5 Delicious Ways to Cook Fish

Fish is a basis for many healthy and delicious dishes, and is versatile, appearing in everything from northern European dishes to spicy Asian cuisine. You can find plenty of fish recipes online (and we have featured a few ourselves!), but today we are actually looking at some of the base cooking methods for your seafood order, and how they affect the fish and interact with your body.

1. Baking fish

As a general rule, a good method for baking fish is to put shallow cuts along the top of a whole fish, pop it in a greased dish and cover it with foil to prevent drying out. Flavor it with your herbs and oil, and almost all fish taste delicious with salt added. Fish should be basted frequently when they are baked to prevent drying out, or the bottom part going soggy. Flip them over if you prefer.

2. Shallow frying

If you are cooking a whole fish, or even a thick fillet, you'll need to dry and flour the fish first. Put a small amount of oil or butter in the pan, and fry at medium heat. Have the heat too low and the fish will turn out soggy; put it up too high and the middle won’t cook.

3. Barbecuing

Barbecuing is a favorite cooking technique for fish - if you have a wood barbecue, the smoky flavor is delicious with so many species that you can get on a seafood order. You should dry the skin and cavity before cooking, and make diagonal cuts as you would if you were baking the fish. Put a little olive oil inside the whole fish, and cook fully on one side before you flip it over to the other side.

4. Poaching

This is a very healthy method for cooking your seafood order, though it is not suitable for varieties with flaky flesh. Cook the fish in stock rather than water, and make sure you put the fish in when it is cold, rather than when hot -- this helps it cook through.

5. Steaming

Steaming is a good cooking method if you don’t like strongly flavored food, or if you have a very rich or creamy sauce to go with your fish. It is healthy, but not always flavorful. Put the fish is a wire basket over gently simmering water, and cover it up to steam-cook.