At the fishmonger, choose fish with bright scales and clear eyes.
— Tom Douglas
Another way I like to barbecue king salmon is as a whole fish stuffed, literally to the gills, with sweet onions, sliced lemons, and summer sage.
Sweet Washington cherries and Walla Walla onions are two of my favorite local treats.
Steaming is a great way to cook any firm fleshed fish, but it's often overlooked by the home cook.
Farm to table is a personal choice.
Over the years I've tweaked my stuffing recipe many times, adding a variety of ingredients like sauteed wild mushrooms, dried cherries, fresh chevre, toasted hazelnuts, chopped ham hock meat, and other taste treats.
In the restaurant business, there's the concept of pivot. Pivot to the stove, pivot to the refrigerator.
I'll never understand those greasy little deep-fried wings most bars serve.
While it's typical to find steamed clam recipes which include a bit of bacon or sausage, you might not think of adding shredded ham hock, but it's another way to pair the lusty, smoky flavor of animal fat with the briny ocean flavor of shellfish.
After being cooked, ling cod tends to bleed out some moisture, so, before serving, let it rest a few moments on a plate. Once the moisture has been released, you can carefully pick up the fillet with a slotted spatula and transfer it to another plate for saucing. This way, you won't sog out your beautiful sauce.
The classic Italian green sauce, salsa verde, is easy to make and especially nice in the spring when bunches of fresh herbs start appearing in the farmers market or in your garden.
In my 'Big Dinners' cookbook, I recreated my mother's recipe for crab dip. The creamy dressing for this dip, made with mayonnaise, tomato paste, a touch of honey, sliced chives, lemon juice and zest, horseradish and Tabasco, is reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing.
Most of America doesn't pay dishwashers $10.
My longtime friend Steven Steinbock, who has worked with me for more than thirty years, is a master at panfrying fish and seafood.
Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.
Albacore tuna has a mild flavor that's delicious served raw or seared briefly on the outside so that it's still rare on the inside.
To shuck oysters, you'll need an oyster knife, a handy tool with a sturdy handle and a short, rigid blade which you can pick up for about ten bucks in a kitchenware shop or fish market. A quick trip online will yield any number of videos and slide shows with step-by-step instructions on how to shuck an oyster.
Coho or silver salmon are very common and easy to get for a good price.
Around the time I opened my second restaurant, Etta's, I had just finished judging at the Jack Daniels World Invitational BBQ Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Back home in Seattle, my goal was to recreate the sweet and smoky taste of that BBQ using our local wild king salmon instead of pig.
Spooning a seasonal fruit relish onto a plate of grilled king salmon is very much my style - flavorful, straightforward, and unfussy. I also like the way fresh, ripe fruit balances the richness of the salmon.
If you want something beautiful to put on the dinner table, pick up a sockeye, the salmon species with the most vivid red flesh.
Cooking with your kids is a remarkable exercise to let them in on the purchasing part of the process - kids love to shop, and its great to take them to these ethnic places where people don't always speak the language.
When I wrote my cookbook, 'I Love Crab Cakes,' I asked some of my best chef buddies to contribute recipes.
If you're going to start a fire, why cook just one chicken?
Every chef has his treats. By that, I mean bits and pieces from things you're working on - crusty little cake trimmings, ends from a brisket, collars from a salmon, scraps. But they're snacks to me, and I eat them right off the cutting board - maybe too much.
Spanish chorizo is a spicy cured sausage that's especially tasty with clams.
Ling cod is a mild-flavored and somewhat delicate fish that takes well to poaching, braising and pan-roasting.
My favorite way to cook trout is whole, bone-in, on the grill. The fish are stuffed with sliced lemons and herb sprigs, brushed with oil, and cooked over fairly hot coals until the skin is crisp and the flesh is moist and flaky. Go ahead and gild the lily by adding a sauce.
Sweet, delicious Dungeness crab is always a treat.
Maybe there are too many restaurants. Maybe some of mine need to close. So be it. I'll live with the market place.
Razor clams are large, oblong clams, although not as big as geoducks.
A chunk of seared albacore tuna, salted and peppered, then seared rare in a little oil in a hot skillet for just a minute or so per side, is the perfect addition to a savory plate of fried rice. Just slice the tuna across the grain and fan those mild, meaty slices over the top of the rice.
My own favorite way to cook and eat razor clams is to simply dredge them in a mix of seasoned flour and cornmeal, then pan fry them in butter until crisp and golden. Be careful not to overcook them so they stay tender, not tough and chewy.
Oysters, such as Dabobs, Quilcenes, Westcotts, and Willapas, to name just a few, are often named after the place they are harvested.
For a group of friends or a family dinner, fish tacos are popular and fun to make.
The flesh of king salmon, which varies in color from white to pink to red, has a high fat content, making it perfect for grilling.
Summer in Seattle allows me to indulge in some of the region's top culinary delights - I'm talking about wild king salmon and fresh, ripe Washington stone fruits and berries like cherries, peaches, plums, and blueberries.
I don't ever preach to people.
I don't know too many kids who ask to weed the garden.
The lakes in Washington State give us tons of crawfish.
In some cities, McDonald's rules, but Seattle is ruled by teriyaki joints.
I particularly like to make crunchy slices of garlic bread to serve with steamed clams.
Tender and sweet, Manila clams partner well with a wide variety of foods - white wine, sake, beer, butter, leeks, fresh herbs, roasted peppers, olives, and wild mushrooms, to name a few.
Salsa verde is delicious with trout or most any fish.
Who doesn't love digging into a plate of crab cakes or going after a chilled cracked crab with crab cracker, cocktail fork and a plastic bib for protection?
The state of Washington calls tips 'wages.'
My wife and I decided to try and kick start our kitchens to a $15 minimum wage for cooks. I've probably had to go through and raise every menu price now by 50 cents because it took away my profit. I just underestimated what it was going to cost.
I'm not exactly the best capitalist ever.
One of my favorite ways to eat albacore is tuna poke.
It's important that your shucked oyster is clean and pristine.
