Fish & Seafood

Yes, frozen salmon can taste nearly as good as fresh — you just have to defrost it the right way.

Whether you’re at a crab boil with friends or just want to indulge at home, here’s how to remove meat from whole crabs.

How do you know which size shrimp to buy? Check out our guide for everything you need to know to shop with confidence! 

All your questions, answered.

When cooking clams at home, one thing that can pose a challenge is getting the sand out of the shells. Crunching into gritty clam is enough to ruin anyone's meal!

How well do you know all of your favorite types of shellfish?

Crab legs of all kinds are perfect for special occasions. Here's what sets snow crab and king crab apart.

Our primer on choosing and buying Dungeness, king, and snow crab legs.

There’s a lot to love about cooking salmon at home. It’s relatively affordable (as far as seafood goes), super versatile, delicious, and for bonus points, it cooks quickly. But there is one thing that can prove pretty bothersome: the film of white albumin that sometimes leaches from the fish as it cooks. There’s an easy and nearly foolproof step to seriously reduce, if not eliminate, that icky white albumin altogether. I’m talking about brining!

Peeling and deveining shrimp isn't hard. Here's how to do it, exactly the way I was taught at culinary school.

With this step-by-step guide, you'll be cooking up perfectly butterflied shrimp in no time.

Here's how to eat these tasty (and pricey!) little fish eggs the right way.

Here's how much it costs, what it tastes like, and a guide to the different types.

Cooking frozen fish? Here’s a quick tip that will make your next seafood feast even easier! Did you know that you don’t have to thaw frozen fish? It’s true, you don’t! You can skip the thawing process altogether and cook frozen fish straight from the freezer. You’ll have to add a few minutes to the cook time in your recipe to account for the lack of thawing, but you can poach, steam, bake, broil, or grill fish straight from the freezer!

Do you have a bottle of clam juice in your pantry? Maybe the bottle you have is lurking in the back of the fridge after you used it in that one recipe that called for one tablespoon. Let’s be honest — this isn’t an ingredient making it into your everyday cooking. Well, not until now. Clam juice can also be used in cocktails, pastas, stir-fries, and deglazing your pan. Here are five ways to use clam juice so that bottle doesn’t get lost in the dark depths of your fridge.

These simple steps will ensure perfectly flaky salmon, every single time.

Perfect salmon, every time, thanks to a little technique we don't often use on fish.

When it comes to cooking salmon, versatility reigns. This is a fish that works with a huge variety of flavor combinations, and you can take your pick of cooking method. Dress it up for a dinner party with a slow roast, or keep it casual for a mid-week meal with a quick sear for a grain bowl. Either way, you can get salmon on the table pretty quickly. But before you turn on the heat, don’t let these blunders get in the way of your perfect salmon dinner.

The right type will make grilling easier.

A small amount of it goes a long way.

Actually, it might be more fun to ask what these all have in common (besides being mollusks, of course!). Can you guess? These are actually all quahogs! Little Neck, Cherry Stone, Top Neck and Quahog all belong to the same species of clam and they just refer to how large the clam has grown. The quahog (pronounced coe-hog) is a species of hard-shelled clam and the one we most commonly enjoy in our chowders and po boys.

Buying the right kind of fish can be a bit challenging. Your recipe might call for a specific type of fish or it may just have the very generic term: “white fish.” Fish can be very regional and sometimes the seafood counter has only a few options to choose from, so how do you shop for the correct type of fish? White fish is often referred to tilapia, cod, bass, grouper, haddock, catfish, and snapper. They are great for frying, searing, using in soups and chowders.

It's super-easy and the fish doesn't stick to the grill.

The fun of sliders, but with even less work!

I used to cook fish for a living. Here are my best tips.

Contrary to popular belief, we should be eating the fish more often than we think.

“The texture of the filling will be so creamy and so irresistible if you do that,” says recipe developer and food photographer Julie Tran Deily.

Cooking fish may seem a bit intimidating at first. What kind of fish should you buy? How do you keep it from sticking to the pan? But once you take the plunge, the rewards are delicious. Knowing when the fish is ready takes a little know-how, and we’re here to help. According to the USDA’s Safe Minimum Cooking Temperature Guide, cook fish until the center reaches 145°F on an instant-read or meat thermometer.

It’s Dungeness crab season in California! I’ve been buying these yummy critters for $2.99 per pound at Sun Fat SeafoodManila Oriental MarketFirst, always select Dungeness that are feisty and active. They should come out of the tank fighting. Never buy crabs that come out of the tank with no fight in them. Sniff them. They should smell clean, like the ocean. If you detect any ammonia odor, do not buy. Cook the crabs the day you buy them, preferably within a few hours of purchase.

I just love getting ikura sushi – those jewel-like, glistening orange balls of salty goodness are the eggs, or roe of salmon. They’re delicious, sustainable, and economical. They also have a wonderful mouthfeel. Where do you buy it and what do you do with it?The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch ranks it as a “Best Choice” in sustainability. Ikura is the fully-ripe ovaries of salmon, and ranges from dark orange to reddish-orange in color.

Here are the main types of salmon you'll find for sale in the United States, plus the best ways to cook each one.

It'll change the way you cook fish from here on out.

Here's everything you need to know about this dish.

Never hesitate at the fish counter again.

You know, for when you’re feeling shellfish.

When I make fish, I always opt for fresh fillets from the fishmonger. I buy my fish with the intent of cooking it the same day, although sometimes life happens and those plans get pushed to the back burner. Here’s a guide to just how long that fish will last. → Know how to store it! Tip from The Fishmonger: How To Store Fish To make sure you’re eating the freshest fish possible, it’s best to cook it as soon as possible.

Q: What species is whitefish? Whitefish describes many kinds of white fish, right? I am very curious! Sent by Laurie The Gefilteria’s Jeffrey Yoskowitz: I wish I could tell you how many conversations about this very topic I’ve been a part of. First of all, yes, there is actually a whitefish species. The whitefish that is generally smoked and served in salad and found in appetizing shops (and in most gefilte fish recipes) is Coregonus clupeaformis, otherwise known as Lake Whitefish.

It doesn't have to be expensive, and it's so easy to cook!

It's commonly used on chicken, but it's even better with shrimp.

It works every time.

Pin bones are pesky little buggers. Here you have a pristine fillet of fish and lurking just below the surface are these slippery needle-like bones that refuse to be easily removed. You can ask the fishmonger to remove them for you, but with a little practice, tenacity, and a handy pair of needle-nose pliers, you can do it yourself. And remove them you must because biting into one of these bones — or worse, choking on one — is a highly unpleasant experience.

Do you ever cook squid at home? To be honest, it’s usually a dinner-out dish for me, and one that most often takes the form of crispy fried calamari. But this method for oven-roasted squid from Chez Panisse chef David TanisThis comes from Tanis’s most recent cookbook, Heart of the Artichoke. He describes tossing the sliced squid in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasting them at 450°F for about fifteen minutes. Could it get any easier than that?

Who: Vu Thi Hoa and Vu Van Hai What: Fish sauce Where: Sa Chau, Vietnam Vu Van Hai makes fish sauce in the yard of his house. Urns of finished sauce line up next to vats of aging fish, baskets for straining the liquid out of the fish, and ceramic bowls for separating out the good stuff. When it comes to fish sauce, it doesn’t get any more authentic than this. Mr. Hai’s setup is common in Sa Chau, Vietnam. The small coastal town has a deep history of making fish sauce.

Maine’s cold, clean water makes it ideal for seafood of all kind: lobster, to be sure, but also oysters, those sweet and briny bivalves that we often associate with cooler climes. But, in Maine, you can (and should!) eat oysters all year round. We caught up with oyster farmers Valy Steverlynck and Eric Horne to find out the best way to shuck your oysters — and how to eat them (besides slurped straight from the shell).

Pork chops and tender fish fillets with a crust of finely chopped nuts is one of our favorite ways to enjoy those foods. We’d hate to deprive our nut-allergic friends of this singular taste and texture experience!Here’s a nut-less crust idea we recently stumbled upon that’s so simple, we can’t believe we haven’t thought of it before:In any recipe calling for ground nuts to use in a crust coating, simply replace the nuts with panko crumbs.

We’ve been talking about clams a lot recently, so we thought we’d take a look at how these mollusks are farmed and what makes them a good seafood choice!Most clam farmers purchase their clams as young spats (baby clams that haven’t grown a shell) from hatcheries when they’re about a centimeter long. These spats are seeded in the ocean floor and then covered with a net to protect the clams from predators like crabs.

There’s no official legislation outlawing the presence of fish and cheese on the same plate, but for many Italians — and those of us who would wish to remain in their gastronomic good graces — there is no greater offense. To finish a fish-focused pasta with parmigiano would have many an Italian nonna rising from their graves to deliver a hefty slap on the wrist.

As Emma said earlier today, making your own sausage isn’t as daunting as one might think. It allows you to control not only the flavor, but the fat and nutrient contents as well! Sausage makes even the most meager left overs or ingredients, into a meal fit for a king and we just happened to have a camera along when we ground our own last night. See the step by step process, learn some valuable tricks of the trade and see our recipe for pork-apple-raisin breakfast sausage below.

While browsing at my neighborhood seafood store the other day, I came across an unique item: blood clams! Not knowing what they were and being the kind of person who is up for trying new things, I bought a couple and took them home. Immediately I started googling for information and recipes, and I came to a disturbing discovery.Blood clams are a type of ark clam found in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, and the Indo-Pacific region.

Called nam pla in Thailand and nuoc mam in Vietnam, fish sauce is an essential seasoning ingredient in many Southeast Asian dishesFish sauce is made from salted, fermented fish. Anchovies are typical, but other kinds of seafood are sometimes used. The exact method and recipe can differ from region to region and country to country depending on what is traditional or readily available.Counter-intuitively, the longer the fish are fermented, the less fishy tasting the resulting sauce.

Q:  I’m wondering if you have any tips on how to store sardines and other fish that come in pull-top cans (smoked trout, kippers, mackerel…) after opening. It seems as if there should be a way to keep the opened can in the fridge for a day or two, but the top doesn’t close without making things very messy! Any ideas?Sent by MaryEditor: Mary, we often wonder about this too! We sometimes just put open cans in a small covered Tupperware box in the refrigerator.

When you’re talking about a topping for bagels and cream cheese, lox is the name most tossed around — it just sounds natural to order a bagel with lox and cream cheese. But is lox really just smoked salmon? Here’s a guide to what lox really is, as well as a primer on how different types of smoked salmon are made. Lox was traditionally only made from the belly of salmon, although other parts of the fish are now also used.

No one can blame you for pushing aside a piece of soft, soggy fish skin, but if cooked until crisp and crackling, the skin on a fillet is not just edible, it can be downright addictive, adding textural contrast and tons of flavor. The LA Times Test Kitchen has a simple method for ensuring the crispest fish skin.The technique comes from chef Thomas Keller, and is quite straightforward.

If you cook fish at home, chances are you’ve had the unpleasant experience of bringing home a piece of seafood that turned out to be — well, a little more odiferous than expected. America’s Test Kitchen has a quick tip for removing the chemical compound responsible for the odor, leaving you with refreshed seafood ready to be cooked.

If you’ve ever cooked salmon, you’ve probably noticed an unappetizing white, chunky foam appear on the surface of the fish. It’s called albumin and the folks at America’s Test Kitchen recently shared some insight on how it forms and what you can do to minimize it. Albumin is a protein that is pushed out of the muscle fibers of the fish as it cooks, coagulating on the surface.

I don’t know about you, but any time I’m at the beach I become absolutely enchanted by seaweed and all its wondrous textures and colors. I start wondering how it grows and, most of all, wishing I knew which ones were edible! Ole G. Mouritsen’s Seaweeds is my new companion this summer, a perfect guide for those of us who love cooking, nature, and science. • Who wrote it: Ole G.

Having a stash of freezer meals on hand is a great way to save money on food costs and enjoy home cooked meals when you’re too tired to get yourself to the kitchen. While it might take some planning and effort, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Believe it or not, you don’t need any fancy packaging machine or a deep freeze in order to make meals for the freezer. You don’t have to spend all day doing it, either.

I used to turn up my nose at canned salmon — and canned fish in general —but I’ve come to realize there is no better and more affordable way to incorporate healthy fish into your diet on a weekly basis. And as a busy grad student, I always appreciate having a shelf-stable protein on hand for quick weeknight dinners. And canned salmon is tasty! Here are some of my favorite ways to turn a humble can of salmon into a satisfying dinner. • 1 Make it into cakes.

Our family had a very low key, perfect New Year’s Eve. The five of us headed to Edisto Island, with my mother in law joining us for one night, for a gloriously reclusive New Year. We picked up a bushel of oysters and steamed them in the oven, toasting 2014 hours before midnight, when only two of us remained awake. The next morning, we had leftover oysters. Even in a minimalist vacation rental kitchen, oyster stew is easy.

A few years ago when I was putting the finishing touches on my freezer cookbook my editor called to say he wanted fish dishes included. Say what?! Up until that point, I never considered including fish or seafood in freezer meals. Those are such delicate proteins; I didn’t want to mess with overcooking them at reheat and end up with chewy, tough fish. But, I took his challenge. And I avoided the fish jerky, too.