John’s Note: Salty water, sizzling sun, sand between your toes and tasty seafood … some of the pleasures of beaches we dream about after we leave. Whether you eat seafood at the beach, bring your bounty home to freeze and enjoy later or buy it at your local store, seafood doesn’t have to taste the same. Put spice in your life by varying your menu and adding some fire to fish, crabs and shrimp. Your seafood will sizzle with zesty flavor with these recipes.

Volcano Flounder

Often when we serve Volcano Flounder at our home, I overeat, because I can’t quit thinking about how much I like this dish.

Ingredients:

4 small flounder
1/2-cup green onions, chopped
1/4-cup celery, diced
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons Chile peppers, chopped
1 small can shrimp, drained
1 small can lump crabmeat with liquid
1/2-cup bread crumbs
salt to taste
pepper to taste
oil
lemon juice
paprika

Preparation:

Prepare flounder by making a slit along the backbone on the dark side of the fish. Cut a pocket by sliding knife along ribs on both sides of the fish’s backbone. Mix green onions, celery, garlic, Chile peppers, shrimp, crabmeat and bread crumbs. Salt and pepper the mixture to taste. Add enough oil to moisten, and stuff 1/4 of mixture in each flounder. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Place each flounder individually in aluminum foil, slit side up. Rub skin with paprika, salt and pepper. Close foil packets. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Then open foil and brown 15 minutes longer. This dish serves four adults.

HEAT INDEX: Medium. You can raise the heat index by using chopped jalapenos in addition to or in place of the Chile peppers.

Red Hot Deviled Crab

My family loves to catch crabs off wharfs, jetties or seawalls. After dropping them into a pot of boiling-hot water containing spicy crab and shrimp boil, we eat them plain. We also enjoy all of us getting in the kitchen and making stuffed crab to freeze.

To Prepare Crab for Stuffing:

Parboil crabs in either salted water or crab boil just long enough to kill. Remove the shell by placing your right thumb on top of crab’s right swimmer (flat back leg) and the left thumb under the right tip of the crab’s shell. Press up with your left thumb and down with your right thumb to remove the shell. Discard lungs and stomach. Break body in half. Pull out each swimmer and claw separately, and pry out any remaining meat with a knife. Wash and scrub shell thoroughly and reserve. Ice the crab meat until you use it.

Ingredients for the Dish:

1 pound crab meat, preferably fresh but also frozen or canned
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
4 – 6 green onions, finely chopped
1 medium bell pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2-jalapeno, finely chopped
1/4-pound butter or margarine
1 tube saltine crackers, finely crushed
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons hot sauce
Salt
Pepper
crab liquid or water
lemon slices
1/2-cup parsley, chopped

Preparation:

Drain crab meat if canned or frozen. Save liquid. In heavy skillet over low flame, sauté vegetables in butter, cover, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until tender. Stir in crackers until they become moist and absorb the butter thoroughly. Add crab meat, and mix well. Season with Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste, but be careful not to use so much black pepper that it overpowers the taste of the crab meat. Add crab liquid or small amount of water to make mixture moist. Spoon mixture into crab shells, a casserole or ramekins. Bake in preheated over at 325 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or until bubbly. Garnish with lemon slices and parsley. This recipe serves four to six adults.

HEAT INDEX: Medium Hot.

Zesty Red Snapper

The American red snapper, which has red on the outside and delicious, lightly-flavored white meat on the inside, has become a favorite fish of many Gulf Coast vacationers.

Ingredients:

2 pounds red snapper fillets or any other kind of snapper
1 stick unsalted butter or margarine
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cups celery, chopped
1/4-cup green pepper, chopped
1 teaspoon jalapeno, finely chopped
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) tomatoes, drained
1 cup extra-hot seafood cocktail sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a saucepan, melt butter. Sauté onion, celery, green pepper and jalapeno until tender. Add tomatoes, seafood cocktail sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, chili powder, lemon, garlic and salt. Mix well, and simmer for 30 minutes. Place fish fillets in a 2-quart casserole. Pour sauce over fish. Cover with foil or lid. Bake at 450 degrees for15 to 17 minutes per inch of thickness. Baste occasionally until done. Remove fish to a heated platter. Stir sauce, and then strain sauce over fish. Garnish with chopped parsley. This meal will feed four to six adults who are hearty eaters.

HEAT INDEX: Hot.

To get John E. Phillips’ Kindle eBooks, “The Best Wild Game & Seafood Cookbook Ever: 350 Southern Recipes for Deer, Turkey, Fish, Seafood Small Game and Birds,” “Alabama’s Offshore Saltwater Fishing: A Year-Round Guide for Catching Over 15 Species of Fish,” and “Fishing Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and Visitor’s Guide,” click here.

About the Author

John Phillips, winner of the 2012 Homer Circle Fishing Award for outstanding fishing writer by the American Sportfishing Association (AMA) and the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA), the 2008 Crossbow Communicator of the year and the 2007 Legendary Communicator chosen for induction into the National Fresh Water Hall of Fame, is a freelance writer (over 6,000 magazine articles for about 100 magazines and several thousand newspaper columns published), magazine editor, photographer for print media as well as industry catalogues (over 25,000 photos published), lecturer, outdoor consultant, marketing consultant, book author and daily internet content provider with an overview of the outdoors.