Fish and Seafood

Fish and Seafood

Baked Lemon Salmon

Ingredients

  • Salmon fillets
  • 1 lemon
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and black pepper

Directions

  1. Slice the lemon. Allow the salmon to marinate in freshly squeezed lemon juice for a day. Place lemon slices on salmon.
  2. Place salmon on a cookie sheet, coat with olive oil, and sprinkle salt and black pepper. Add a slice of lemon and bake in the oven between 15 and 20 minutes.

Tip: The olive oil prevents the salmon from drying out.

Baked Lemon Salmon

Baked Garlic Shrimp, Malaysian Style

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (or 1/2 kg) shrimp
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 1 to 4 small red chilis, finely diced (optional)
  • 2 shallots, finely diced
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and black pepper

Directions

  1. Clean the shrimp if you live in Malaysia. Slice the head off where the head shell meets the body. Starting with the legs, peel the shell off. You can leave the tail on. While holding the shrimp with back up, insert a knife into the body and slice upward. Then pull out the vein.
  2. Rinse the shrimp. Place in a pile on a cookie sheet. Add all ingredients. Sprinkle olive oil and mix shrimp and seasonings well.
  3. Spread shrimp on cookie sheet but place shrimp next to each other. Make sure to cover with seasonings. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Bake in oven at 200 degrees Celsius between 6 and 10 minutes.

Tip: Do not cook shrimp beyond 10 minutes because the meat dries out fast and turns into rubber.

Tip: The tiny red chilis can be extremely hot. If you do not like spicy peppers, then omit chilis.

Baked Garlic Shrimp

Fried Fish

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (or 1/2 kg) white fish such as cat fish, Tilapia, or dory cut into steaks
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • Thyme, finely diced
  • Basil, finely diced
  • Salt and black pepper

Directions

  1. Wash and clean the fish. Pat dry with paper towel. This recipe works well with cat fish, Tilapia, and dory fish.
  2. Add the butter and olive oil to skillet over low heat. Butter and olive oil burn under high heat so keep heat low. Sprinkle salt and pepper on side of fish with no skin. Place the skinless side down into the oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper on skin side. One side may take between five and ten minutes to cook depending on thickness.
  3. Carefully flip fish and cook the other side. You may have to cut in center of one of the fish to determine whether fish is fully cooked. Sprinkle with thyme and basil.

Tip: Fresh herbs really bring out the flavor.

fried fish

Malaysian-Style Clams

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (or 1/2 kg) small clams
  • 1 shoot lemon grass
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 10 curry leaves
  • 1 to 4 tiny red chilis
  • Soy sauce
  • Oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon corn starch
  • Black pepper

Directions

  1. Clean the oyster shells well. You must remove all the sand and dirt. Malaysian use the sauce to put on their rice. Use a brillo pad or wire brush to scrape all the crud and dirt from the shells. I have seen videos of Thais use shoots of lemongrass and ram it up and down in a bucket full of clams.
  2. Cut the lemon grass into 1-inch strips. Then use a knife or mallet to break them open. Lemon grass has a tough sheaf surrounding it.
  3. Saute the lemon grass, garlic, chilis, and curry leaves with olive oil in a wok for several minutes. Add the clams, mix, and cover for five minutes.
  4. Sprinkle soy sauce and mix. Then mix the corn starch with a half cup of water, and add it to the clams. Keep mixing and then cover. Wait another five minutes.
  5. Check the sauce. If the sauce is still watery, add another half cup of water with more corn starch. Once the sauce thickens, add oyster sauce and mix.
  6. Cooking the clams should not exceed 15 minutes. Otherwise, the meat toughens. Add the oyster sauce towards the end.

Tip: Malaysians add plenty of chilis to their food. If you do not like spicy food, just add one chili. I am not sure how the clams taste withhout the chilis.

Malaysian style clams

Mussels with Mozzarella Cheese

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (or 1/2 kg) mussels
  • Powered chicken stock
  • Mozzarella cheese, shredded
  • Black pepper
  • Salt (optional)

Directions

  1. Clean the mussels. Open mussels and discard one side of shell.
  2. Lie mussels close together on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with powered chicken stock. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese so it lies within shell. Sprinkle with black pepper. You may add salt if the chicken broth is not salty enough.
  3. Bake with top and bottom heating elements on 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
  4. Enjoy.
mussels with mozzarella cheese

Mussels

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (or 1/2 kg) mussels
  • 4 shallots, finely diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 1 teaspoon thyme, finely diced
  • 1 teaspoon basil, finely diced
  • 1 cup red wine
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Add shallots and garlic to pan and sweat them a little. Add the wine, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil.
  2. Add the mussels, thyme, and basil. Cover with a lid and steam between five and ten minutes. Stir occasionally. Fresh mussels open when cooked. Discard closed mussels. Frozen mussels may have already opened.

Tip: Fresh herbs add more flavor to recipe.

mussels

Spanish Shrimp and Scallop Paella

Ingredients

  • 3 and 1/2 cups chicken stock
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 red pepper, seeded, ribbed and thinly sliced
  • 1 green pepper, seeded, ribbed and thinly sliced
  • 1 teaspoon saffron
  • 4 links dry-cured chorizo (about 6 ounces), sliced
  • 1 1/2 cups white rice
  • 2 tomatoes, diced
  • 2 chiles, finely diced (optional)
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 2 pounds raw, peeled large shrimp
  • 1 pound sea scallops
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/3 cup chopped Italian parsley leaves
  • Lemon wedges, for decoration

Directions

  1. In a medium saucepan, heat the chicken stock until boiling.
  2. In a separate large saucepan or paella pan over medium-high heat, heat the oil and add the onion, the garlic, the peppers, the saffron and the chorizo. Cook for 6 minutes or until vegetables are soft and chorizo is browned.
  3. Stir in the rice, tomatoes, chilies, and tomato paste until well mixed and cook for 5 minutes. Add the boiling chicken stock little by little, stirring each addition constantly until the stock is almost absorbed.
  4. Cover the paella and cook until rice is tender and most of the liquid is gone. Add the shrimp and the scallops and cook covered for another 5 minutes.
  5. Decorate with the chopped parsley and lemon wedges.

Tip: You can make a homemade chicken stock by browning large chicken pieces in a pot with a little olive oil. The caramelization adds a wonderful brownish hue to the broth. Then boil in water for an hour with two bay leaves, teaspoon black pepper, and tablespoon chicken bouillon.

Tip: Saffron can be expensive and hard to find in some places. One can substitute tumeric. Nevertheless, tumeric adds the color but not the same flavor as saffron.

Spanish Shrimp and Scallop Paella clams