Seafood Market Tips for Cooking Shellfish and Fresh Fish

Fresh fish and seafood aren’t just healthy and good for you – they’re a delicious treat, especially if you can get it fresh caught. That can be tricky unless you live on the pier and know how to find the freshest fish and seafood – or it used to be. Today, thanks to the Internet, anyone can order seafood online and have it shipped direct to their front door within 24 hours. You don’t need to live next door to a seafood market when you can order up a seafood delivery anytime you want.

Of course, many favorite seafood recipes are loaded with calories, cholesterol and other unhealthy things. If you’re used to baked stuffed lobster and lazy lobster pie, deep-friend fish and chips and breaded baked fish, you’re missing out on some of the most delectable ways of preparing fresh fish and seafood. These favorite seafood market tips can give your recipe repertoire a boost and tease your family’s palate with some of the most flavorful, healthful seafood recipes available.

Keep Flavors Simple

Whether you’re cooking diver scallops or fresh halibut, the secret to delicious seafood is to keep the flavors simple. Most fresh white fish – especially ocean fish – have naturally sweet, delicate flesh that flakes easily and cooks quickly. Heavy sauces, breading and betters overwhelm the flavor instead of letting it shine. Instead of heavy breading, try a light dusting of semolina flour or corn meal, and pass up the heavy butter sauces in favor of citrus reductions or a splash of white wine.

Keep Cooking Times Short

Most fresh fish and seafood tastes best when it is just cooked through. The best way to cook diver scallops, fresh halibut cheeks and even specialty seafood like conch meat is to sear it quickly over high heat. Delicate white fish overcooks easily, and becomes dry and unpalatable.

…Or Cook It Longer

On the other hand, while mussels and other seafood can get tough and chewy if you overcook it, cooking it longer can make it tender again. If you’re cooking conch meat, for example, you can either pound it thin and fry it up quickly, or cut it into bite size pieces and simmer it in broth or chowder for at least an hour.

Try It Raw

A favorite way to “cook” seafood is with citrus juices or other acids. Ceviche is a Latin style of preparing fresh seafood like diver scallops, fresh halibut, conch meat and bay scallops. Lime is a favored citrus for preparing ceviche, though some recipes call for lemon, grapefruit or even tangerine. Add chopped peppers, onions and mango for a tasty Caribbean or South of the Border treat.

If you’re looking for a taste of spring to liven up your family’s dinner table or your next dinner party, visit an online seafood market and check out the fresh fish and seafood available for delivery. Even your pickiest eaters will love it.

What You Should Know About Conch Meat

Conch meat is taken from the conch, often called the queen conch, a marine snail that is most commonly found in the waters around the Caribbean island. With the exception of the shell, all parts of the conch are edible, but in the U.S. conch meat usually refers to the foot that attaches the conch to its shell. It is found in the southern Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, but cannot be harvested in U.S. waters because it is an endangered species in the U.S. Nevertheless, it is widely available frozen, and can often be bought from an online seafood market or fresh fish market.

Conch Sources

Conch may be caught wild or farmed. Farmed conch is generally smaller, more flavorful and more tender. Wild caught conch can grow as large as 4 to 5 pounds, and is usually tougher than farm-raised conch because the muscle is more developed. The flavor is slightly sweet and similar in both taste and texture to fresh clams. Cleaning and preparing fresh conch meat is a chore that includes removing a tough outer skin and pre-cooking to tenderize the meat. Frozen conch meat is often ready to use, though it may have to be pre-cooked.

Cooking Tips for Conch Meat

Conch can be used in nearly any recipe that calls for clams, but the meat is notoriously easy to overcook, at which point it goes from being delightfully chewy to shoe-leather tough. These tips can help you cook tender, sweet conch in many different recipes.

Eat Conch Raw

Conch is delicious raw as ceviche. Slice conch meat thinly and marinate it in lime juice to let the citric acid “cook” it.

Cook Conch Meat Fast or Slow

Conch should either be cooked very fast or very slow. For fritters, steaks and other fried or grilled recipes, cook conch just until the pink flesh turns white and opaque. In soup and chowder, cut conch in small, bite-size pieces and simmer over low heat for at least an hour.

Spices for Conch

Conch is a naturally sweet, firm-fleshed shellfish that blends well with nearly any spices you please. Experiment with Caribbean spice blends, Mexican flavors and Louisiana style spices. Enjoy conch meat in gumbo, stews, chowders, soups and fritters. It is easily one of the most versatile of all seafood.

If conch isn’t available at your local fresh fish market, you can nearly always order it from a California fish market that sells seafood online and offers seafood delivery throughout the country.

What To Expect When Buying Seafood Online

If you’re a foodie, the Internet is completely made of win. Thanks to the proliferation of fresh fish markets online, seafood lovers are no longer stuck with the selection at their local seafood market. Instead, they can order seafood from an online California seafood market or any other fresh fish market that can provide them with the delectable treats they crave. If you’re new to idea and aren’t sure what to expect when you buy seafood online, this simple explanation may make the whole process clearer for you.

Find a Reputable Seafood Market

Before you place your order, do some research online to make sure you’re dealing with a reputable fresh fish market. Many online seafood sites are actual fish markets, located on the pier in their own towns. You can find out about their reputation for quality and service by checking online customer review sites. Generally, if a fish market is known for quality locally, their care will extend to any seafood delivery options they offer.

Read Descriptions Carefully

Since you can’t actually see and smell the fish when you order seafood online, you have to trust that the market will fill your order with the freshest seafood available. There are a few ways to make an educated guess about the freshness of the fish and seafood you order, though. First, know your seafood so that you know when the fish and shellfish you want are available fresh in season. Thanks to modern fishing methods and worldwide fish harvesting, you can nearly always buy just about any kind of seafood you want at any time of the year. There are, however, times when those selections will only be available frozen, canned or smoked. Before you order, make sure that you know exactly what you’re ordering, whether you're wanting to buy smoked seafood, frozen fish of fresh fish.

Check Delivery Policy

Next, check the delivery policy posted on the fish market website to find out when they ship seafood for delivery. The busiest markets ship daily, but your order will only be shipped if it’s received by a specific time. If you miss the cutoff hour, your order will be filled the next day – from the next day’s catch. In most cases, your seafood delivery will be shipped in a cooler packed in dry ice to keep it fresh without freezing it. You should have it within 24 hours of packaging it.

When Your Seafood Delivery Arrives

When your order arrives from the fish market, you should remove the cooler from the outside packaging and check the condition of the contents. Fresh fish and shellfish go bad quickly, so it’s best to prepare it as soon as possible after it arrives. If you’re not  ready to prepare it immediately, store the packaged fish on a bed of ice on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator, away from other foods.

Whether you’re craving fresh diver scallops, Ahi tuna or fresh halibut, you’ll always be able to please your palate when you order seafood from an online fresh fish market. Why take a chance with anything but the very freshest fish?

About Buying and Cooking Diver Scallops

Fresh diver scallops are among the most flavorful, delicate and sweet treasures of all the gifts the sea provides. The creamy, melt-in-your-mouth morsel s rival lobster, crab and fresh halibut for flavor and texture and are miles ahead in ease of cooking. They don’t need heavy sauces or butter to make them palatable. In fact, the only important rule for cooking fresh diver scallops is to watch the time carefully. If you’re looking for a delectable fresh seafood treat that’s easy to cook, look no further than fresh diver scallops – but before you order seafood, you should know these scallop selection, storage and cooking tips. 

What Are Scallops Anyway?

Scallops are bi-valve mollusks related to clams, mussels and oysters. Depending on where you live, the word may be pronounced to rhyme with “gallop” or “dollop.” Scallops move through water by opening and closing their shells, an action that builds the adductor muscle – the hinge that holds the two parts of the shell together. While the entire scallop inside the shell is edible – and enjoyed through most of the world – in the United States, it is this muscle that most people mean when they refer to “scallops.”

There are many varieties of scallop, but the best known are bay scallops and sea scallops.

Bay scallops are small – typically no bigger than the tip of your index finger. Their flavor is sweet, and the texture is creamy and smooth. These scallops cook within 1-2 minutes, and are notoriously easy to overcook, giving many people the impression that they are flaky, tough and rubbery.

Sea scallops are larger, sometimes several inches across and an inch or more thick.  Sea scallops are generally less tender and more flavorful than bay scallops. They cook through in 4 to 7 minutes, depending on their size, but are often served raw as ceviche or in other dishes that call for raw ahi tuna or fresh halibut.

Diver scallops are wild-caught rather than farm-raised. They are hand-picked and harvested by divers who are experienced at choosing sea scallops of the best size.

Tips for Choosing Diver Scallops

Unless you live close to a fish market, preferably one on the pier, you’re not likely to get the best, freshest diver scallops. The scallops you find in your grocer’s seafood cases may be days—even weeks – from their origin. They are often soaked in water and chemicals to increase their weight and preserve them – but the resulting loss of flavor is obvious to anyone who has eaten a truly fresh scallop.

If you’re lucky enough to live near a California fish market where you can buy seafood, look for scallops that are creamy tan to pale pink in color – white is a tell that the scallops have been soaked. You can also ask the fish monger for “dry scallops”. They should have a sweet, fresh smell with a hint of the sea, but no fishy odor, which suggests that they are past their prime.

If you don’t live near a good fish market, you can order fresh seafood shipped from many vendors. If you decide to buy seafood online, be sure to read the delivery terms carefully. Look for a market that ships daily and only ships fresh diver scallops the day they are caught.