your favorite easy fish recipes

yeah usually
i don't ever put it higher than medium unless i am bringing water to a boil or heating up a pan prior to putting food in it
(i don't pan fry much)

did LL's recipe, worked out good though i used too much oil at first so the first fillet was pretty oily. the main thing that freaks me out is since i've never cooked meat and haven't cooked much fish, i have trouble knowing when the fish is done. i end up hacking the pieces apart trying to tell if its flaky yet.

usually it's no more than 2 min for each side if it's a thin filet like tilapia
what type of pan are you using?

i used a nonstick pan, think i did a little longer than that but i was being really cautious because i've ended up with undercooked fish before.

don't tell anyone but i check for doneness by poking at meat/fish with my finger -- if it feels mushy, more time in 30 sec increments (on stovetop); if it feels +/- firm, it's probably done.

do it a few more times and you'll be a pro!

dill, lemon, tomatoes, olives all taste good with that same prep

Light finger-poke for firmness is otm -- also just eyeball it and watch as it turns opaque. Take it out of the pan 30-40 seconds before it's done -- residual heat will finish it.

i have mastered sauteeing fish pretty much. anyone have any tips/recipes for shrimp? they have precooked shrimp at trader joe's but i don't really know how to prepare it.

I am terrible at preparing shrimp well. One tentative conclusion I've come to is that the larger they are, the dryer the cooking method needs to be, because boiling them long enough to get them cooked through makes them really tough. Alton Brown has a broiling/roasting method for big ones that really intensifies the flavor and apparently doesn't turn them into tough knots.

It's hard to beat deep-frying. The best shrimp I ever had were the fried ones at Paula Deen's brother's restaurant in Savannah. It helped that they had probably been caught nearby within the past 24 hours and never frozen.

xpost:
precooked shrimp is useless for anything but using in a salad, shrimp cocktail or application that requires no more cooking. even then they're quite meh (soft and waterlogged) compared to freshly cooked. what type of recipe do you have in mind? scampi or something? they only take about 90 seconds a side in a hot pan & i don't add any salt when sauteeing tj's prawns as they're salted before freezing for some reason or

and and yeah those really really large ones are ideal for barbeque grilling or roasting. can't imagine any reason to boil them; one could poach 'em, but i dunno why anyone would poach shrmp

this recipe worked well for me recently. the salsa verde is delicious and flavourful, doesn't take too long to prepare, and goes perfectly with the fish, which is easy to fry and hard to mess up. might be wise to reduce the quantity of the salsa if cooking less fillets. also, if timing is an issue, perhaps omit the spuds and just serve with some steamed greens.

for pre-cooked shrimp, this bittman recipe works well, from memory you just:

chop a few cloves of garlic into v thin slices, heat some good olive oil, a generous amount, in a pan, then add the garlic and cook it a little, add a spoon of cumin, one of paprika, plus salt and pepper, and then add the shrimp for a minute and stir everything around. serve it with boiled rice or a flatbread.

really is amazing. and obv the better quality your paprika/garlic/oil...

i had gotten pretty confident about sauteeing fish but the kind i bought this time was unexpectedly much thinner than i'm used to and it totally threw me off. it ended up way too oily but still sticking to the pan and breaking up. in hindsight i probably should have used way less oil at a lower-than-usual temp but i just got frustrated and kept fucking it up, ended up with a whole batch of fish glop that i threw away without even trying.

I am cooking fish tonight and all of our spices are packed except for popcorn salt.

BTW I don't use pre-cooked shrimp anymore, I use raw shrimp and use the Cook's Illustrated pan-seared shrimp recipe which is delicious though it's really easy to burn yourself turning all the shrimp really quickly in super-hot oil
http://www.food.com/recipe/pan-seared-shrimp-with-garlic-lemon-butter-139797 <- this is the recipe even though they don't credit Cook's Illustrated

random thoughts:
1) if you burn yourself enough the nerve endings will eventually get destroyed and you won't feel burns (this is where i'm at after working a mesquite grill hours a day even though it was many years ago)
2) use long tongs for turning
3)consider wearing a oven mitt or glove whilst using tongs to turn.
oh, also hope you are not using any teflon coated pan to heat to smoking. that can def be carcinogenic

1. Open tinned sardines, place on plate and microwave for around 30 seconds
2. Toast and butter bread
3. Put sardines on toast. Enjoy.