Best fish & seafood cooking books according to redditors
We found 108 Reddit comments discussing the best fish & seafood cooking books. We ranked the 44 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 108 Reddit comments discussing the best fish & seafood cooking books. We ranked the 44 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
![Alan Wong's New Wave Luau: Recipes from Honolulu's Award-Winning Chef [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+pR1J7ezL.jpg)
Catching them is also ruining the ocean. Before Julia Child came out with a popular monkfish recipe they were regarded as pretty much a garbage fish. Now they became a trendy fish to eat but catching them requires basically trolling giant, heavy nets on the bottom of the ocean that completely ruin many miles of ocean floor in just one run. It's basically an ocean bulldozer to catch a few ugly fish. Read more in Bottom Feeder, it's a pretty shameful practice.
If anyone is interested in reading a history of New York City through its maritime oyster trade, I'd strongly recommend Kurlansky's The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. Putting the pun aside, it really is a fascinating portrait of oyster fishing, gustatory proclivities, and new yorker history.
This. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345476395/ Fantastic book on the subject. Oyster bars in NYC were political hangouts, business meeting places, sometime brothels. All while waiting for your ferry which you sometimes missed because you were having too much fun.
If you find this cool you should read this book...
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Oyster-History-Half-Shell/dp/0345476395
Sushi book 12.13
Sushi rolling kit 6.48
rice washing bowl 5.26
total 23.88
There are many citations on line and in book form ("The Big Oyster") showing how often the Oyster came up as incredibly common place in early American diets and primarily a working class food.
Some cookbooks that I use or are on my wishlist:
Great British Chefs also has some recipes from Michelin starred restaurants.
Mark Bittman's Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying & Cooking is pretty decent. If I can recall it does have info on frozen seafood as well
Tastes of Paradise by Wolfgang Schivelbusch is an absolutely amazing book. The author explains that spices were thought to come from an Earthly Paradise mythically tied to the Garden of Eden and the quest to find it was central to Western history. Kurlansky's The Big Oyster, a history of New York City told through its relationship with oysters is wonderful. But I'm an oyster geek.
Not scientific journals, and not exactly the same, but I really liked these two books about historic perspectives on our fisheries. Same author.
https://www.amazon.com/Cod-Biography-Fish-Changed-World/dp/0140275010
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Oyster-History-Half-Shell/dp/0345476395
Bingo!
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Big-Oyster-History-Shell/dp/0345476395
You might find this book interesting. Basically oysters are a keystone 'poverty food' for coastal cities. Very important to the history of New York for example. In DF, a coastal fort would very likely become an important food exporter to the rest of the Dwarven nation...
Also you can burn the shells to get lime! Shell armor (ala boar tusk helmet of the Mycenaean I guess) and swords (pacific islander/aztec style - ouch! http://www.tikimaster.com/category/05.21/ The shells can be crushed and used as a concrete additive - and although I'm not certain, I believe they could also be used as flux for steel making. In the game we'd run the shells through the millstone (using Masterwork as that's what I play) and we'd basically end up with a renamed bonemeal reaction. With a fishing industry running full bore, running out of flux should be a thing of the past! :D
Wild fish: Some fishing stocks are in danger of overfishing, others aren't. For example, the wild Pacific salmon population is OK but Atlantic is overfished to the verge of collapse.
Aquaculture: Yes, our practices are often better. Standard practice in some places pumps the seafood full of unnecessary antibiotics, contaminating the water, your food, and endangering the health of the workers on the fish farms.
For more about all this you should check out a book called Bottomfeeder, by Taras Grescoe. It's shocking; probably the most important book I've read in the last 10 years.
http://www.amazon.com/Bottomfeeder-Ethically-World-Vanishing-Seafood/dp/1596912251
My girlfriend is an Oyster fiend. I bought Rowan Jacbonsen's The Essential Oyster after hearing him on Gastropod.
Some oyster thoughts: Dave Chang gave me the idea of a kimchi mignonette. It's perfect.
Idk why we don't talk about wine here more. But oysters + Muscadet = heaven.
I was thoroughly unimpressed by gulf oysters (sorry /u/albino-rhino). Could've been the season I was there (January) but I found them kind of flabby and flavorless.
Many of the edible weeds in N. America are also found (or have edible counterparts) in Europe also. Things like dandelions, dock, chickweed, and amaranth are all common.
Most seaweeds around the world are edible if you are going to be on the coasts.
I'd take a look at these books from Amazon's UK site as many of the plants will also be found on the mainland too:
Self-sufficiency Foraging
Food For Free
Hedgerow
Edible Seashore
not a big thing, but it is a thing. i think it actually makes more sense than being a vegetarian, cruelty-wise.
I found this. I haven't read it but Bittman's books are often recommended for beginners over at /r/cooking.
As far as knives, I like Rappala filet knives; a 4" for small fish and a flexible 7 1/2" for larger ones.
I recently started using this cookbook I found on Amazon. It's pretty great. It's a great book for a basic guide to a pescetarian diet. It gives you a 3 week meal plan to try and has a shopping list as well.
The Pescatarian Cookbook: The Essential Kitchen Companion https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641522666/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_BhE7Cb3VZ55BN
Mark Bittman wrote a book you should check out - Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking.
One recommendation he lists is to ask the advice of the fishmongers who you're buying from. Same goes for the butchers at the stores, for meat. Don't be shy about asking them for help regarding their wares, or their opinions of what's currently good.
I have used Good Time Eatin' in Cajun Country and have enjoyed some of the ideas in it. Unfortunatley, not everything tastes as good as it could be... I honestly have used ideas from this book, but applied them to my use of the following meat-focused Cajun cookbooks: Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen and The New Orleans Cookbook. These two have great tastes for spices and I just substitute the meats with beans, tofu, tempeh, whatever suits my fancy!
I bought this set and it has served me well. The two mats are nice because I like to make both styles with rice on inside or outside so I cover one with plastic wrap and leave the other uncovered.
Another bit of unsolicited advice but I have been impressed with how my rice turns out when I follow the instructions in Sushi for Dummies. It is a nice starter book.
I don't have easy access to an asian market but I have found that between Wal-mart and the Meijer's store the next town over, I can get most of what I need. It took a while but my local wal-mart started selling sushi rice.
edit: a word
Here ya go. From page 202 of Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen. The grease on the page should give some indication of the recipe's quality.
They're probably getting fish by-product meal and/or flax seeds.
Salmon is one of those fish that suffers from over-fishing and was traditionally only a seasonal food. But at present, fish farms have a lot in common with CAFOs; see Bottomfeeder.
Side note and maybe this is just me, but texture of farmed salmon is totally different too - it's like jello interlaced with fish fat.
I was almost finished reading "The Big Oyster" by New Yorker Mark Kurlansky and wanted to get to the end before posting this.
I, along with 132 Amazon readers, rate it 4.4/5 stars. It is the history of our New York region, INCLUDING Long Island, from a unique and really interesting perspective: that of the oyster.
I saw it recommended on another Reddit thread, and being a personal history buff who prefers to read about history from angles other than just those that quote dry dates and events, found it really enjoyable, informative and fun.
The author starts with a naturalist's perspective of the whole New York harbor at the time of Henry Hudson and brings us up to the present day. There is considerable mention of the oyster beds of the north shore and the Great South Bay, of the native Americans of our area and their middens (including some middens that are still buried in Manhattan).
I found out how Peter Stuyvesant lost his leg, that the Lenape Indians believed that each star in the sky is a footprint made by a loved ones walking to heaven after death (now I look at the Milky Way differently), that the oyster filled the harbor and every entrance to LI sound and Great South Bay with massive oyster reefs & was a main source of food for the poorest of the poor, etc.
It was a treat to read about the history of our area from a completely fresh perspective. If you want to check it out, just get it from your library (or request it.) 61% of the Amazon readers rated it 5/5 stars.
The Forager Handbook by Miles Irving is very thorough in it's number of edibles, but not fantastic to carry around or for ID. I combine it with The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose. I pick a couple plants from the Forager Hand book at a time and look for them on a walk.
Another book is the River Cottage Hedgerow by John Right, in fact all three of his book are well done; Mushrooms and Edible Seashore.
While we read this so we won't have to do another heist! https://www.amazon.com/Sushi-Beginners-Guide-Aya-Imatani/dp/0982293968/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=Sushi+book&qid=1550642716&s=gateway&sr=8-4
Here it is on amazon
My #1 all-time favorite: Rima & Richard Collin's The New Orleans Cookbook. Their jambalaya is to die for.
Also a favorite: Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen.
Both books have both Creole and Cajun recipes and techniques (basically, city and country cooking) but there's a lot of crossover. It all works for me!
Food is a universal motivator. What if you had students research historical cooking? And after a week or two, you have each student bring in a recipe they've prepared from historical period/culture of their choice? And also give a presentation or write a short paper about how the food came about, or how it influence history and culture.
I've recently been trying recipes from this blog about recreating ancient Roman cuisine. Not exactly an academic source, but does cite the passages from Roman writings that inspire his exploits.
The book Salt: A World History would also be a great source, and is very easy-to-read and IMHO quite interesting. Many parts of it would make good excerpts for reading in class and introducing ideas. The same author has similar books on Cod and Oysters.
I'm no expert, I'm just stealing this idea because it's an assignment that I was given in High School, and was one of the most memorable and fun.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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I have never heard of a class but this book is incredible. History, technique and all things sushi.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000MR8TH2?pc_redir=1397679399&robot_redir=1
This isn't a primary source but a scholarly novel that is heavily cited. I'm not sure if it helps at all.
It's Eggplant Rabbit Rhode IV from Louisiana Kitchen. Basically you deep hollowed-out eggplants, and top them with a spicy cream sauce. Served with Hasselback potatoes. Source: boyfriend.
http://www.amazon.com/Chef-Paul-Prudhommes-Louisiana-Kitchen/dp/0688028470
http://www.amazon.com/Fish-Friday-Feasting-Fasting-Discovery/dp/B000MR8TH2
Here's a thought from one of my favorite chefs Daniel Patterson. Beef encrusted in lichen. His book is also awesome.
As mentioned, dirt, mushrooms, forest is sort of playing with that aroma. And there are a couple more flavor profiles for you in the video that might be fun to play with.
https://www.amazon.com/Roasting-Tin-Simple-Dish-Dinners/dp/1910931519
I’ve got that one but a new vegan/vegetarian one came out recently. In the yellow one there’s an amazing baked gnocchi recipe I use all the time but I add a lot of garlic and pesto. She also gives templates to create your own so one protein + one green + crunch + seasoning, for example, with possibilities for each category and cooking times. There are desserts as well, but they’re not really my sort of thing- basically a lot of baked fruit/brownie/flapjack. These and the Joe Wicks books honestly changed how I cook & eat!
I asked a similar question on /r/cooking a while back and got some good responses, especially some good Youtube channels - try wbpstars or Staffkitchen.
To me, inspiration is more important and difficult to find than exact recipes, which can be adapted. In my experience restaurant cookbooks remain the best answer, for better or worse. I just picked up the ones from Atelier Crenn and Coi, which are both stunning (and fantastically difficult). At a certain level of cooking you're basically looking at a bunch of recipes for individual components that are combined and formed into final dishes any number of ways.
Instagram is actually a decent source of visual inspiration as well - tons of high end chefs/restaurants maintain active accounts.
ChefSteps has some interesting modernist recipes, especially back in their early days; these days it's more accessible fare for a broader audience.
I don't have a rice cooker, but I have a pressure cooker. Still, I've tried it once in there and wasn't impressed. I prefer the old-fashioned stove top way. Sure, you have to time it, but it's great and works really well for me.
My tried and true recipe is straight out of Sushi for Dummies. I use short grain rice (I've only ever used Lundberg Sushi Rice, but any one will do), and rinse it until I am sick of rinsing. This recipe calls for a "splash of saki" and something pickled(?) to add flavor. Since I had neither of those, my tip is to take a bit of condensed stock/base (my favorite is Better Than Bouillion), and mix it up in the water. Which flavor you choose is up to you, but I prefer the vegetable base. I have a lobster base that I've been eager to try, but even with the veggie base, it always comes out delicious enough to eat on it's own, but not overpowering or outshining anything I make with it.
Coi by Daniel Patterson. One day..
http://www.amazon.com/Coi-Stories-Recipes-Daniel-Patterson/dp/0714865907
Looks like I'm late to the party, but please check out my friend's book. She basically went all over New England eating lobster rolls and wrote a book about it!
http://www.amazon.com/Lobster-Rolls-New-England-American/dp/1626194084/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418430300&sr=8-2
I ate a taco stuffed with kalbi at Alan Wong's in Honolulu in maybe 2002. The recipe is in this cookbook published in 1999.
I sold dozens of those a night. My chef du cuisine adapted the recipe from an Alan Wong recipe found in this great Hawaiian cookbook. You can make the recipe with pretty much any fish fillet that's 3/4" thick. Fresh Alaskan king can now run over $20/lb...
You should read Bottom Feeder by Taras Grescoe, it's quite interesting, if a little preachy.