Mediterranean Style Steamed Fish Medley Recipe
It may be the way I make fish, but a fish medley always makes me think of spring. Mix together different textures of steaky, white and fatty fish also means mixing different colors and tastes. Also, gather and cut all colors of the rainbow on your vegetables cutting board; a vibrant colored ratatouille of sorts. Tomatoes will provide the soft, juicy texture. Peppers, zucchini, eggplant, onion or/and leek provide the rest of the color. Add mediterranean herbs like thyme, rosemary and oregano, sea salt and pepper. Finish with a layer of deep green olive oil and serve it at your outside table, on a sunny day.
Browsing for a steamed fish recipe, I can’t help but notice the overwhelming presence of Chinese steamed fish recipes. I do love Chinese and Thai food. I am aware that food steaming comes from Asian and Middle Eastern traditions ( Couscous makers are essentially steamers). The good news is, steaming your food has actually grown trendy around the Mediterranean too! Two reasons: It’s healthier, and it tastes incredible!
I decided I would leave Asians the privilege of teaching you how to cook fish Chinese style. I’m here to provide you with my own, non-asian, steamed fish traditional recipe !
Steamed Fish Medley
It may be the way I make fish, but a fish medley always makes me think of spring. Mix together different textures of steaky, white and fatty fish, plus different colors and tastes. Also, gather and cut all colors of the rainbow on your vegetables cutting board; the result is a vibrant colored ratatouille of sorts. Tomatoes will provide the soft, juicy texture. Peppers, zucchini, eggplant, onion or/and leek provide the rest of the color. Fresh lemon juice enhances the whole ! Add mediterranean herbs like thyme, rosemary and oregano, sea salt and pepper. Finish with a layer of deep green olive oil and serve it at your outside table, on a sunny day.
Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is, just remembering it. This is one of my simplest, favorite recipes for steamed fish. and truly an easy dish to make!
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A Medley of Fish, with A rainbow of Vegetables
This is probably the best recipe to use to learn how to steam fish and enjoy it.
I usually make it with Atlantic salmon, cod, tuna and swordfish, but I made it with flounder, and I’ll happily add mahi mahi or (frozen) sardines. Sea bass is also an option if you can find it. It does not matter.
Of course, you can use whole fish but it is more practical to use fish filet to make a fish medley:
Fresh fish is ideal as the taste of your meal will be much improved.
For this dish, gathering 3-4 types of fish and 4-5 vegetables is optimal. I try to pick fresh ingredients as much as possible as it improves taste and nutrient density.
A side of grain such as whole or white rice fills the littles’ stomach, just make sure you have enough tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil to provide enough juice!
Learn why its steaming is the best , easiest way to cook fish and which tool I use. Then discover why it is important to steam
Why I think steaming is the best way to cook fish
Two main reasons to steam fish EVERY TIME: steam is gentle and makes it easier to cook fish successfully. Also, steaming cleanses your foods and preserves its nutrients.
Steaming Fish is easy
Yes, it is. Of course, fish steams for a very short or much longer time, depending on how thick the fish cut is, how fatty the fish is – fish steaks like tuna lake the longest. It also varies depending on wether you bought it fresh or frozen.
3 steps Cooking process
Essentially, it goes in three steps. But two precisions first: for one, use thoroughly thawed fish. Second, steam your vegetables and rice before cooking fish, as fish will sweat out more waste than vegetables and rice.
- First step, fill the food steamer tank with 1 qt water and turn on the stove on high heat. Once steaming abundantly, turn down to medium-high heat.
- Second, salt and steam.
- Third, take the fish out of the steam basket and dress as you would any fish you would grill or pan fry, and let sit on low heat a few minutes in a sauté pan with your side of vegetables and sauce.
You can dress it Asian style dressings, with sesame oil, fish sauce, fresh ginger, or make a dressing with what you like yourself ! I do like lemon and dill in olive oil, turmeric in coconut aminos or light soy sauce, and olive oil.
What I have in common with the Chinese: I love sliced green onion or julienned scallions sprinkled on top of the fish!
No need for Paper, foil or paper towel
In the steam cooker I use, I place the fish directly on the sieve or steamer basket so the fish is surrounded with abundant vapor and is allowed to sweat out toxines into the tank. Consequently, no need of parchment paper or piece of foil to cook it in. I do not use what the fish sweats for sauce – as I wouldn’t drink my own sweat… Sweat contains all toxines our bodies encounter daily. Therefore I prefer making sauce with water, oil, herbs or spices, and sauces.
Fish steam cooking time
It varies depending on the type of fish. In my article ” How Do I steam Fish” I provide times for different fishes. I find in the Vitaliseur, it varies from 4 minutes for delicate white fish, 8-10 minutes for tuna steaks to 11 minutes for thick, fatty fish salmon filets.
Note: thoroughly wash your steam cooker after cooking fish to avoid a fishy smell in the next food you cook!
How is it so easy? Thanks to A special French, Stainless steel Vitaliseur
If you don’t steam often, you can use a steaming basket or a steaming rack, for sure. However, keep reading this article and other articles on this website, and you may change your mind on how much you may decide to steam to make your daily meals!
You need a reliable, large steamer
I find that to cook any animal protein, it is much easier to own a good and reliable steam cooker, like the one I advocate for – the Vitaliseur de Marion. Why do I advocate for it? Because it is very efficient, cleanses your fish and preserves its nutrients by keeping the cooking temperature below boiling point. Also, it is not overpriced and will last you a lifetime.
The VItaliseur is one of these metal steamers, but not quite just any steamer. It is built with a much larger tank, and large wholes in the basket to allow for abundant vapor flow. Most notable in comparison with most, the lid of the steamer is rounded, dome shape, which allows for free, unpressured vapor flow, constant temperature, and condensation water streaming down the sides of the lid. Learn more here.
Vitaliseur is a Better alternative to less efficient steamers
You can, of course, use a traditional Chinese bamboo steamer. Or if you prefer, you can purchase a metal steamer with a flat lid: they are pretty cheap. However, in most cases, it is a smaller steamer than the Vitaliseur. You can easily cook a large fish whole like salmon in the Vitaliseur! Moreover, the condensation water will fall on your fish from the middle of the flat lid, instead of streaming along the dome lid into the tank. The vapor won’t be as abundant and efficient at cooking your fish.
Steaming baskets have a main problem, a lack of efficiency: the basket is placed in a large wok in contact with water, the holes are not large enough for the fish to sweat out toxines, the vapor is not as abundant.
If you are all in on steaming, consider a steam oven. They are high budget items and really worth it if you steam everything. For every day food, I find an oven wouldn’t be the first item I turn on, as my food steamer is so efficient. However when it is time to change my oven, I may look into it!
Why does steaming matter?
Steaming Cleanses Your Fish
Yes, steaming does cleanse your food. I am convinced of it. After decades of using my Vitaliseur every day to make my meals, and given how healthy I feel, it is a fact. To what degree it does cleanse my food is another question I could answer only if I could provide before and after food analysis. However studies on sweat found toxins including heavy metals and PFOAs in people’s sweat. By extension, we safely can imply that sweating out in a steam bath would cleanse foods. And that’s an important fact, since I can’t always afford the organic or regenerative agriculture produce.
Gentle Steaming Preserves its Nutrients
Any food processing – cutting, cooling, boiling, steaming, frying, grilling, preserving – damages nutrients. From the moment the food is pulled out of the ground, it degrades. However, some processing preserves better than others.
Boiling over 100°C ( or 212°F), especially for extended periods of time like in slow cooking, does destroy vitamins, and over time degrades trace minerals. This is where a gentle cooking method becomes interesting.
95°C or 203°F is the temperature reached in the Vitaliseur steam cooker, which is below the boiling point. Since the Vitaliseur is very efficient in its cooking speed on account of gentle steam penetrating foods easier than water – your food is exposed to heat for very little time. These two factors ensure that your nutrients are better preserved through this cooking method.
Best of all, gentle steam cooker respects the texture and fiber content of your foods, and the color, i.e. the taste profile: your food will taste better! And to even improve that, rely on quality ingredients to go with them!
Getting ready to cook the Mediterranean fish medley
For better cooking results, chose your ingredients carefully and buy in bulk!
They say Europeans know very well that the complexity and the number of ingredients is not that will make a meal delicious. What matters is the quality of your ingredients themselves: More is not better. This is why I carefully chose my herbs provider. And on that, I am happily buying bulk spices and herbs with Frontier coop. For this recipe and many others on this website, you won’t regret having bulk thyme, oregano, rosemary, pepper. For the sake of your cooking generally and for the richness of nutrients, make sure to get a good sea salt !
Get Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Our family does use a lot of olive oil because we cook almost exclusively with it. So the choice of what oil to buy will significantly depend on budget. If you buy plastic bottles, do yourself a favor and transfer it ASAP into a dark, glass bottle, to avoid plastic leeching into your oil.
Are you hungry for a very easy, very tasty fish meals with tons of color? Let’s get to today’s recipe!
Fish Medley in Mediterranean Spring Vegetables
It may be the way I make fish, but a fish medley always makes me think of spring. Mix together different textures of steaky, white and fatty fish also means mixing different colors and tastes. Also, gather and cut all colors of the rainbow on your vegetables cutting board; a vibrant colored ratatouille of sorts. Tomatoes will provide the soft, juicy texture. Peppers, zucchini, eggplant, onion or/and leek provide the rest of the color. Add mediterranean herbs like thyme, rosemary and oregano, sea salt and pepper. Finish with a layer of deep green olive oil and serve it at your outside table, on a sunny day.
Ingredients
Seasonings
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Sea salt, to taste
- 2 tsp Herbs de provence
- 2 cloves Fresh garlic
- Black pepper, to taste
- Bay leaf (best brand out there especially for bay leaves!)
Produce
- Half an eggplant, diced
- 3 tomatoes, cut in half
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- One leek, sliced ( use the whole vegetable, even the green!)
- 2 small zucchini ( larger is more bitter), sliced
- Two carrots, sliced
Fish
- One tuna steak ( from frozen or fresh)
- One large piece of Atlantic Salmon
- One piece of cod or flounder ( white fish)
- 2 sardines ( optional)
Instructions
- Start with filling the tank of your steam cooker (don't purchase without my code! make sure you go see my ingredients and tools page). Fill it with approx 2 inches of water. Turn the stove on high heat.
- While it heats, cut all the vegetables,
- Once the steam cooker is hot, steam half the vegetables - approximately 5 minutes is usually what the larger vegetables or root vegetable need, 4 minutes for the thinner vegetables like zucchini, leek.
- While the veggies are steaming, heat up a skillet on low heat. Add a bit of water, 1 1/2 tsp of sea salt. 2 cloves of crushed garlic and some extra virgin olive oil (2-3 tbsp), 1 tsp of herbs de Provence, one bay leaf. Let heat up slowly.
- Once the first steamed vegetables are cooked, transfer directly from steam basket skillet. Don't raise the heat, just mix and let them seat together. Steam the rest of the veggies, and go through the same process once the rest is steamed. Cut the tomato in the skillet, it will release the juice.
- While the veggies heat up, prep the thawed fish by salting it lightly on both sides ( salting helps sweating out the toxines). Once the steam cooker frees up, steam all the fish you can in one time ( usually tuna, cod or white fish will fit at the same time. Cod needs 4 minutes to cook - 5 at the most, but 4 is enough since it will finish in the skillet with the rest of the veggies. Tuna needs 7-8 minutes, Fatty salmon needs around 10 minutes.
- Once each fish is cooked, transfer to the skillet, cut it in big chunks and spread out across the skillet. Keep the heat on low until all fishes are in. Let it sit 5 extra minutes while calling everyone to the table. Serve with a side of rice.
- Bon appétit!
Notes
Do cook the fish directly in the steamer's steam basket: if you cook in a bowl, and keep the "juice", you also will eat the toxins it steams out! Better not do it and dress your fish after steaming. It is less commonly done, but you will not regreat it. Just make sure you undercook the fish before you transfer to dress it on the skillet so it doesn't turn out too dry.
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Learn to steam !
,On this website and on my youtube channel, you will find out how much of an advocate I am of steam cooking. My goal is to show how easy, quick and delicious it is, while being fun to adapt to your own tastebuds! Yes, steam cooking can be a gourmet or very everyday worthy type of cooking! Want to learn? Check my Youtube channel and learn How Do I Steam Eggs, Steam Your Rice!, How do I steam Vegetables?, How Do I Steam Root Vegetables?, and soon, how to steam fish! I also shared a video on how to steam a whole meal.
I hope you enjoy this, and if you do, share with your friends!
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