Saturday, December 31, 2011

Great Tastes Await When You Order Seafood Fresh From the Sea

Are you looking for the ultimate in flavor profiles for a special occasion dinner or a luncheon party? Do you need the perfect canapé to pass at the grand opening reception or a memorable entrée for a holiday family dinner? These days, when it comes to entertaining, seafood is the new black. From smoked fish canapes to sashimi to broiled stuffed lobster tails, you can put on a spread to beat the Ritz when you order seafood from an online fish market and have it delivered straight to your door.

Where once upon a time special dinners featured such time-honored treats as slices of fatty prime rib and chicken covered with thick gravy, today’s trendy hostess serves fresh flavors with light dressings and savory, flavorful rubs and spices. Looking for some entertaining ideas that won’t leave your guests wondering if they’ve been transported back to the 1980s? Try one of these delicious ideas, made with fresh seafood shipped directly from a dockside fish market.

Sashimi and Sushi

Nothing could possibly be fresher than a beautiful yellowtail tuna or a creamy, white slice of halibut, fresh from the northern ocean waters – two of the best fish for serving as sushi or sashimi, where their delicate flavors shine. Halibut’s firm flesh holds together beautifully in the thin, tasty slices that form the basis for sashimi, and the sweet marine flavor is the perfect foil for wasabi and salted nori in sushi. When you buy halibut online and have your seafood shipped directly to you, you’re guaranteed that your fish will be fresh, sweet and succulent – never waterlogged and tasteless after being frozen.

Creamy Smoked Fish

Forget the cheese balls and cheese spreads. Instead, serve smoked fish, freshly prepared and ready to flake into a spread or smooth onto homemade crostini. You can buy smoked fish from many fish markets, who make their own from freshly caught fish and packaged ready for your recipes.

Split Grilled Lobster Tails

Spiny lobster tails, a Pacific local treat that has gone national, are among the most popular “new” seafood ideas. They’re a favorite ingredient in special occasion dishes created by such well-known celebrity chefs as Bobby Flay, Emeril and Paula Deen. The succulent, meaty tails are easy to cook and far easier to eat than traditional lobster dishes – and they make an impressive sight when placed in front of your guests on a platter.

Of course, the most important factor in the flavor of your seafood dinners and appetizers is freshness – and you just won’t find that if you’re buying your food at the supermarket fish case. Instead, you’ll get the very best flavor and texture when you order seafood online and have it shipped directly to your door.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Order Seafood for Sparkling Holiday Dinners

Seafood is one of the most popular “luxury” foods in the world, and a favorite for holiday dinner parties and special occasions. If you’re planning to serve a seafood recipe for New Years’ Eve or at a Christmas open house, don’t take a chance on quality. Skip the supermarket fish counter and order seafood from a fish market that really knows quality seafood. When you order seafood from a fish market that buys daily from fishermen at the dock, you can be assured of the freshest, highest quality lobsters, halibut, crab, shrimp, salmon and smoked fish available. What could you do with ready access to some of the best fresh seafood available anywhere in the world? How about one of these ideas for sparkling holiday dinners – from soup to main course?

Sushi

Tuna is the most common fish used in sushi, but halibut is rapidly gaining popularity with those on the foodie circuit. The sweet, succulent flesh is the perfect flavor and texture for sashimi and sushi. Try serving sushi rolls as appetizers at your holiday gathering and watch them disappear.

Seafood Puffs

Make up a batch of airy popovers or cream puffs, but instead of filling them with sweet pastry cream, use a seafood-based filling. Smoked fish blends beautifully with cream cheese to create savory melt-in-your-mouth bites of seafood goodness. You can often buy smoked fish that’s been made fresh on premises when you order seafood from an online seafood market.

Lobster Bisque

Turn a first course into a showy, memorable highlight at your next dinner with a delicate lobster bisque. Buy lobster tails – fresh or fresh-frozen – from an online seafood market. Use the shells to flavor a savory bisque broth, and serve it in a soup plate “garnished” with a split grilled lobster tail.

Halibut Steaks

In China, families often serve a large sea fish as New Years’ Day dinner to invite luck and prosperity into their lives. Halibut may not bring you wealth and fortune, but a delicious seared halibut steak will definitely have your dinner guests talking about your skills as a hostess. Halibut’s firm flesh holds up well to most cooking methods, and is especially tasty in seared and blackened dishes. Start a New Years’ tradition when you buy halibut and serve grilled halibut steaks at your New Years’ dinner party.

Those are just a few of the many delicious seafood choices you can serve over the holidays. If you’re buying your seafood from an online market, be sure to order seafood in plenty of time for it to be shipped to you, and follow the instructions on keeping seafood fresh until you’re ready to cook it.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Order Seafood for These Delicious Lobster tails Recipes

Lobster tails may be the most delectable, mouth-watering food ever created. The delicate, sweet meat can elevate any occasion to an extraordinary one. If you’re hosting a holiday dinner this season and are looking for an incredibly memorable entrée, buy lobster tails from a fish market where you can order seafood online and have it shipped fresh for the next day. Then whip up one of these decadent, delicious meals to make your dinner party the talk of the holiday season.

Simple and Delicious

Lobster tails are meaty, sweet and delicious as they are. You don’t need to dig meat out of the shell, pick out tiny pieces to mix up into a salad or douse them with seasonings to accentuate their flavor. When you buy lobster tails, you’re buying one of the easiest to prepare fresh seafood items of all. Let the true flavor of lobster shine through with this simple method that will have your entrée on the table in just about 15 minutes.

Heat ½ cup water in a frying pan on the stove. Rinse the lobster tails under cool water and butterfly them. Lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper, place them in the pan and steam them, covered, for 8 minutes. Serve with clarified butter for dipping.


Break out the grill for an unexpected holiday treat. Start with frozen or fresh lobster tails, split in half through the shell. Combine olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, tarragon and chives in a small dish and let the flavors meld for 30 minutes or so. Preheat the grill to a medium temperature setting. Brush the cut side of the tails with plain olive oil and place them, cut side down, on the grill. Cook for three minutes, and turn them on one side. Cook for another three minutes, then turn them cut side up. Drizzle the lobster meat with the lemon-tarragon sauce and cook for one to three minutes longer, until the meat is cooked through. Serve on a bed of rice pilaf with more lemon-tarragon sauce for dipping.


Lobster is easily one of the most decadent, luxurious seafood dishes you can serve, but freshness is a key factor in the quality and flavor of your dish. If you don’t have access to a local seafood market, buy lobster tails at fish markets that allow you to order seafood fresh from their store. When you buy lobster tails from a reputable online fish market, you can be assured that your lobster tails and other seafood shipped to you will be as fresh as if you’d bought it at the dock this morning.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Why You Should Have Fresh Seafood Shipped to You Instead of Buying It Frozen?

Why should you pay a premium to have fresh seafood shipped for your special dinners when you can buy it frozen at your grocery store? If you listen to some of the so-called experts, really, frozen and seafood is just as taste and healthful as fresh seafood just off the docks. According to those experts, when fish and seafood is frozen at sea immediately after it’s caught, it preserves all of the flavor and nutrition – and indeed, frozen fish from the grocer’s freezer, they’ll tell you, is just as good as fresh fish that’s never been frozen. Real foodies, however, will challenge you to order seafood online and have fresh seafood shipped to you – with all the proper precautions – then try it side by side with the frozen fish you can buy at your grocery. You’ll be amazed at the difference in texture and flavor between the two.

Whether they like to admit it or not, freezing changes the texture of food. While the taste of seafood that’s been flash frozen immediately after being caught may be better than the usual cardboard flavor you find in cheap frozen fish, it really can’t hold a candle to fresh halibut, lobster and other truly fresh seafood that’s never been frozen.

You’ll also find a major difference in flavor and texture between fresh seafood shipped to you from a dockside market and the “fresh” seafood you can buy at the fish market in your local supermarket, especially if you live a distance from the coast. Seafood starts deteriorating and goes downhill rapidly after the first day, even if it’s kept on ice. If you live inland and choose to buy your fish from the supermarket seafood shop, you probably will do better to buy previously frozen fish than fresh fish for one simple reason – the “fresh” fish has had to travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to reach the fish case, and could be as much as four or five days old by the time you buy it. The previously frozen fish, on the other hand, was probably frozen immediately after being caught, which stops the deterioration process – thus, the fresh fish in your grocer’s case is probably older than the previously frozen fish.

Of course, you can avoid the whole issue when you order seafood online and have your fresh seafood shipped directly to your home. Not only will you be getting the best quality, you’ll know exactly how long your fish has been out of water. In most cases, online fish markets ship their fresh fish and seafood within hours of its being taken off the ship that caught it. That means your fresh seafood is really, really fresh.

You can order seafood online from fish markets in many coastal cities, and have your fresh seafood shipped to you within 24 hours of your order. It’s a great idea for a special dinner, especially over the holidays.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Lobster Tails and Fresh Seafood Shipped from the Dock to Your Door

If you love lobster, you can indulge without feeling guilty. The luxury seafood packs a lot of nutrition into relatively few calories – about 140 calories in 1 cup of lobster tail meat. The sweet, succulent flesh is a coastal favorite, enjoyed on its own and in recipes that range from savory lobster salad to lobster tacos to buttery lobster pie. Many vacationers wait all year to enjoy their favorite lobster tails recipes when they’re on the coast, but you don’t have to wait till you’re vacationing on the ocean to savor the delicious treat. When you order online, you can have lobster tails and any other seafood shipped directly from the dock to your door, and be enjoying lobster Newburg within 24 hours.

When you buy lobster tails online, you’re generally buying spiny lobsters rather than the lobsters you generally see fighting with each other in your grocer’s case. Unlike Maine lobsters, spiny lobsters have no claws. Instead, they have meaty, succulent tails that can be as large as a full pound apiece.

Buy Fresh Lobster Tails in Season

Tis the season to buy fresh lobster tails. From October to March, many online seafood markets sell lobster tails fresh, so you get the full flavor and succulent, tender meat – far more tender than frozen lobster tails. Fresh tails are ideal for recipes where the meat shines – grilled, broiled and stuffed lobster tails are absolutely delectable when the lobster is fresh rather than frozen. The seasonal timing and their gourmet reputation make fresh lobster the perfect choice for your holiday meals.

Tips to Order Seafood Online
 
When you decide to have seafood shipped from an online market, you don’t have the option to sniff or eyeball your purchases in advance. You have to depend upon the reputation of the seafood market where you’re buying your shellfish and seafood. These tips can help you avoid mistakes and disappointment when you order seafood online.

Buy lobster tails and other seafood from a reputable online seafood market.

Look for the origin of the seafood you’re ordering. A reputable fish market will tell you whether your lobster tails are cold water or warm water tails, and where they’re from.

Check the shipping policy to find out how and when your seafood order will be shipped.

When your seafood order arrives, check it immediately. It should smell like the ocean with no ammonia smell.If you order frozen lobster tails, be sure to follow the thawing instructions to thaw your seafood safely.

Dazzle your holiday guests with a delicious gourmet dinner prepared with fresh lobster tails. When you have seafood shipped overnight, it’s like living right off the dock.


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Order Seafood Online for the Freshest Seafood

Why order seafood online when you can buy it in your local market?  Fresh seafood tends to be a rare treat, especially for those who live far from the ocean. Because it is so sensitive to temperature changes and spoils so easily, most markets and groceries sell frozen or previously frozen seafood from their display cases. The seafood labeled “fresh” in your grocer’s case is an even iffier bet if you’re located inland – it may not have seen the ocean for days.

In fact, if you’re a seafood lover, you’ve probably heard that frozen fish is at least as good – if not better – than fresh fish. The reason for that is the length of time it often takes for a load of fish and shellfish to make it from the dockside to your grocer’s case. By the time it’s been loaded from the dock to a truck, to a railway can and onto another truck, that halibut sitting in your grocer’s case is feeling about as fresh as you would after taking a four-day trip packed in a refrigerated truck. Needless to say, fish frozen right after it’s pulled off the dock compares pretty favorably to four-day-old fish in your grocer’s case.

When you buy halibut online, on the other hand, your halibut doesn’t get tossed into a box with a bunch of other fish to make a four-day cross-country trip. Instead, a fish monger carefully selects it and fillets it, then vacuum-packs it to ensure that all the flavor and freshness is preserved. From there, the halibut fillets are packed into an insulated foam cooler with frozen gel packs to keep them cool, then shipped directly to your door via next day shipping. In short, when you have fresh seafood shipped from an online fish market, the halibut, salmon, lobster tails or other fish that shows up at your door will be fresh, sweet and flavorful.

How Do I Know Where to Buy Halibut and Shellfish?

The single most important factor in the freshness of the seafood you receive is the market where you place your order. When you have fresh seafood shipped from an online market, look for a fish market that has a physical location – preferably on the wharf, where they’re guaranteed the freshest fish from the catch of the day. When you order seafood from a real fish market with a great reputation in its local market, you can be assured that the seafood shipped to you will be the freshest available anywhere.






Monday, October 31, 2011

Healthy and Delicious Meals with Fresh Seafood Shipped Anywhere

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring and tasteless. Seafood is among the most flavorful and healthy food you can eat. It provides more of the most important antioxidants and healthful nutrients than most other proteins, and it provides them in a package so tasty, they could almost be described as decadent. And these days, you don’t have to live on the seacoast to enjoy the fresh, healthy taste of seafood. You can buy halibut and lobster tails online from fish markets that have seafood shipped directly from the ocean to your table.

Adding seafood to your menu offers many health benefits. Lobster, halibut, tuna and salmon provide the powerhouse nutrient, omega-3 essential fatty acids, which is one of the most powerful antioxidants known. Research into omega-3 antioxidants has shown that eating more fish and seafood in your diet can help improve your memory, slow down or prevent Alzheimer’s disease, lower your cholesterol, improve your brain functioning, stave off depression and fight aging. It’s no wonder that the people in Japan, who eat more seafood in their diets than those in other countries, live longer and often look young well into their senior years.

If you don’t live along the coast, you have a number of ways to add seafood to your diet. Some are better than others. You can certainly find seafood in your grocer’s freezer, for example, though it may not be as tasty as seafood fresh-caught and delivered to your plate without ever bring frozen. Your grocer may also have seafood like lobster tails, halibut and smoked fish on ice in the display case.

You’ll find two kinds of seafood on display there – previously frozen and “fresh.” Previously frozen fish may have been flash-frozen at sea and kept frozen until it was delivered, though there’s no guarantee of that. It may simply have been frozen for shipping and thawed on delivery. “Fresh” seafood – especially in an area that’s far from the ocean – has a very slim chance of actually being fresh. When it comes to seafood, “fresh” simply means “never frozen.” That fresh fish in your grocer’s display case could have been taken from the sea as many as nine days before you buy it. It may not have been frozen, but it’s certainly not what many people think of as “fresh”.

One way to be sure that your lobster tails, halibut and other ocean fish and shellfish are truly fresh is to order seafood directly from a fish market on the coast. Many West Coast fish markets will ship seafood anywhere at a reasonable cost, and have it at your door within 24 hours of placing the order. If you’re looking for a good place to buy smoked fish, salmon, smoked fish, crab, lobster tails or any other kind of seafood, look online and have your seafood shipped to your table while it’s still fresh.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Hearty Fall Dinner Suggestion: Order Seafood for Savory Chowder

Spending a lot of time at the ocean, I learned to associate the coming of autumn with the heavenly aroma of seafood chowder simmering on the kitchen stove. These days, the ocean is a long drive away – but I don’t let it stop me from making my favorite savory soups when I need a hearty dinner. Instead, I order seafood online so that I always have a ready supply of the freshest catch of the day to fulfill my cravings. I just browse my favorite online seafood stores, order what I want, and have my seafood shipped via next-day air. That way, it’s on hand when I’m ready to start dinner and my family enjoys the same fresh, delicious seafood flavor I grew up enjoying.

Savory seafood chowder is a marvelous choice for a family dinner or for a special occasion crowd. When I want to fancy it up as a special event soup course, I serve it in freshly baked whole grain bread bowls and pair it with a crisp, not-too-sweet white wine – a Sauvignon or Pinot Gris works well. Instead of a typical salad, start the meal with a spinach and orange salad and finish off with poached pears or baked apples for dessert.

Of course, the chowder is the star of the meal, so you want to be sure that it’s absolutely perfect. There’s no one secret to creating a wonderful chowder, but there are a number of factors you have to get just right.

First, fresh seafood is key. Don’t skimp and buy frozen or previously frozen seafood for this – the flavor of your seafood is the single most important element in wonderful chowder. Instead, order seafood from a vendor that always ships their seafood fresh and ready to cook.

If you really want to impress, include fresh lobster in the seafood mix. When you buy lobster online, it will be shipped to you live to ensure that it’s delectably fresh. Frankly, I save the lobster for the really special occasions, not because of the expense but because of the time factor involved. If I don’t have time to cook and crack the lobster, I skip it rather than buy lobster pre-cooked. The difference in flavor is obvious. Once you’ve had seafood chowder made with fresh lobster, you’ll never be happy with canned or frozen lobster meat again.

Even without lobster, you can make luxurious seafood chowder by choosing the most flavorful fish. Buy halibut, haddock, cod or any other firm, white-fleshed fish, and include scallops to add a hint of sweetness.

The most important part of a chowder base is the roux – the mix of fat and flour that thickens the broth and makes it so delicious. Start by rendering your salt pork or bacon and onions together, then remove them from the pot. Add diced potatoes and water and bring them to a boil. Let them cook for about ten minutes. Measure equal parts of butter and flour. In a separate pot, heat the butter until flour sprinkled into it begins to bubble immediately. Add flour a little at a time, whisking it in until the roux forms a thick paste. Continue whisking for about five minutes to let the flour taste cook out of the roux.

Add cold or room temperature half-and-half or cream to the roux a little at a time, whisking each addition in to keep lumps from forming. Once all the cream is incorporated into the roux, turn the heat down and let it simmer for about ten minutes. Pour the cream mixture into the potatoes and add your seafood. Let it simmer over medium heat until the fish flakes easily.

It sounds complicated, but it’s surprisingly easy to make a sumptuous, creamy seafood chowder that will have your family clamoring for you to make it again. Just learn how to make the roux, and remember to order seafood fresh instead of using frozen seafood from the grocer.