Robin originally sent this article to me. But since, I have subscribed to the forum – there is a hot link in the sidebar to this site. All of this information came from The Daily Meal web site. Here is the article on,

A Chef’s Secrets for Cooking Fish
Scottish chef Michael Smith shares an easy way to avoid overcooking fish ever again

May 10, 2011 @ 4:17 PM
Posted by Yasmin Fahr, Editor
It’s not often that you walk around Chelsea Market with a man wearing a skirt — especially one who is a celebrity. A Scottish celebrity chef that is. I recently had the pleasure of perusing the seafood selection at the Lobster Place with chef Michael Smith from The Three Chimneys on Scotland’s Isle of Skye to learn about local cookery and how to avoid overcooking fish.

Chef Smith comes from a distant and seemingly magical land that has preserved nature’s beauty and takes advantage of it. For instance, chef eats the wild oysters growing outside of his house because there is little pollution in the water, and his cooks dive for wild scallops during their lunch break right outside the restaurant. He told us about a minor revolution in his kitchen — when one chef went diving in his wet suit, the rest quickly followed to buy their own suits and catch their share of wild scallops and sea urchin. All the chefs also have fishing rods for hauling in the local catch like mackerel, lythe, pollack (member of the cod family), salmon, brown trout, and rainbow trout.

To read the rest of the article, click here – Chef’s Secret Cooking Fish

There are some really great thoughts and ideas in this article. It is a must read. And probably the most common complaint about cooking fish is that is is dry and over cooked. Here is a Chef’s comment on preventing this,

Chef Smith says to make sure that the fish is at room temperature, not warm, but not straight from the refrigerator. You don’t want to overcook the fish, so if the center is cold, then it won’t cook evenly. With room-temperature fish, get a pan really hot, add a little butter/oil and salt and put the fish in it. Sear it quickly on one side so it gets a little crust then immediately remove from the heat, flip the fish over, leaving it in the pan.
The heat from the pan will permeate through to cook the fish from the bottom up, while the side that was initially on the heat will also continue to cook the fish from the top down — this way you will never have to worry about overcooking it.

Enjoy your seafood this summer! Follow these directions and you should end up with The Perfect Dinner and not The Perfect Storm. See how you can expand this lesson to include grilling the fish. Same principles apply. Cheers and Goot Essen!