Simple and Healthy Fish Recipes for the Single Person

Do you remember how when you were a kid, your mother told you to eat up your fish because it was brain food? Fish is one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and there are no end of wonderful things to say for it - it cooks very quickly, it's easy to digest, and the nutrients it can give you are just miraculous. But there are lots of people who stay clear of bringing fish into the kitchen; no matter how hard they try, they feel fish either turns into a strip of cardboard or into a formless mess. But it doesn't have to be this way though. With the right kind of handholding, almost anyone can learn to flip, poach, saut, braise or grill a great fish. Let's look at two great healthy fish recipes, and start from scratch.

From scratch would mean doing everything from buying great fish, to cleaning them and finally to cooking and eating them. The best fish that you can buy is usually something you'll find in a Japanese or Chinese market in your town. The Japanese markets especially have punishingly high standards for the fish they sell; if your city has a Chinatown, they'll usually have lots of stalls with live fish fillets; try to establish a relationship with your fishmonger to try to understand which picks should suit your recipe best.

So now that we have the preliminaries over with, let's start with our healthy fish recipes. Our first one is the Honey-soy broiled salmon. It something that you can usually make in about 20 minutes. You could eat it by itself as a healthy snack, or you could make a meal of it serving it with brown rice and red peppers that you could saut. It makes for a side dish that's sweet and tangy at the same time; the sesame seeds you toast to garnish it with in the end, accent the whole meal with a kind of nutty flavor.

Pick up couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, a minced scallion, a teaspoon of minced fresh minced ginger, and a tablespoon of honey; you'll need a medium-sized bowl to place all of this in; whisk briskly until all the honey mixes inwell. The fish you'll use in this recipe will be four pieces of skinned and center-cut salmon fillet, all amounting to one pound. Cover the salmon in 4 tablespoons of the sauce you just made, place the pieces in a plastic bag, and let the sauce soak in for about 20 minutes.

Prepare a baking pan, lining it with foil, and spreading out a bit of cooking spray. Take out the salmon from the fridge, and place the pieces on the cooking pan with the skinless parts facing down. You'll need to broil them on a high flame for about 10 minutes. Make sure that the pan is about 5 inches off the flame though. Check to make sure that it's done, sprinkle on the remaining sauce you have, and garnish with sesame. Healthy fish recipes like this will fulfill your daily quota of Omega-3's, and you'll get practically all the protein and potassium you need.

Up next is the Orata All' Acqua Pazza; it's an impressive and strong-tasting recipe, and you can use it with bass, grouper or snapper. The typical ingredients we'll need will be as follows: a cup of water, a 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil, a 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley, a pound of diced tomatoes, 2 pounds of the fish you choose, whole, two cloves of garlic and red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. You need to start out by preheating the oven to about 350F. Prepare an ovenproof roasting pan by pouring in half of the olive oil you set out, and throw in the garlic and a teaspoon of the red pepper flakes. Saut these for as long as it takes to brown them; add in the tomatoes and saute them as well.

Shake a little sea salt and black pepper on the fish, and place it in the oven pan with the mixture you just cooked. Pour in the water you set out, and bake for 25 minutes. You'll know that it's done when you stick a thermometer in the center of the fish, and it reads 140F. You'll need to cook the sauce now with the flame turned all the way up until you've reduced it to about just a cup. Add in the parsley and the olive oil and you are done. A little salt and pepper should be appropriate, you can fillet the fish, add on the remaining sauce, and serve right away. It should make a great dinner for four, and bring you some well-deserved appreciation.