What do I have in common with top chefs Alton Brown, Rick Bayless, John Ash and Barton Seaver? (Hint: it is not cooking skill.) As of today, neither they nor I will eat or serve Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, monkfish, shark or dozens of other fish.
Thirty of the country’s most prominent chefs recently signed the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch pledge not to serve anything on the red list of fish to “Avoid.” (Fish whose numbers have dwindled to the point that if we keep eating them at the rate we have, they may disappear altogether.) This doesn’t mean we will stop eating fish altogether, we’ll just find out how to choose the most sustainable seafood with EatingWell’s Green Choices Seafood Buyer’s Guide and the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s guides before we shop.
Two of the fish on the list happen to be America’s favorites: salmon and shrimp. But there’s some good news: it’s just farmed or “Atlantic” salmon that’s verboten and imported shrimp. Wild salmon from Alaska is actually a good choice, as you will read in a great story EatingWell did. The Wild Salmon Debate looks at how farmed salmon is threatening wild salmon’s existence. And many American shrimp are OK too.
So what’s left to eat? The answer is not so simple.
- Wild salmon, particularly from Alaska, is a sustainable choice and one of the best sources for omega-3s, which keep our hearts healthy. Enjoy it in recipes like Plank-Grilled Sweet Soy Salmon (see recipe below).
- Some shrimp (preferably pink ones from Oregon) are doing fine and will be delicious in Sesame-Orange Shrimp or any of the other “Shrimp in a Snap” recipes in the current issue of EatingWell Magazine.
- Tilapia that’s farmed in the U.S. is a cheap, healthy and sustainable choice for an easy dinner of Beer-Battered Tilapia with Mango Salsa, but tilapia from China is not. Most shellfish are doing well, so you can plan to make Thai Red Curry Mussels.
Why all the fuss over fish? “Three hundred years ago, there were so many passenger pigeons in the U.S. that you literally couldn’t see the sun when they migrated and buffalo covered the great plains,” says marine biologist and MacArthur Fellow Carl Safina of the Blue Ocean Institute. “We hunted the passenger pigeons to extinction and nearly killed all the buffalo and now we are about to do the same with fish.” In fact, the number of bluefin tuna, so prized for sushi that one fish can fetch $80,000 at the Japanese fish markets, has become so depleted that the U.S. announced yesterday that it would support a total ban on trade in the fish.
Will the current chef’s ban work? I remember about 10 years ago when Rick Moonen and Seafood Watch asked us to stop eating swordfish. I loved swordfish but after hearing this and reading Carl Safina’s book Song for the Blue Ocean , I swore off it. Today, it is rebounding. In 10 years, it may even be back on the menu.
It makes sense to swear off a few fish today so our children and our oceans will have them tomorrow.
Plank-Grilled Sweet Soy Wild Salmon
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup sake or dry white wine (see Note, below)
- 1/4 cup mirin (see Note, below)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped scallions
- 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh ginger
- 4 5-ounce wild salmon fillets or steaks, 3/4-1 inch thick, skin on
- 1 small lemon, thinly sliced
Preparation
- Soak a grilling plank in water for 2 to 4 hours.
- Meanwhile, combine soy sauce, sake (or white wine), mirin, sugar, scallions and ginger in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.
- Place salmon in a shallow dish and pour the marinade over it. Place lemon slices on top. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes but no more than 2 hours, turning the fish once or twice.
- Preheat grill to medium-high.
- Place the soaked plank over direct heat on the grill and heat for 2 minutes. Move the plank so it’s over indirect heat (see Kitchen Tip, below). Remove the salmon from the marinade, place it skin-side down (if using fillets) on the hot plank and replace the lemon slices on top. Close the lid and cook until the fish is just cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes. Use the plank as the serving platter, if desired.
Makes 4 servings.
Notes & Tips
- Cedar (or other hardwood) grilling planks can be found in well-stocked supermarkets in the seafood department, near other grilling supplies, at hardware stores or from plankcooking.com. Make sure the plank is virgin, untreated wood and at least 1/4 inch thick, thicker if possible. The thicker the plank, the more expensive, but it will last longer.
- Sake is a dry rice wine generally available where wines are sold. Junmai, a special designation for sake, denotes sake brewed from rice that has been milled less than other special-designation sakes. More pure than other sakes, junmai has no distilled alcohol added. It is characterized by a well-rounded, rich flavor and body and more acidity than most sakes.
- Mirin is a sweet, low-alcohol rice wine essential in Japanese cooking. Look for it in your supermarket with the Asian ingredients.
- Kitchen tip: To cook over indirect heat on a gas grill, turn one burner off and place the plank above it. For a charcoal grill, build two small piles of coals on either side of the grill. Place the plank in the center of the grill above the area without any coals beneath it.
By Lisa Gosselin
Lisa Gosselin is editorial director for EatingWell Media Group. Her passion for food started when she was a kid, growing up in Paris, France. Lisa’s favorite thing to do when she visits someplace new is to find a local food market and try something she’s never tasted before.
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