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.

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.