggressively scented. fish. Um, any kind of smoked fish is going to have a pretty aggressive odor to it. I would say whitefish as a rule is going to be very mild.
Something like a cod, even a tilapia. These are very mild fish. Um, shrimp I find to be very mild. I don't think that if you have a fresh or even a frozen and thawed shrimp, doesn't give off a huge scent, but, um, something else that you can do is if you are cooking it in a sauce, particularly in a sauce with citrus, like lemon, it, it almost immediately is going to take that smell out.
And so if it's something that bothers you, there are certainly ways that you can kind of, you know, get around it and plan around, um, that, that smell.
Eric: those are definitely great tips. Um, because again, you don't want that to distract you from your meal. You want to be able to fully enjoy it still. So those are things to actually think about. Um, so before we wrap this up here, I want you to share with us some of your favorite seafood recipes to make on the stovetop.
Christina: Yeah. So I kind of break this out into two categories, kind of these very simple, easy, delicious, um, recipes that you can have on the table in less than 30 minutes, you know, for weeknight cooking. And that's a lot of times I go to blackened fish. So. having either a store bought blackening seasoning. Of course, I have a recipe for homemade blackening seasoning on my site, but you know, grabbing a white fish like a grouper, you could do something like a tuna filet or tuna steak is delicious.
Um, blackened on the, on top of the stove. Um, a top tip for blackening is the blackening process really happens with butter. So those, those, um, milk solids are what's blackening and creating that crust and that texture just as much as the spices are. So you kind of brush butter onto your whatever fish fillets you're using, sprinkle it heavily with that blackening seasoning, and then grill it off at a pretty high heat.
And, uh, you will have a great dinner in no time. If you enjoy hibachi restaurants, or any kind of Asian cooking, there's a lot of really quick stir fry options that you can make. You can do it with rice, you can do it with udon noodles, you know, throwing shrimp and a handful of fresh vegetables together and sauteing it off in a great, you know, gingery garlicky sauce is a really quick option for, for weeknight cooking.
Kind of in the semi-homemade category. Um, at most grocery stores now you can get really high quality, uh, seafood ravioli or really, you know, cheese ravioli, spinach ravioli, making a simple sauce where you toss your, you know, store bought ravioli into, you know, I've got a, a brown butter hazelnut sauce, uh, for ravioli on Pescatarian.
You could do kind of a creamy tomato sauce with shrimp in it. So there's some really quick options. I mean, and these are recipes I would be happy to serve guests like that. It could be, you know, Wednesday night at home with the kids Or it could be Friday night with friends They're really delicious and then, you know something we haven't talked a lot about but shellfish like clams and mussels are some of the quickest cooking seafood options available and we think of them as being steamed You could think of it as being poached but doing some sort of liquid whether that was white wine Or, uh, a great seafood stock, or if you just have chicken stock, chicken stock works too.
A ton of garlic, some fresh herbs and lemon, throw it all in a pot, steam it until it opens. I mean, we're talking probably eight minutes and you're done. I mean, you do have to have a baguette with this sort of thing. Because you're going to have some delicious sauce that's going to need to be slurped up.
I guess you could serve it with a straw if you really needed to. But, uh, those are some great options. And then, the last one to really think about on these quick weeknight cooking is making a simple fish filet that then you sink into a sauce. So... I have a mahi mahi recipe with a creamy, uh, lemon basil sauce.
So you sear off your mahi mahi. I used Wondaflour because this was a recipe I made when I was home in Chicago. And then you pull your fish fillets out of the pan and then immediately build your sauce right in the pan. It takes, you know, five or six minutes and then put your fish back in it, sauce it, you know, cover it with sauce and then you're ready to go. It is so, it is such a simple way to go, but it really has kind of those restaurant quality vibes to it. So those are some kind of quick ways, whether you, you know, you're a salmon person or you're a whitefish person, or, you know, you like the shellfish, those are great options.
And then when I think about kind of whether it's weekend cooking projects or something maybe fancier for a dinner party, I know, Eric, we had talked about that neither of us are big deep fry people. I mean, we like eating it, but it's just a mess to do it. But I do have this great recipe for beer batter fish tacos, which, of course, you could just do beer batter fish and serve it with chips if you're doing the whole British thing.
Um, but that is such a fun thing to do. And, and deep frying is always a project, but... Whether it's that recipe, I've got a great recipe for fried oysters on the site where you could do a great po'boy, if you want to do your own little Mardi Gras festival at home. Those are some good options. Seafood boil is another really popular dish that's so much fun to do for a party.
It's not really... difficult, but it is kind of this multi stepped, um, and, and it's often done in, in huge quantities, whether you're doing crawfish or shrimp, um, or crab legs or some combination of all of the above. So that's a fun option. And of course, for me, the seafood boil is all about the sauces. And so whether you're doing like a great Viet Cajun sauce or a spicy remoulade or a creamy lemon dill sauce, you really want to make sure you've got some good sauces to dip your seafood and your potatoes in, um, as they come out.
And then the final one, which we don't talk a lot about with seafood, but making soups or chowders is a really fun way and it also helps seafood stretch. So, I did a really, um, savory lobster chowder when I was in Maine earlier this year and it's on the blog. But you could absolutely do clams in that, you could do white fish in that, you could do salmon in that.
So, Those are good options. There's a good, healthy crab soup on the blog that's kind of a tomato based option. Um, again, you could put shrimp in that and do, it would almost be like a Manhattan base for your crab. And then crawfish bisque, another New Orleans classic, is a really delicious way to serve whether it's crawfish or shrimp.
So I think whether you're trying to integrate something into your weeknight cooking or whether you really want to do a special dinner party at home or weekend cooking thing, um, and integrate seafood into it, you've got some great options that are super approachable, um, that you can find.
Eric: Thank you. I appreciate you sharing all those wonderful recipes and I'm glad you brought up Mahi Mahi. My wife, who edits the podcast for me. Thank you, Donna. Fell in love with Mahi Mahi when we were down in Key Largo,
Christina: Oh, wow.
Eric: this past January. So, so that, that is one I'm sure she is definitely excited to try out.
Um, and I definitely have now. I know this episode is airing. It is now November I believe I'm airing this here. So we're recording this back in mid July when Basil, is going to be in season out here. So I will definitely be, uh, I will probably already tried that out here and maybe I'll share my show on his page how that turned out for sure.
So thank you,for that for sure. Um,
Christina: Oh, my
Eric: So, uh, this has been a really fun series. I hope you guys have enjoyed this here.
We love to hear back from you, uh, what you thought of these seafood episodes and if we should bring Christina on for some more seafood content in the future. Um, so for now, uh, where can people go to find you online?
Christina: Sure, you can find all of my recipes at www.weekdaypescatarian.com. I'm also super active on Pinterest where you can save all those recipes that you plan to cook, and if you sign up for my weekly email on my website, You will be the first to know all the new recipes that I post, so you'll never miss anything.
And you can also hit up the contact page on my site. If you have any questions or problems or challenges that you're facing with cooking or buying or preparing seafood, I'd be happy to hear from you and, uh, happy to help you through it. So reach out to me there and, uh, look forward to hearing from you.
Eric: Fantastic. Um, thank you for coming on here. I guess you guys try any of her recipes here. Let her know. Let me know. Um, we love, we love hearing people who try our recipes as bloggers and creators here.
So thank you so much for coming on.
Christina: Thanks, Eric. I've loved it. We'll talk to you soon.
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