The Monteray Bay Aquarium in California have downloadable guides recommending which seafood to buy or to avoid depending on sustainability. The idea is to help consumers and businesses alike to become advocates for ocean friendly seafood.
They are available online as a download, as a printable pocket guide and for the iPhone and iPod. You can select the area of the country that you like to get region specific guidance or a national version. The best choices are ones that are in abundant supply and the fishing is well managed and good for the environment, the good is OK, but the avoid is best to pass up on. Due to the fact that the seafood is farmed and caught in a way that is harmful to the environment.
In the national guide the choices are:
National Best Choices:
Arctic Char (farmed)
Barramundi (US farmed)
Catfish (US farmed)
Clams (farmed)
Cobia (US farmed)
Cod: Pacific (Alaska longline)+
Crab: Dungeness, Stone
Halibut: Pacific+
Lobster: Spiny (US)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pollock (Alaska wild)+
Salmon (Alaska wild)+
Scallops: Bay (farmed)
Striped Bass (farmed or wild*)
Tilapia (US farmed)
Trout: Rainbow (farmed)
Tuna: Albacore (troll/pole, US+
or British Columbia)
Tuna: Skipjack (troll/pole)
So Alaskan seafood is a good choice, it tastes great and is well managed and not harmful to the environment.
This wonderful recipe comes from Laura a chef and American living in Paris, she writes the blog Laura’s Paris Cooking Notebook
I had liked so much the main course at the Grand Atelier that I have tried to replicate the recipe.
So, impress your guests with this delicious fish recipe!
Ingredients:
BEANS
2/3 cup of white beans
1 small leek
Salt and pepper
MUSSELS
½ lb mussels
FISH
4 portions of Cod tenderloin (Thick filet’s)
1 Tbsp butter
Salt and pepper - I used piment d’Espelette instead of pepper
SAUCE:
1 shallot
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp flour½ cup dry white wine (I use a Macon Villages)
½ cup crème fraiche (use heavy cream if you do not find crème fraiche)
Method:
Beans:
Cut the leek lengthwise in 2.
Cook the beans in a pressure cooker with 3 cups of water and the leek. Season with salt and pepper. Our beans were probably last year’s crop and we had to cook them for 35 minutes.
Mussels:
Wash them until the water is clear, remove the algae if any, put in a pan, cover and cook over medium heat until they are open.
Turn the heat off and keep warm.
Fish:
Melt the butter in a pan with a cover. Put the fish, add salt and pepper, cover and let cook over medium low heat, about 6 minutes
Sauce:
Melt ½ of the butter in a saucepan. Add the chopped shallot. Drain the water from the mussels and add to the sauce.
Add the wine.
Add some of the water from the fish, if any.
Add the cream. Season to taste.
In a small bowl mix the other half of the butter and the flour until you have like a ball (beurre manié). Add to the boiling sauce, stirring constantly. Rectify seasoning.
Serve the sauce in a soup plate, add a few spoonfuls of beans, put the cod on top of the beans, and decorate around the cod with the mussels. Serve immediately.
Alaskan school children are heading to South Central Alaska to collect salmon eggs and witness spawning and the arrival of the new generation of the much valued Alaskan salmon. It is part of an annual program called STREAM or Salmon Trout Restoration Education and Aquatic Management.
The Program is very important to the state as salmon affects the lives of Alaskans in many ways. The school children head to the streams to collect the eggs often getting great teaching about the fish right there, for a great slide show see the Anchorage daily news. They then take the eggs back to their class rooms to incubate them , closely monitoring the water temperature and learning the life cycle of the salmon. Once they hatch they are supplied with special food, as they reach the size of Fry’s they are taken to landlocked lakes. This is to protect the natural salmon population.
The children learn about good fishing practices and how to ensure the continued well being of the salmon.
sometimes a little crab takes up residence inside its shell.
they produce pearls when a foreign material gets trapped inside their shell, the make a substance called nacre a mixture of protein and calcium.
oysters can be enjoyed 12 months of the year.
they have a great nutritional value being a good source of protein, iron, zinc, B vitamins and calcium.
if you have kidney disease or an impaired immune system its more advisable not to eat them raw as they contain live bacteria.
they have been eaten since ancient times, the Greeks used to eat them with wine and the Romans would harvest them all the way from the English Channel!
Pacific Oysters are the most widely cultured and are often said to have the best taste.
they can live up to 20 years.
they are carnivores
they are very susceptible to pollution and in fact retain toxins in their flesh, making them unhealthy for us, so ensure a good supplier when purchasing them.
oysters don’t have to be eaten raw they are be roasted, sauteed, fried and baked.
an adult oyster can filter 60 gallons of seawater a day.
Oysters have been farmed in Alaska since the early 1900’s.
Alaska’s cold and clean waters make them some of the safest on the market.
This gourmet recipe come from The English Kitchen, a delightful blog, about British cooking from a Canadian living there. As I Brit, I really enjoy this blog as it highlights just how good British food is….
Sometimes I like to eat healthy . . . well . . . a lot of the time I try to eat healthy. I just love fish, especially cod and haddock. I am not that “in” to Mackeral or other strong oily fishes, although I do enjoy salmon from time to time.
In my family, we always ordered English fish and chips whenever we went out to eat - there was never any question. We very rarely went out to eat, and when we did we really fancied a treat, so fish and chips fit the bill perfectly.
I am afraid that I still order fish and chips most of the time when I eat out, cause . . . well, you just can’t teach an old dog new tricks; I happen to really like them! The best chips I have had over here were in Liverpool . . . crisp, fresh, wrapped in paper from a chippy in the down town area and liberally doused in salt and malt vinegar. The best fish has been from a fish and chip shop on the Blacon parade of shops in Chester.
I digress however . . . fish and chips are not healthy, and the fish that I cooked for us today was.
Moist, flaky, and lemony. Served on a tasty bed of edamame mash and garnished with some tasty roasted tomatoes and torn basil leaves, this went down a real treat.
This is lovely. Tender flakey and milk cod sitting on a bed of tasty basil flavoured edamame mash. Tomatoes and Cod are perfect partners.
Ingredients:
4 small bunches of cherry tomatoes on the vine
2 TBS lemon olive oil
4 chunky cod fillets
the zest of one lemon, plus the juice of one lemon
1- 480g pack of frozen edamame beans
1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and cut into chunks
1 bunch of basil, the leaves and stalks separated
200ml of hot vegetable or chicken stock
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F. Lightly grease a baking tray.
Place the tomatoes on the tray, rub with a bit of oil and then season lightly with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Roast for 5 minutes, or until the skins begin to split.
Add the fish to the baking dish and top with the lemon zest. Season with some more salt and pepper and then drizzle with a bit more of the oil. Roast for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with the tines of a fork.
While the fish is cooking, cook the beans in a pot of slightly salted boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes or so, until just barely tender. Drain well. Place into a food processor along with the basil stalks, lemon juice, the remaining lemon oil, and the stock. Pulse to mash into a thick coarse puree. Season to taste with some salt and pepper.
Divide the bean mash between 4 hot serving plates. Top each with a filet of fish and divide the tomatoes equally amongst the plates. Scatter the basil leaves, torn, over top and serve.
There have been a range of issues facing the Alaskan fisheries in the last few years ranging from the issues of global warming and warmer water, declining salmon numbers on their return home to spawn and now sea otters.
These creatures can grow up to 4 feet long and weight 90lb, once nearly hunted to extinction by Russian fur traders in the 18-19th centuries. They were reintroduced to South East Alaska in the 1960’s by the Alaskan Department of fish and game. The otters have a large appetite and are very partial to crab, sea cucumbers, urchins and clams, they are able to eat 25% of their body weight each day.
In 1995 they were blamed for the collapse of the abalone fishery in the State.
In recent times there have been reports by fisherman of declining numbers of crab, sea cucumber and urchins when fishing and it is felt that the otters are to blame. Sea cucumber and urchin fishing have been closed down to give the population a chance to re populate.
The fish and game department office aims to start studying the sea otters more closely in the future to assess numbers and to see how commercial fisherman and the protected creatures can co exist.
This recipe was inspired by My Columbian Recipes, I loved the simplicity and freshness of the dish and Salmon is so tasty and good for you, rich in protein and omega 3 fatty acids.
Ingredients:
Salmon fillets, I used Wild Alaskan.
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 a bunch of fresh cilantro
salt and pepper
olive oil
lime juice to taste
Method:
Blend the cilantro, salt and pepper, olive oil, lime juice and garlic together.
Spread over the salmon and pan fry with a lid on it about 5 minutes on each side
When cooked, add more of the glaze
It was eaten over a bed of orzo and broccoli. The Orzo was simply boiled to el dente, then I mixed in 2 triangles of laughing cow swiss cheese with a little of the garlic/cilantro mix.
This is a delightfully simple and flavorsome recipe, enjoy….
Omega 3 fatty acids a group of unsaturated acids have been shown to reduce heart disease. They have also shown promise in conditions such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis. We can obtain omega 3 fatty acids from oily fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines, also kiwi fruit and flax seed.
Scientists feel that omega 3 fatty acids benefit is related to reducing inflammation, but they are not sure how. A team of scientists in the UK recently experimented on human cells in artificial blood vessels.
By using a glass tube mimicking a blood vessel coated with endothelial cells that reside in the interior walls of blood vessels. When Omega 3 fatty acids were added after white blood cells were pumped into the tube. They discovered that the white blood cells couldn’t get across the endothelial barrier. The Omega 3 were blocking them this is significant as its the migration of white blood cells from the blood to the wall and surrounding tissues that causes inflammation.
Currently the American Heart Association recommends eating a variety of fish twice a week and other foods such as walnuts and flax seed.
I made this a while back, but I love curries and this is an easy one. I made it for my father in law when he was here and he liked it - that means a lot when an Indian likes a Brits curry.
Ingredients:
fresh or frozen prawn/shrimp (I call them prawns!)
1/2 red onion
2 small tomatoes
1/4 cup frozen coconut
fish fry masala in Indian store to taste, about a tablespoon
curry leaves
green chilis
ginger/garlic paste
pinch of chili powder
Method:
heat canola oil, add onion, green chili and curry leaves, then add chili powder, and cook for a few minutes until the raw smell goes away
add the chopped tomatoes, salt and fish fry masala and simmer for 15 minutes, until you get a nice gravy
then add the shrimp/prawns, cover and simmer for another 5-10 minutes
near the end add coconut
Its done, I love easy recipes, this is great with rice and vegetables and South Indian Dosa.
This is also a great recipe when you don’t have many ingredients on hand, I always keep frozen shrimp in.
Jumbo squid that can reach up to 110lb and a staggering 7 feet long and can eat precious salmon are moving north. They are known as diablos rojos in Mexico or red devils and have even been known to attack divers, historically they live around Peru and South America but are becoming increasingly common along the Pacific Northwest. Scientists think it may be due to the effects of global warming and increasing ocean temperatures.
In recent years fishermen have started to find the squid in their nets of the coast of Oregan and Washington State. In the past they were regarded as transient visitors and now they seem to be new residents of the area. In 2005 the squid were even seen as far north as Sitka Alaska.
It may also be due to the overfishing of their regular food hence the reason for moving north to look for more, but no one really knows. They eat krill, lantern, shrimp, sardines other squid and salmon. Eating a mamouth 15% of their own body weight a day.
Although Scientists are not sure if the squid are affecting the salmon populations, that have been dropping in recent years. The squid also eat the food of smaller marine mammals such as seals and sea lions thus forcing them to eat more salmon.
The State Department of Fish and Wildlife is giving fisherman a chance to sell any of the squid that they accidently catch along with the salmon in the State of Washington. Fisherman are pleased with the new rule as they fear that the squid will affect salmon numbers and in turn their livelihood.
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