Cooking Fish for Dumbies

Frozen is fine. I always lean toward "wild caught" as opposed to "farmed". There is such a thing as wild caught and frozen. That's a great option because you can keep them in the freezer and use as needed. If you buy fresh, keep refrigerated and use within 2 days, or freeze.

To cook... preheat oven to 350. Season with some combination of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, lemon juice, and bake for 20-30 minutes. Use a cooking thermometer for best results. It takes a bit of practice to not overcook it. If you overcook it, it will be dried out and not too yummy.

For white flaky fishes like cod or halibut, i have been just seasoning and putting sliced lemons on top, then cooking it covered for most of the time, and uncovered for the last few minutes. Comes out delicious.

A variation for salmon is to slather it with grain mustard and sprinkle on some brown sugar, then bake.

I may make some blog posts or videos some time with more details.. I cook things in a very simple way that anyone can do, and they come out yummy.

This an easy fish recipe. You can use any fish that is thawed out I used talapia.



Lemony Steamed Fish

Any type of fish will work with this recipe and you can increase/decrease the recipe easily. Serve with rice or even just a salad. This recipe is for 6 people but you can cut it down to make just one or two pieces just adjust the seasoning by sprinkling a little on the fish. I added no salt and it turned out great. Hope you enjoy.



INGREDIENTS

6 (6 ounce) fillets
3 tsp dried dill weed

1/4 tsp paprika

seasoning salt to taste

1 pinch lemon pepper (mrs dash works good)

2 tsp dried parsley

1 pinch garlic powder

2 tbs lemon juice



Preheat oven to 375 degrees F(190 degrees C0. Cut 6 foil squares large enought for the size of each fillet. Cinter fillets on the foil squares and spinkle each with all the seasonings. Sprinkle lemon jucie over each fillet. Fold foil over fillets to make a pocket. Pleast the seams to securely enclose fish. Place packets on a baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.



This was awesome

I love to cook fish. I like to bake it, saute it or grill it.
Since it looks like you already got the baking instructions, let me give you some other hints!

If you are going to grill it, I like to use foil to cover the grill so it wont stick. just poake a couple holes in the foil so it can drain moisture and you dont get soggy fish. Salmon, any whitfish (halibut, cod, grouper) is great on the grill.. I just spritz with olive oil or spray margerine. Just enough to make spices stick but not so much it is drowning. Sprinkle with desired seasoning. I like seasoned pepper, lemon pepper, old bay seasoning or cajun spices. Beare taht this can raisethe overall sodium of the dish, so use sparingly or look for low salt/salt free versions. There are some great ones out there. Cook for 20-30 min with lid closed. Depending on the thickness of the fish this should be enough time. I am pocky and tend to over cook it for fear of eating sushi unintentionally.
Shrimp are great on the grill too. Make k bobs with shrimp and veggies. I like bell pepper, pineapple and cherry tomato woth a terriaki glaze/marinade (bottled), or mushrooms, onion and sqash with a dark sauce, like soy or worschshire.

Hope that helps and good luck cooking!

You've got some great ideas here already.

One thing to watch out for, don't overcook fish or it goes horrible and hard and dry. When it's raw it looks sort of translucent and it squishes when you prod it. As soon as it's cooked, it goes opaque and solid and / or flaky. Once it's solid / flaky, don't cook it any more.

Remember it's always far easier to throw it in the microwave to cook it for a few seconds longer if it's underdone than to "uncook" it.

By the way, you mentioned frying eggs, if they're poached (cooked in boiling water) they're really healthy - plus they are filling. These are absolutely foolproof instructions for poaching a perfect egg. They're by a British cook by the name of Delia Smith who is well known here for explaining things to people who have zero experience of cooking. I've been cooking for 40 odd years and poaching eggs is something I've never been able to do exactly right - but I can now!

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/eggs/how-to-poach-an-egg.html

If you search her website, her other recipes are equally well explained and there are a lot of fish recipes on there.

Here is a list of articles explaining clearly about fish and seafood http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/fish-and-shellfish

This one titled "How to Cook Fish" will be really useful for you! Ignore the instructions about baking fish, because you need a lot of butter or they're dry, but cooking fish in foil parcels is easy and healthy.

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/fish-and-shellfish/how-to-cook-fish.html

Get a rice cooker\steamer. I cook steam most of my fish except tuna in a steamer. I lightly pan sear tuna.

Some good fish would be Mahi Mahi, Ono, or swordfish. I usually by wild caught except for catfish. In my opinion catfish should always be USA farm raised. Since catfish eat anything farm raised have a specific diet.

Prep some lemon
Chuck fish in bin
Use lemon to season the chicken or lamb

This site SERIOUSLY needs a "like" button! :bigsmile:

I buy salmon...wrap it in tin foil (doesn't matter if it's shiny side up or not)...put a little lemon pepper on top of the fish...throw it in the oven at 350 and bake for 25 minutes...when you take it out, take a fork to the center of it, if it flakes nicely it's done...tada healthy fish!

If you want to start out super simple just to get uses to textures and cooking temps you can get the seasoned tilapia in the frozen section of Costco. The basil one over carb conscious pasta with some steamed zucchini is a super simple light meal.

All the frozen fish there is Individually portioned and most have cooking suggestions

Ha you're cute! Here's a very quick and easy (15 minutes!!) recipe for tilapia, a very mild white fish. A lot of stores sell individually wrapped frozen tilapia filets for $1.00!! DON'T MICROWAVE TO THAW!

Defrost the tilapia either in the fridge for 8 hours, or by placing still-wrapped fish into bowl of cold water for about 15 min.


BROILED OR GRILLED TILAPIA FILLET:

Preheat grill on high 10 min, or preheat toaster oven or oven to broil (450 degrees)

1 4-oz fillet tilapia
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp butter
pepper blend season salts (or something similar)
cooking spray
Optional: fresh tarragon or basil

microwave a lemon for 20 seconds (this helps the juice release), roll it on the counter, pressing hard, then cut in half and squeeze juice from 1 half into microwave-safe bowl.

add 1 tsp. butter to the bowl and heat in microwave 1 minute; stir.

place defrosted tilapia filet into butter and lemon juice; turn; leave for 5-10 min. Sprinkle top side of fillet with pepper blend.

IF USING GRILL: reduce heat to medium, spray (carefully! across, not downward or flames may shoot up) the rack with nonstick spray; then IMMEDIATELY place fillet, PEPPER SIDE DOWN onto rack. Sprinkle top side with pepper blend.

Close grill for about 3 minutes.

Using flat metal spatula, lift fillet, SPRAY grill rack again (carefully!); flip. close grill for another 3-5 minutes.

Remove, sprinkle with fresh basil or tarragon if desired.

IF USING BROILER:

pepper both sides of fish, place onto broiler pan, cookie sheet, or piece of foil. Close oven and check after about 10-12 minutes. No need to flip. Sprinkle with fresh herbs if desired.

Fish is done when it is flaky WHITE throughout.


Serve with steamed broccoli (5 minutes over boiling water--that's all!), and some fresh fruit. 200-something calories all in!
Enjoy!

EDIT: GREEN BEANS: fresh green beans on the grill or in the broiler are delicious! cook at the same time, a bit longer (put them on first about 10 minutes before the fish).

To prepare, snap ends of beans off and toss into bowl of cold water and juice of 1/2 lemon (see -- use the other half of the lemon!). After you're done with all the beans, dump out water, put beans back in bowl and toss with a tiny bit of olive oil and some of the pepper blend season salt. Maybe chop 1/4 cup of onion and toss that in there tool

Put the beans on a preheated grill pan (so they don't fall through the rack of the grill)--you could use foil too, just place it on the grill rack BEFORE you start the grill, and make a few slices in it with the spatula.

If you want to do them in the oven, put them in 1 layer on a cookie sheet or piece of foil). the beans will take about 20 minutes. On the grill just move them around a bit a few times so they get nice char marks all around.

blessings.