Seafood & Fish
2025 recipes found
Cornmeal Waffles With Smoked Salmon
A touch of fine cornmeal in the batter gives these waffles a delicious crispness. For a savory approach, they are embellished with smoked salmon, crème fraîche and caviar, perfect for a celebratory soiree, midnight supper or brunch. Serve a whole waffle or cut in quarters for appetizers. If you don’t have a waffle iron, the batter can also be used to make pancakes or blini. Of course, if preferred, serve these corn-perfumed waffles with sweet toppings instead.
Fried Snapper With Creole Sauce
Best enjoyed using local snapper, this bright dish represents the protein part of fish and fungi, a classic duo on dinner tables in the Virgin Islands. The fish is topped with plenty of thyme-laced, tomato-based Creole sauce and is typically served over a bed of fungi, the classic Virgin Islands side dish of buttery cooked cornmeal with sliced, boiled okra. Michael Anthony Watson and Judy Watson, husband-and-wife owners of Petite Pump Room in St. Thomas, traditionally use whole fried snapper for this recipe, but you can use fish fillets. For authenticity, serve them with plenty of hot sauce on the side for a little extra heat.
Pure Potato Latkes
Perfect for Hanukkah or any time of year, these latkes bring out the pure flavor of potato, because that is basically the only ingredient in them. Making latkes can be a last-minute nightmare, with overeager cooks putting too many patties in hot oil, thus taking longer to fry and resulting in a greasy mess. But these can be prepared in advance. This recipe, adapted from the chef Nathaniel Wade of the Outermost Inn on Martha’s Vineyard, starts with parbaked potatoes, which are cooled, grated, seasoned with just salt and pepper, pressed into patties and refrigerated, then fried just before serving. You can either serve them with crème fraîche or sour cream, smoked salmon and tiny flecks of chives, or traditional brisket and homemade applesauce.
Shrimp Mofongo
According to Manolo Lopez, the Puerto Rican proprietor of the Smorgasburg food stand MofonGO, this mashed plantain dish is the “unofficial official dish of the islands.” Depending on the season, Mr. Lopez serves several versions — creole chicken, roast pork topped with a squiggle of pink Puerto Rican mayo-ketchup — all based on his mother’s recipe. Mr. Lopez makes the pork rinds from scratch; you don’t have to, but you should follow Mr. Lopez’ advice and eat this immediately after you make it. As mofongo cools, the mashed plantains begin to harden.
Mark Bittman's Gravlax
Use king or sockeye salmon from a good source. In either case, the fish must be spanking fresh. Gravlax keeps for a week after curing; and, though it's not an ideal solution, you can successfully freeze gravlax for a few weeks.
Lobster Salad With Avocado And Hearts Of Palm
Balinese Tomato And Lemongrass Broth
Corn and Shrimp Beignets
A light batter coats plump pieces of shrimp and sweet corn kernels, delivering a savory bite perfect for picnics, a finger-food weeknight meal or casual entertaining. Lemon zest and ground cayenne pepper provide an essential zing that brightens these easy-to-devour morsels. Although these crisp fritters are wonderful fresh out of the pan, they can also be cooled, stored frozen in an airtight container and popped in a hot oven to warm and refresh.
Caviar Sour Cream Dip With Potato Chips
This simple snack is a slightly fancier version of the time-honored practice of topping potato chips with sour cream and caviar. Here, the sour cream gets zipped up with scallions, chives and white pepper and the caviar — preferably bright orange beads of salmon roe — glow like jewels on top. One of the easiest hors d’oeuvres to put together, it’s also one of the most festive.
Baked Crab Dip With Old Bay and Ritz Crackers
This crab dip is inspired by a recipe called “ritzy dip” from the “Three Rivers Cookbook,” a Pittsburgh community cookbook published in 1973, in which canned crab is mixed with cream cheese, topped with Ritz crackers and baked. Fresh lump crab meat is the star in this updated version, with lemon juice, scallions and plenty of Old Bay seasoning to spice things up. This recipe doubles easily for larger groups, and the whole thing can be assembled and refrigerated up to a day in advance before being baked.
Roasted Shrimp Cocktail With Aioli
Many renditions of shrimp cocktail are dull and bland, with over-boiled shrimp and cloying cocktail sauce. Not this one. The shrimp are roasted, which brings out their sweetness and allows them to absorb the seasonings and a little olive oil. Though traditionally made with garlic, this aioli replaces it with horseradish. And instead of cocktail sauce, they are paired with a horseradish-laced aioli seasoned with ketchup and hot sauce. If you like an even edgier sauce, feel free to increase the hot sauce and horseradish to taste. The sauce, which can be made up to 3 days ahead, is also terrific on roasted fish.
Nem Nuong (Vietnamese Sausage)
Traditionally grilled over charcoal, these little sausages also cook up beautifully in a cast-iron pan. Serve them in a bowl over rice noodles or steamed jasmine rice with fresh mint and cilantro, cucumbers and pickled carrots. Top with green chiles and toasted peanuts, then drizzle with fish sauce and lime. Or, use to make banh mi sandwiches. Be sure to use ground pork with enough fat or you'll end up with dry, flavorless sausage. Twenty percent by weight is a good ratio, though 25 doesn’t hurt. If the ground pork available to you is too lean, ask the butcher to replace two ounces or so of the lean meat with ground pork belly or bacon.
Tomato Salad With Cucumber and Ginger
The classic combination of tomatoes and cucumbers gets new life here from a lively dressing of lime zest and juice, fish sauce and serrano chile inspired by Thai papaya salad. It’s a study in contrasts: Bracing on its own, the salty-spicy vinaigrette is mellowed by fresh summer tomatoes and cucumbers. Large pieces of fresh ginger add a punch of spice without the heat, while cilantro and basil serve as fresh, cooling elements. Enjoy with red curry chicken, coconut rice and a nice crisp beer.
Som Tum (Green Papaya Salad)
In Isan (and the rest of Thailand), green papaya salad is called som tum, with “som” meaning “sour” and “tum” referring to the pounding sound of the large pestle used to crush ingredients. It is eaten by itself as a snack, or with marinated grilled beef and chicken.
Shrimp-Stuffed Mirlitons
The mirliton is a pale green squash with an end puckered up like a toothless granny. They are native to Louisiana, but if you grew up eating from certain Latin American culinary canons, you might know them as chayote. In New Orleans, mirliton stuffed with shrimp is a dish both common and fancy. The chef David Guas, who grew up in Louisiana and now runs the Bayou Bakery in Washington, D.C., ate this version at his Granny Lilly’s holiday table in Amite, La. His recipe is a version of her original, but with a touch of heat from cayenne pepper as influenced by Justin Wilson, a relative who had a long-running cooking show on New Orleans public television that he punctuated with the tagline “I guaranteeeeee!” Use the freshest shrimp you can find. Something from the Gulf of Mexico would lend authenticity. And be careful scooping the flesh from the mirlitons. The skin is thin and can break easily.
Mango-Avocado Salad With Lime Vinaigrette
Inspired by Vietnamese green papaya salad, this salad stars ripe, juicy mangoes and dresses them in the classic punchy lime-fish sauce dressing. Tender torn greens, crunchy sweet snap peas and creamy avocado round out this dish with both crispy and creamy bites. The cooling salad is the perfect side to accompany grilled or roasted fish, chicken, or steak. If mangoes are unavailable, tomatoes or sweet stone fruit like peaches are tasty options.
Sweet Spiced Mushroom and Apricot Pilaf
This pilaf scores all the points for being both gluten-free and vegan (provided you use vegetable stock), and for being robust enough for no one to notice. Star anise and cinnamon make this a warming (and winning) combination for a festive Thanksgiving spread, complementing roast turkey and just about any dish that finds its way to your table. It also serves well as a stand-alone main, with some lightly cooked greens to go alongside. Feel free to swap out the fresh mushrooms for whatever foraged finds you can get your hands on, just make sure to break them up into large chunks, keeping intact their natural “meatiness.”
Crushed Baby Potatoes With Sardines, Celery and Dill
Boiled potatoes are great to keep on hand for out-of-hand snacking and as a quick addition to things like a skillet full of chicken fat or a midday lunch salad, but also excellent as a foil for rich, fatty, tinned fish. In this recipe from “Nothing Fancy” (Clarkson Potter, 2019), the potatoes are crushed because it allows the chunkiness (which lends texture) to coexist with the more broken-up pieces (which lends creaminess). Plus, those exposed craggy edges are here for maximum lemony, scalliony, salty dressing absorption.
Fish Koftas in Tomato and Cardamom Sauce
On first inspection, this dish looks like herb-flecked meatballs in tomato sauce, but the sauce is spiced, tangy and aromatic, and the meatballs are, well, fish balls, made of a combination of mackerel and sardines. We use tinned sardines here, for ease, but you can obviously substitute with fresh sardines, scaled and boned. You'll also want to pay attention to the total weight or volume of the mackerel: Some types are larger than others. All work here, but you may not need to buy as many fillets. Serve with some couscous or rice and a spoonful of yogurt, if you like.
Shrimp Risotto
Risotto can often be an intimidating dish, but this recipe, adapted from Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore’s “Fish Without a Doubt,” doesn’t have to be. It came to The Times in 2009, part of Emily Weinstein’s column on learning to cook. It worked for her, even though she didn’t prepare any of the ingredients ahead of time — or stir constantly as so many risotto recipes demand. Feel free to adapt the recipe as she did, substituting packaged seafood stock for the homemade shrimp stock, and chopped basil for the basil-infused oil.
Smoked Salmon Sandwiches With Cucumber, Radish and Herbs
For these elegant open-faced smoked salmon sandwiches, use a good quality Pullman loaf or a dense brown bread. Choose the best sweet butter you can find (think French) and don’t stint; the combination of buttered bread, smoked salmon and herbs is ethereal. Thinly sliced cucumber and radish add color, along with the briny pop of salmon caviar.
Porgy Fillets With Pickled Jalapeño-Herb Sauce
Dane Sayles, the chef of East Hampton Point in New York, believes porgies can take strong flavorings, so he adds spicy pickled peppers and their pickling liquid to his herb marinade. He also whizzes in some tahini, which smooths the emulsified mixture. At his restaurant, he blanches the herbs (drops them in boiling water for 10 seconds, then plunges them into ice water before draining) to help fix their color. It's something you can do as well and should remember the next time you make pesto.
Salade Niçoise With Fresh Tuna
In this elegant variation of the classic French salad, seared fresh tuna stands in for the conventional canned sort. The rest of the salad can be assembled a few hours ahead, but the tuna should be cooked and placed on top of the salad just before it is served.
Hake With Clams in Salsa Verde
This Basque classic from Marti Buckley's cookbook “Basque Country: A Culinary Journey Through a Food Lover's Paradise,” requires a bit of quick stove work once the clams start to open. You must be sure there is a nice amount of liquid in the bottom of the pan, enough to swirl around so the flour coating on the fish and the olive oil can thicken and emulsify the sauce. And though it's called salsa verde, it's not a dense herbal purée as in Italian cooking but a fresh, rather sheer parsley-based mixture.