Don’s Pecan Crusted Trout

Recipe from Old Clipping

Just because we’re sheltering in place doesn’t mean that food has to be basic or boring. This newspaper recipe from who-knows-when features fancy restaurant-like flavors, yet is relatively easy to prepare. Just buzz up the breadcrumbs and pecans with rosemary in the food processor, coat the fish fillets, and fry it up. The hardest part is finding room for 3 plates of coating layers, plus a large platter to accommodate the fillets so they sit flat without disturbing one another once they’re coated.

Fish and Corn Chowder

Late Summer Veggies Compliment Fish

Recipe adapted from Everyday DASH

It's odd to take a recipe from a healthy cookbook and add potatoes, extra flour, extra bacon, and half and half. But whoever heard of fish chowder without potatoes or cream? And so I padded this light recipe with traditional flavors. Just a small amount of half and half kicks up flavor and texture. Potatoes, though not the healthiest veggies, contain potassium and other minerals. Their high glycemic index is mitigated when eaten with lean protein, like fish and lowfat milk. The extra bacon adds indispensable flavor, and the amount is still less than one strip per serving.

Grilled Tuna Salad

Recipe Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa at Home

When I think of tuna salad, I think of the soggy mayo-rich sandwiches of my youth: canned tuna on spongy white bread. Nothing wrong with them, especially with crunchy celery and spicy chives added, but summer inspires a fresher menu. Ina Garten, TV’s Barefoot Contessa to the rescue, with a tuna salad that features two summertime favorites: cool veggie salads and charcoal broiled steaks—in this case, tuna steaks—with a dab of Asian inspired dressing. Vive la difference!

Dukkah Honey Crusted Fish Fillet

 Fish with Honey, Nut, Seed, and Spice Crust

Recipe Inspired by The Recipe for Radiance

September is National Honey Month, so I’m on the lookout for unusual honey recipes. Dukkha (duqqa) is an Egyptian condiment of toasted nuts, spices, and herbs. This homemade version combines brilliantly with honey to make a unusual topping for fish that’s crunchy, sweet, spicy, and hearty. You can adjust the spices to your liking; in particular you could double the amount of red or black pepper if you’re going for a hot and sweet taste. The natural oils in hazelnuts, almonds, and sesame seeds benefit both heart and skin health. Plus, they make the topping exotically delicious.

Salmon and Asparagus with Orzo

One Bowl Might Not Be Enough

Recipe adapted from Monday to Friday Cookbook

With new spring asparagus on sale and plenty of sustainable salmon on the market, this one-pot meal was inevitable. The first time I made it, our neighbor Matt dropped by. He loves salmon, but rarely eats it because his wife is a strict vegetarian. Since this recipe makes a large potful, I served him a bowlful, which he greatly appreciated. I encouraged him to have seconds if he liked. He assured me that one bowl was plenty—until he finished it and admitted that a little more would be even better. We agreed. Plan accordingly.

Pan Grilled Tilapia or Salmon with Pineapple Salsa

Colorful and Healthful

Recipe adapted from Health.com

As we look towards the treat- and comfort food-laden holidays, it’s good calorie economics to eat more lightly in the meantime. And so I offer this recipe with light, inexpensive, and sustainably farmed tilapia. The original recipe, no longer available at Health.com, called for salmon, higher in calories but filled with healthful omega 3 oils. It’s the tail end of salmon season in the Bay Area, so I’ve included a salmon cooking variation at the end. With its higher oil content, salmon browns more readily, but tilapia browns up just as deliciously using a method I derived from my dad.  Atlantic or Pacific cod, lingcod (plentiful right now), and line-caught black rockfish are sustainable white fish that can be prepared like tilapia.

Parmesan Crusted Broiled Sole

Perfectly Browned Fish with Garnishes

Recipe adapted from Let's Cook

Correct me if I’m wrong, but broiled fish doesn’t sound very exciting. Especially in a class called “Succulent Seafood,” where it shares billing with bouillabaisse, seared scallops with beurre blanc, and grilled salmon with lime butter. And yet, when all was said, done, cooked, and tasted, the simplest recipe turned out to be my favorite. Instructor Eric Carter, who directs the best culinary arts program around, at Cabrillo College in Aptos, shared a surprising ingredient to make crusted broiled fish extra-crispy: Parmesan cheese! What’s not to like?

Saffron Fish Stew

Saffron Adds  Golden Magic to Broth & Potatoes

Recipe adapted from Recipes from the Root Cellar

Hot fish stews and chilly winter nights, a match made in heaven for seaside dwellers? I’ve been planning to make traditional Provincetown Fish Chowder all month, but got hung up on the salt pork. My grandmother always kept it on hand during New England winters. But where to find it in Santa Cruz these days? What is it, exactly, for that matter? Luckily, our local library houses a copy of the quintessential winter cookbook, Recipes from the Root Cellar: 270 Fresh Ways to Enjoy Winter Vegetables. In it, there’s an unusual fish stew recipe. No salt pork, but enough saffron threads to make a subtle yet exotic golden broth.

Spicy Tomato Poached Fish with Veggies

Spicy Fish With Veggies

Recipe by Robin

According to WebMD, three ways to lose weight are to eat protein at every meal, spice food up so it’s more satisfying, and eat more veggies. This recipe incorporates all three. Many of us are ready to eat lighter fare after the holidays, so I thought this recipe would be perfect for January. Bonus: it's easy to make.

Originally I came up with this idea to use up the spicy homemade tomato juice that our CSA supplies to us in winter (made in summer with their tomatoes). While I have used two summer veggies, zucchini and bell pepper, this recipe still seems wintery because it’s a hot and spicy fish stew that’s warming on cold days.

Herb Steamed Fish with Vegetables

Tilapia on Bed of Veggies

Recipe by Robin

While preparing one of my most popular recent posts, Yankee Magazine’s Rosemary Chicken with Fennel, I was reminded of a similar dish that I make with fish. My mom used to make delicious chicken fricassee flavored with carrots, celery, and a few onions, mostly in winter when few other veggies were available.  I reworked this idea once when the only veggies that we had in the house to accompany our fish were carrots and celery. This one-dish meal is quick and easy to prepare, and makes a light yet warming meal.

Psari Savori: Greek Fish Fillets with Tomato and Wine Vinegar Sauce

Psari Savori, both Flavorful and Colorful

Recipe adapted from Middle Eastern Cooking

Back in the 1970s, I discovered the first all-ethnic-cookbook I’d ever seen on my sister’s in-laws’ bookshelf. The Cooking of Scandinavia was one of a Time-Life book series called Foods of the World. Each book consisted of two volumes, a large picture book and a small spiral bound recipe book, featuring cuisine of various countries and ethnic groups. The beautiful (pre-Photoshop) photos and the descriptions of foods and customs of other nations inspired my young mind and opened up a whole new world of cooking and travel ideas for my future. You can still find these books at flea markets and used book vendors, and they are fun forays into the pre-globalized world of the late 1960s.

Sustainable Grilled Bluefish

Grilled Bluefish with Seaweed Salad

Recipe by Bruce

I’ve been on the US East Coast for awhile, to scatter my recently deceased father’s ashes with my two sisters. We chose a beach in Provincetown, MA that my parents enjoyed, and where we scattered Mom’s ashes a few years back.

Being on Cape Cod, I’ve wanted to enjoy the seafoods that we don’t have on the West Coast. Of course, there’s lobster, which is too difficult for a transient like myself to prepare, and the smell would linger, since my room doesn’t have a fan. But there’s also bluefish, which my husband can grill fairly easily. This is an oily fish so can smell quite a bit, so outdoor cooking is preferable.

Sustainable Seabass with Orange Ponzu Sauce

White Seabass, Orange Ponzu, and Greens

Recipe adapted from If it Makes You Healthy by Sheryl Crow

I was surprised to find out that some species of seabass are now sustainably fished. The term seabass is commonly used to refer to several species besides true seabass, so sorting out sustainability information can be confusing.

Both US east coast black seabass (a true seabass) and US west coast white seabass (really a croaker) populations have largely recovered from overfishing, so are environmentally friendly choices now.

Lemon Herb Sauce for Fish or Veggies

Lemon Sauce over California Sea Bass

Recipe by Mom, Dad, & Robin

Another recipe inspired by my parents. They’re both gone now, but in their day loved eating fish, befitting their New England heritage. One of their favorites was Atlantic swordfish. According to NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Service, both Atlantic and Pacific swordfish populations are now at sustainable levels and not in danger of overfishing.

Poached Fish with Herbs

Cilantro and Capers on Tilapia

Recipe from “Good News”

“That’s a good recipe,” said my husband about some leftover fish.  He meant that it’s tasty, but it’s also easy to remember and simple to prepare. The recipe was given to me by a woman who was selling fresh fish at the local farmer’s market in the late 1990s. Her husband and son caught the fish from their small fishing boat. I was looking for a way to prepare the skate wings I’d just bought.

Rolled Sole with Oyster Mushrooms

Recipe from The Chinese Herbal Cookbook

Another recipe from the wonderful Chinese Herbal Cookbook, published in England, which combines Chinese herbs with European recipes. One odd thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t give a weight for the fish. Lemon sole fillets are native to Northern Europe, so are not a good choice for Californian locavores. Luckily this recipe is surprisingly versatile: summer flounder (on US east coast), black cod (sablefish), and tilapia (west coast) are all good substitutes that are sustainably harvested--although the name “Rolled Tilapia” sounds considerably less poetic than “Rolled Sole.”  The trick is to get uniformly sized fillets, so they all cook evenly. I used rather large (~1/2 lb. each) tilapia, and would not go larger. You’ll notice it takes several toothpicks, but I’ve found that to be true with fillets of all sizes. Functional but not elegant, you can remove the ‘picks before serving. I also had 10 oz. mushrooms on hand, which helped fill the large fillets.

Eating Salmon Sustainably

Alaskan Salmon Habitat

A couple weeks back, I was excited to hear that king salmon fishing was open in California, but when I inquired about buying local salmon at Staff of Life, my favorite natural foods store, they said it would be several weeks before commercial fishing is allowed. Right now the season is only for non-commercial anglers, and we will not be able to buy local salmon until May.

This brings up several questions for me. How sustainable is the salmon industry in California? Are there good alternatives to local salmon that we can eat now? What alternatives are best to avoid, environmentally speaking? And of course, might any of my friends be salmon sports-fishers and provide me with some salmon in the meantime? :-)

Crispy Tilapia with Lemon-Onion Relish

Recipe from Fish Forever by Paul Johnson

Here’s a recipe from the best resource that I know for preparing seafood that is healthy for your body and the environment: Fish Forever: The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Preparing Healthy, Delicious, and Environmentally Sustainable Seafood by Paul Johnson. The title says it all. It's also a great source for unusual recipes such as this one [Read my review on Goodreads].