Graham - Cooking Seafood at Home: Easy, Simple and Delicious: 20 Easy Seafood Recipes with Step-by-Step Instructions

Julia.M Graham

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Table of Contents

Whyis seafood popular? Seafood is delicious food so many people love it. Seafoodis also rich of nutrition such as protein and mineral. In modern life whereeverything needs simplicity, seafood is possible choice to provide full ofnutrition dish that is delicious without hassle. Seafood is easy to cook andthe preparation is simple with versatile selections of menus. One ingredient,for example, fish, can be used interchangeably in other variety or recipes notto mention the cooking method, fried, steamed or boiled are possible to use inprocessing the seafood. Surely there are still more option to make seafood tobe delicious and able to increase appetite.

Basically,preparing seafood is delightfully no hassle. Some are just plain easy althoughsome others require strength; however the dish will be worth the effort.Seafood is one of food ingredients with many possible ways to cook such asfrying, poaching grilling, steaming or sauting. The cooking method can also be various. Youcan choose quick steps, healthy or you may look for anything with plain easy.Seafood is perfect to create various menus such as soups, stews, salads evenkabobs. Fish are the most common ingredients to use in seafood; others are suchas crabs, oyster, shrimps etc.

Combineseafood with various spice, sauce or topping can make delicious food and it isthe easiest one. In cooking fish, there are ten minute rule when cooking itusing all methods of cooking but microwaving and deep frying. This rule can beapplied when baking , poaching, steaming, broiling,sauting and grilling. For shrimp and crabs which have shell or hard layer, theprocess must be able to make the edible part well cook. In cooking fish, the well cook result is whenthe fish is still moist and firm with delicate flavor, besides has flakytexture.

Seafoodcomes with various kinds and it is popular today because it can be served asdelicious dishes. However, for some people who are not expert, selectingseafood to cook can be tricky since there is much seafood which has not beenfresh anymore but still being sold in the market. Be careful for this case byknowing how to choose fresh seafood especially for fish, shrimp and crabs asthe seafood sources that popularly purchased and cooked as delicious dishes.Fresh fish, shrimp and crab are the best to make delicious food from somerecipes. If we want to serve the tasty and delicious food, we must be sure toget the best of base ingredients by getting the fresh ones so the taste will beperfectly delicious.

SelectingFish:

Fishusually comes with two types, whole fish or fillet. There are different ways todetermine the freshness of both types. Fresh fish will have clear, bright andconvex eyes. Check it first the area when buying. Fish has briny smell usuallylike seaweed and the smell is tolerable. If smellier odor comes from the fishor we call it fishy, dont take it. The fish is not fresh anymore and possiblyhas been taken several days ago. Check for the gills, bright red gills mean thefish is fresh. Check the tautness and cleanness of the fish. Fresh fish will beas if they were alive, clean and glistened. Tautness especially for the bellymust be checked. Shriveled belly indicates the enzymes of digest have brokendown.

SelectingCrabs:

Crabis one of popular seafood loved by many people. Today, we can find them in themarket alive or frozen one. However, to get best taste of crab, itsrecommended going for freshly alive ones. Live crabs should have leg movementto indicate that it is still alive. When going for the fridge crabs, they willbe as active as the free one yet they will show movement at least a little bit.Crabs usually are cooked and served with their shells although some menus suchas crabs cake will only use the crabmeat. Good crabs will have bright red inthe shell when cooked with the meat is white with slight tints of red or brown.The smell can stimulate appetite and do not spread smelly odor.

SelectingShrimps:

Anotherpopular option of seafood is shrimps and today we can find them in the market,both fresh and frozen ones. If you are going to have delicious dishes usingshrimps as base ingredients, always go for the fresh one. To find the fresh,check the shells and observe for translucent look without black spot or edges.Notice black spot will be better to leave because it is not fresh anymore.Shrimps have various colors of shells that look translucently with light pink,pinkish tan or grayish green. The meat is firm before or after cooked. Thecolor should be white sometimes with pink tints. The smell will be tolerableand not smelly odor. Certain shrimp such as tiger shrimp has bluish black linedshell.

Servingdelicious dishes will be influenced by the method of cooking. When dealing withseafood, the method of best cooking is very important. Seafood is very populartoday as one of most favorite foods and to serve has various ways. Some areplainly easy, some are quick, and some also need strength and deep knowledge ofcooking. Fish, shrimps and crabs are several kinds of seafood that popular andmany people love them. You can also cook them to be delicious and appetizingdishes as long as you understand how to cook at the best way. Seafood can betricky when it comes with complicated recipes, yet by knowing the basic, youcan always go ahead and so some experiments using seafood since the methods areinterchangeably to use.

CookingFish:

Theindications when fish is perfectly cooked are moisture in texture with delicateflavor. Put a test using fork and check for flaky texture. One thing to knowwhen cooking fish is the flesh has turn to white or opaque from the previoustranslucent. If you are going to use food thermometer, you can check it done in145 F. in fish cooking, there is also known a rule called ten minute rule, thisrule can be applied for all cooking method even baking but not for microwave ordeep fry. In baking, you can use temperature up to 400 or 450. Other methodsare such as poaching, grilling, steaming, broiling, and sauting. This rulehelps avoiding overcook case since fish can lose the nutrition, texture and theoriginal taste.

CookingCrabs:

Crabsmust be chosen for the fresh one and much better alive. Fresh crab means thetaste will be good whereas not fresh crabs especially with intolerable odorwill not taste good and the cooking process will intensify the smell. Neverpick or use dead crabs because it can cause sick by old crabmeat. When cookingwhole crabs, it must be one-time cooked and must be right away. Use pot orcontainer that can hold them wholly at once. Several time processes will fadethe taste and cause overcooked. The possible way to flavor whole crab is byadding liquid seasoning or spices, some use beer. If you want to boil the crab,ensure that the water or liquid is able to drown it so the seasoning willperfectly flavor the crabs.