Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook! I’m glad you’re here!
Today, I’m wrapping up my experimentations with Wild Alaskan Company fish. For Christmas, Mr. Stone Soup’s parents generously gifted us with a big box of Wild Alaskan’s fish and I’ve been having all kinds of fun cooking it up and sharing my thoughts over the last few days.
I have what’s known as a “super-sniffer.” I know I could have worked in the perfume industry–I can identify a fragrance at 50 paces. Unfortunately, Mr. Stone Soup is so wildly allergic to perfumes that I would have had a very short and probably very bitter career, so… Anyway–I bring this up because I really do love seafood, but the single thing that will turn me right off from a piece of fish is that “fishy” smell–and I can smell it from a mile away. I can tell as soon as I walk into a grocery store if the fish is fresh and if it’s not, I generally walk right out. I figure it speaks volumes to the freshness of the rest of the items in the store.
I’m happy to report that we have tried three of the four varieties of fish we received, and none of them had any smell at all–a VERY good sign for fish. Furthermore, while the texture with frozen fish can sometimes be mushy, Wild Alaskan Company’s fish was tender, flakey and flavorful. Honestly, if I didn’t know that it was frozen, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Yesterday, I shared my recipe for salmon en croute:
Wednesday, I shared halibut in parchment:
And Tuesday, I shared seared salmon:
Today, I’m sharing cod in parchment paper:
Overall, I’ve been very impressed with the Wild Alaskan Company’s fish. The only issue I’ve had has been with cooking times, but I chalk that up to pilot error, not Wild Alaskan error. The salmon filets are about 3/4″ thick and when I seared them, I managed to overcook them. I seared them in cast iron for only about two minutes per side, and it was still overdone, so just be vigilant in your cooking times, and you should be able to get a great cook on these filets.
The only other thing to note is that the filets may not be uniform in thickness. Last night, I pulled out the cod filets and here is what I found:
Looks like one piece was from the tail section and one was center cut, which is not a problem. They were both six ounces, but the center cut piece was about 1 3/4″ thick and the tail section was only about an inch, and therefore required very different cook times. I cooked the thicker of the two filets for about three minutes longer and they both came out just fine.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the week of Wild Alaskan fish. Please join me next week when I’ll be sharing a decadent dinner for Mardi Gras and more meditations on Lent.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
