Seafood & Fish
2025 recipes found
Soft-Boiled Eggs With Anchovy Toast
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. If you’re up for a delicious, slightly sporty breakfast, you might consider making some anchovy butter tonight. Take a stick of unsalted butter, and let it soften on the counter while you assemble the other ingredients: a tin of anchovies, some garlic cloves, a shake or two of smoked or regular paprika, a wee splash of lemon juice and maybe, but probably not, some salt. Rinse and mince the little fish, mince the garlic, and fork everything together into the butter to taste. Then, come morning, you can slather toast with the result and serve it with soft scrambled eggs or, better yet, soft-boiled eggs, a breakfast I once had in London at a hotel and restaurant the chef Fergus Henderson was running in Leicester Square. Make sure you spread the butter “wall to wall.” That is a vernacular phrase of the chef Gabrielle Hamilton. It means to cover the entire surface of the bread from edge to edge — an important step in buttering, one that is too often shirked. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Pan-Seared Marinated Halibut Fillets
Roasted Fish With Ginger, Scallions and Soy
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Buy a few fillets of the white-fleshed fish you like best (I like fluke, myself), then put a sheet pan in a 425-degree oven and let it get hot. Make a sauce in a small bowl: a few tablespoons of soy sauce for each one of rice wine or sherry, and a heap of minced or grated ginger, and plenty of thinly sliced scallions. You could put some garlic in there, if you like, and a dash of hot chile oil or sesame oil. Salt and pepper the fish, then pull the hot sheet pan out of the oven and get some neutral oil on it. Add the fish to the hot pan carefully, put it in the oven and roast for a minute or so, then paint the sauce onto the fillets and cook for a minute or so longer, until the fish has just cooked through. Serve with rice and greens. And I bet it’d make a good sandwich? Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Memphis Dry-Rub Mushrooms
This showstopper — using a dry rub adapted from Greg Collier, the chef and co-owner of Leah & Louise in Charlotte, N.C. — is an opportunity to explore different mushroom varieties. Black oyster mushrooms give a brawny bite, and effortlessly hold the soulful seasoning while getting the crispest, crunchiest edges. Fuzzy white lion’s mane or even portobellos work, too; just buy the biggest mushrooms you can find. This recipe uses Worcestershire sauce, which typically includes anchovies, so be sure to seek out vegan Worcestershire if you'd like to make the dish vegan. Serve with sweet potato pikliz.
Black Pepper Shrimp
This dish, adapted from Lucy Carvalho, the cookbook author Nik Sharma’s grandmother, owes its fragrance and fiery bite to a generous amount of crushed black peppercorns in a velvety gravy. Like many other Indian home cooks, Ms. Carvalho, who lived in the coastal city of Mumbai, took the Indo-Chinese dish black pepper chicken and substituted shrimp instead. Some versions of this dish call for curry leaves to be fried with the spices, or they might call for another protein in place of the shrimp, like tilapia, cod or catfish. Here, the peppercorns are infused in hot oil, then left to steep as the dish cooks. Fish sauce bolsters the savoriness, but can be left out. For an even stronger bump of heat, increase the amount of black pepper and toss in a sliced serrano. Serve it all over rice for a fast, satisfying dinner.
Alcapurrias de Jueyes (Crab-Stuffed Fritters)
Puerto Rico is famous for its fritters, and alcapurrias are among the most coveted. Imagine a tamale made of green banana and root vegetable masa that is stuffed with savory meat or seafood, and then deep fried. You typically get them from the kioskos, roadside stands along Puerto Rico’s beaches and highways, particularly in Loíza, a town on the northeastern coast that is the island’s African heart. At home, they’re often made over the holidays, as many hands make light work. The flavor is unmistakable: earthy green banana and taro cut by savory sofrito, briny capers and delicate crab meat. The filling, often called a salmorejo, is usually made from local land crabs, but commercially available lump crab is a fitting substitute. This recipe is adapted from one by María Dolores “Lula” de Jesús, the 84-year-old owner of El Burén de Lula in Loíza, who is considered by many to be a madrina, or godmother, of this and other dishes with African origins.
Shrimp and Kimchi Rice Bowl
If you want dinner with ease, make it a rice bowl. You can cook the rice in advance and reheat it, or employ a rice cooker. (A small one doesn’t demand much space, and it cooks perfect rice while you go about other business.) But even if you make rice on the stovetop, you’ll have 30 minutes to pull together the rest of this meal, so it’s hot and ready all at once. Kimchi is the heavy lifter here, since it has tons of crunch and tang, which gives you space to add in other vegetable without doing much to them. They could be grated and raw, or make use of yesterday’s leftovers. If shrimp isn’t your speed, try this marinade on beef chuck or tofu. Or top the rice with an egg fried in a mixture of canola and sesame oil.
Pan-Fried Trout With Rosemary, Lemon and Capers
This 1994 recipe gets Provencal flavors on the table in minutes. Fresh rosemary needles are pressed into the fillets, which are seasoned in flour and pan fried for a crisp exterior and flaky inside. A sauce built on shallots, white wine and lemon adds complexity. Pair it with a light vegetable like sautéed asparagus, or a bright arugula salad, and serve with some of that white wine for an easy, refreshing spring dinner.
Whole Fish With Soy and Citrus
For those curious about cooking a whole fish but nervous to try, this skillet method is as simple as cooking a chicken breast. Meant to work with a larger fish, such as a snapper or black bass, this method, which keeps the skin and bones involved, prevents overcooking and drying out (plus it's more fun to eat). Basted with a citrusy browned butter-soy mixture, which also acts as a sauce once the fish is cooked, this one-skillet dish needs little more than some spriggy, fresh herbs for nibbling on alongside, but feel free to serve with a big leafy salad, bowl of rice or thick-cut toast.
Pescado Frito (Fried Red Snapper)
Fishing is an extraordinarily complex issue in Puerto Rico. Much of the seafood eaten doesn’t come from the island’s own waters, in part because of arcane legislation that controls fishing rights. And yet, whole deep-fried fish is a staple on the island, particularly along the west and southwest coast. There, you’ll find red snapper, simply marinated in adobo, fried and served with tostones, avocado salad and white rice. It is, in my opinion, the absolute best way to enjoy a whole fish. The frying turns the head and the tail into a crunchy fish chicharrón, and the skin and flesh cook evenly, keeping the flesh moist and the skin crisp. While bones are often a concern for those uncomfortable eating whole fish, there’s a simple solution: Eat it with your hands. Your fingers will do a much better job of finding bones than your fork will, and the experience is more visceral, and delicious.
Octopus Bolognese
This quick and rich nontraditional riff on bolognese features convenient yet under-used tender and meaty tinned octopus. Look for octopus that’s packed in olive oil; the oil will add depth to the sauce, along with clam juice to heighten the seafood flavor. Tangy capers brighten the sauce, while nutty Parmesan rounds it out. (Cheese can typically overpower the delicate flavor of seafood, but octopus has a hearty texture and here, it is enhanced by a hit of nutty Parmesan cheese.) Serve it over pasta or polenta; it’s also great with mashed potatoes or sopped up with crusty bread.
Penne With Tuna and Peas in Tomato Sauce
Black Cod Broiled With Miso
Black cod with miso was not invented by Nobu Matsuhisa, the chef at Nobu in TriBeCa, but he certainly popularized it. His time-consuming recipe, which calls for soaking the fish in a sweet miso marinade for a couple of days, is a variation on a traditional Japanese process that uses sake lees, the sweet solids that remain after making sake, to marinate fish. If you broil black cod with nothing but salt, you already have a winning dish. If you broil it with miso – the intensely salty paste made from fermented soybeans – along with some mirin and quite a bit of sugar, you create something stunningly delicious. And no long marination is necessary.
Salmon Fried Rice
It’s always a clever idea to cook extra rice so that you can make fried rice the next night, or the one after that, using various bits and bobs in your fridge. Allowing the rice a day or two to dry out makes it doubly flavorful: Since the grains have less moisture, they’ll absorb even more flavor from whatever liquid you add to them. Plus, the dry grains remain separate, which means more surface area to soak up any seasoning. When it comes to fried rice, anything goes — leftover meat or fish, or whatever stray vegetables are lurking in your produce drawer or freezer will do. Just make sure you don’t crowd the pan, or your rice will steam instead of crisp.
Pan-Fried Salmon With Green-Coconut Chutney
Coastal flavors from India permeate this crispy-skin salmon. The coconut chutney carries the buzz of ginger and green chile, while a drizzle of tadka — a hot, bright red oil infused with mustard seeds, curry leaves and Aleppo flakes — is the crowning glory of the dish. For perfectly crisp skin, resist the urge to fidget with the fish until the appropriate amount of time has passed; the skin will start to crisp at the edges and the fillet will release with ease. Use fresh or frozen coconut to make the chutney. (Desiccated coconut simply doesn’t work as well here.) You can use freeze-dried curry leaves instead of fresh, but you might need to double or even triple the amount, as their intensity is noticeably weaker in comparison.
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Eastern North Carolina Fish Stew
This quick-cooking fish stew, with its raft of eggs and no-stir preparation method, is specific to eastern North Carolina. Church fund-raisers and family gatherings center on the stew, where traditionally men would layer chunks of fish with bones and skin, thinly sliced potatoes, onions and spices in a caldron and stand around the fire watching it cook. About five minutes before it was done, someone would crack an egg for each guest into the tomato-rich broth. Eggs were a cheap filler and a way to stretch the stew to provide enough protein for a crowd, along with fish like striped bass or flounder from North Carolina’s Atlantic shore. Vivian Howard, who left New York to open Chef & the Farmer, a restaurant in Kinston, N.C., offers this version for home cooks. The key is not stirring it at all, and watching the heat so the bottom doesn’t scorch. Serve it with a couple of slices of squishy white bread (Sunbeam is traditional), which act as delicious sponges for the broth.
Broiled Salmon With Chile, Orange and Mint
A butter-flavored sauce with vibrant citrus and herbs brings an easy elegance to your weeknight salmon. Red-pepper flakes give off a subtle heat — feel free to add more if you like — while orange zest and fresh mint cut the richness of this superbly fatty fish. A crisp green salad or sautéed asparagus would work well alongside, as would a glass of rosé.
Peanut Fish Stew
Luscious and delicate from coconut milk, with distinguishable nuttiness from ground peanuts and peanut butter, this fish stew would be a welcome addition to the comfort food repertoire for every home cook who isn’t allergic to the namesake ingredient. This recipe from Ricky Moore, the chef at Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham, N.C., comes together quickly with an approachable ingredient list. It also has deep, penetrating notes from ginger and garlic that give this stew subtle yet superlative depth. The diced tomatoes are an essential ingredient: Their acid cuts the creaminess of the dish and their color imparts a warm reddish hue. This stew is best served with rice and topped with spiced pickled celery.
Coconut Curry Fish
Jamaican curry powder plays a major role in this deeply savory weeknight dish, giving the sauce its unique flavor and golden hue. The traditional spice blend is heavy on the turmeric, and benefits from being toasted, which brings out its notes. This recipe calls for frozen whiting, which doesn’t hold up to frying but shines here, simmered in a sauce studded with red and green bell peppers. If whiting is unavailable, cod is also a good choice.
Vegan Mushroom Étouffée
This clever vegan re-creation of a Southern Louisiana étouffée comes from Jenné Claiborne, who included it in her 2018 cookbook "Sweet Potato Soul." Succulent oyster mushrooms stand in for the shrimp or crawfish used in a traditional étouffée. The seaweed called dulse brings a smoky, savory note and a mix of Creole and Old Bay seasoning provides the familiar flavors. Ms. Claiborne suggests spooning this over brown rice instead of the traditional white.
Meen Gassi (Fish Curry)
Sour with tamarind, full-bodied with coconut and smoldering with dry red chiles, this dish has roots in the coastal city of Mangalore. In India, a cook might reach for Byadagi chiles from Karnataka to stain the sauce a bright red color. In the United States, chiles de árbol are easier to find. A stone mortar and pestle is the best tool for grinding the curry paste; the finer you can get the coconut and chile, the smoother and richer the texture of the final sauce. From there, the recipe is very adaptable — replace the fillets with any fish you like, including nice oily ones like mackerel or sardines.
Tongbaechu Kimchi (Whole Napa Cabbage Kimchi)
This tongbaechu kimchi, made with whole napa cabbage, is a wonderful way to witness firsthand the magic of preservation by salting. Though the first step — salting quartered cabbages to drain excess liquid — may require an afternoon, that time is entirely inactive. The bundles of sauced cabbage are jarred and left at room temperature for the first couple of days to jump-start the fermentation process, then refrigerated to continue souring slowly for weeks and even months. Fermenting bundled quarters — versus chopped pieces — results in a crisper, more flavorful cabbage kimchi. This recipe is pared down to its essentials, though you could supplement the funky, savory-sweet flavors here with traditional additions like a sprinkle of raw pine nuts, a palmful of Korean radish cut in matchsticks or a spoonful of saeujeot, salted fermented shrimp.
Shrimp in Green Mole
There are only three basic steps to making green mole: Whip up a purée of toasted pumpkin seeds, tomatillos and chiles in a blender; sear the purée in oil and cook it until it thickens slightly; then add chicken stock and simmer until the mixture is creamy. Once the sauce is done, you can poach shrimp right in it; it only takes five to eight minutes to cook them in the simmering mole. Better yet, you can make the sauce up to three days ahead and keep it refrigerated until you’re ready to use it, or freeze it (whisk or blend to restore its consistency after thawing).