This is a convenient and quick dinner method that Jean and I invented together shortly after marrying each other and moving into our home south of Rochester NY in mid October 2003. I soon began looking for an easy way to prepare a frozen fish entree for the two of us. This article of my WWW site shows what I developed from this urge. Here is a typical evening steamed swordfish steak main course as prepared from a frozen start in about 20 minutes (with no prior preparation) using our microwave steaming method:

How did we develop this way of preparing our frequent swordfish main dishes for our home cooked dinners? Read on – and realize that the same method works as well for frozen salmon, too... We've tried this method once or twice with other species of frozen fish, but the best all around results have been with either swordfish or salmon.

At about the time Jean and I married each other we procured our first memberships in our local B-J's Wholesale Club for purchasing stuff for our personal use. Stuff ranges from paper towels and other paper products to cases of Poland Spring bottled water to laundry detergent, to orange juice, to milk and eggs, to occasional racks of lamb chops to bulk food supplies and some over the counter medicines. Purchased stuff at B-J's regularly includes filling up our automobiles with gasoline, after which we often purchase one or two items in their actual warehouse style store.

Shortly after we started using B-J's Wholesale Club as a site to purchase our “stuff” needs we discovered that consistently in their frozen food cases are plastic retail bags of Peterson's brand frozen frozen swordfish steaks as well as retail boxes of Aqua Farms brand frozen - Atlantic Salmon steaks. Shortly thereafter, we purchased our first frozen swordfish and frozen salmon for the experiments that led to this method.

The typical retail plastic pouch of swordfish steaks or retail cardboard box of salmon steaks as purchased contains several individually sealed plastic bags with frozen pieces of swordfish or salmon.

Here is what such inner bagged frozen swordfish steaks look like when removed from a Peterson's frozen sword fish pouch as purchased:

Each piece of frozen swordfish or salmon as purchased weighs 5 to 8 ounces, a good portion for either of us at our typical home prepared meals...

I am writing this account a couple of years after we started using its method. We have not substantially changed the method from the first time we tried it... One retail plastic pouch of swordfish as purchased contains enough frozen swordfish steaks for 2½ dinners for the two of us; each retail box of salmon as purchased contains 32 oz (907g) of pure boneless salmon fillet in pieces that are individually wrapped and according to the package average 5.5 oz in weight. On the rare occasions when we have more than two people to serve for dinner, we can scale up the method appropriately.

While this essay is about preparing the meals from the frozen fish, it is not intended to be about details of the cost of the fish and other ingredients. But in rough “back of the envelope style” food engineering calculations, meals done this way are far less costly (and probably a whole lot healthier than) restaurant meals.

We typically use our gas stove top burner to fry and scramble eggs in a pan for breakfast weekday mornings. We also use the gas burner to boil water in our teapot for our evening liters of fresh brewed tea. I use the gas burner to occasionally make Norwegian style “Krum Kaker” cookies with a “Krum Kaker iron” griddle that my mother handed down to me in the 1990's. My mother also gave me the recipe for Krum Kaker that my Iowa-born father's Norwegian mother taught her in the late 1940's...

For cooking almost everything else Jean and I use a pair of identical Sharp Carousel 1200W microwave ovens. Our Sharp Carousel microwave ovens have the characteristic Sharp turntable, a carousel that constantly turns the food in the microwave radiation field to guarantee even heating while cooking. (See Every Modern Kitchen Needs Two Microwave Ovens )

Here is how to cook frozen swordfish or salmon steak in well under a half hour process. I started this essay by scribbling notes on a small lined yellow note pad as I prepared our evening meal one night in early October 2007. While I was preparing the salmon in one of our microwave ovens, Jean was cooking the potatoes and vegetables from frozen retail packages serially (4 to 5 minutes per item) in the other microwave.

I have to put in a word or two about the essential microwaveable fish cooking utensil: a CorningWare “French White” baking dish that measures about 11” long by about 8-3/4” wide by 3” deep, with a glass cover that adds maybe an inch or so to its height. I've had mine for years before Jean and I married.

Such is the magic of modern marketing that readers can find a set of these baking dishes at any discount store or kitchen cooking utensils store locally and immediately. With a few days of shipping delay, one can also order these dishes from a WWW vendor found by searching (AKA googling) on the text of the name.

Whatever the acquisition history of your particular dishes the Corning Ware kitchen baking dish set proves to provide the key utensil for many of our quick evening microwave meal preparations. These fine dishes in several sizes were at hand when we needed them for our frozen fish steaming use as described here.

I captured and processed two images of this key microwave or normal oven baking dish and cover. The first image I captured for this essay using my Canon EOS-330D camera shows this dish and its cover. The two objects are the Pyrex glass top and the ceramic dish itself sitting on the white Corian surface of our kitchen's island. The long direction of both pieces (from top to bottom in the image) measures approximately 11”. The short dimension is approximately 8¾”.

Since the top of the dish weighs almost exactly two pounds (914g) when it is placed on the dish gravity keeps a loose but effective seal when this dish is used in a microwave to steam food...

This size of Corning Ware Baking Dish works well for two portions. It will usually be big enough for three full-size portions, but may be too small to fit enough frozen fish for four or more people. It may be close to the largest such dish that will rotate in the microwave and not hang up by bumping into a side.

The principle of cooking used in this meal preparation technique is thawing and steaming the entire fish entree pieces in the microwave oven.

First, measure a volume of 7½ to 8 ounces (220 -250 milliliters) of water. Pour the water into the open baking dish. This provides the basic ingredient for steaming anything... including frozen fish of any variety.

Second, once the water is in the baking dish, use a conventional “soup spoon” size spoon to add 4 heaping spoon-fulls of dried McCormack Parsley flakes on top of the water. (We purchase jars of these dried parsley flakes at B-J's as well, but I suppose fresh parsley in the same volume would work but be less reliably available year round...)

Third, use a small “baby” teaspoon to measure 3 heaping “baby spoonfuls” of Paul Prudhomme “Seafood Magic” spice on top of the parsley flakes and water already in the baking dish if cooking swordfish; if cooking salmon with this method use 3 heaping “baby spoonfuls” of Paul Prudhomme “Salmon Magic” spice from a purchased container. (Or, use the similar spice that comes package in an envelope in the Aqua-Farms box of salmon until each box's envelope is used up.) These “baby” teaspoons are about half a normal size teaspoon in size. The key requirement is this: unlike an ordinary teaspoons, as “baby” cutlery they are small enough to fit into the narrow but tall cylindrical jars in which the Paul Prudhomme spices are packaged so that spice can be measured with no trouble. Any small measuring spoon would do as well – if it fits. Adjust the number of spoonfuls to taste in successive preparations...

Fourth, after water, parsley flakes and spices are in the Corning Ware baking dish, place it on a horizontal surface (table top, kitchen counter, etc.) Then in a controlled manner slide and rotate it back and forth on the surface (without lifting it off the surface) to mix parsley and spices with the water. Try to move the dish vigorously but be sure to never lift it off the surface. Be careful to avoid shaking it so vigorously as to cause waves that slosh ingredients out of the dish!

I prefer this method to using a spoon or spatula to mix ingredients because said spoon or spatula tends to get covered with wet parsley flakes and spice. Using an a hand-held or stationary counter top electric mixer for this purpose would be like swatting a fly with a mechanical back hoe – overkill to say the least beside the mess of cleaning up the beaters and mixing bowl afterwards!

The Fifth and Final Preliminary Step: When the ingredients are thus mixed, take two (for two people) frozen swordfish steaks or frozen salmon steaks out of the freezer. Remove them from their inner plastic packages using a pair of kitchen scissors. Then place the steaks at each end of the long direction of the baking dish, with roughly equal space separating them from each other and the vertical sides of the dish. When scaling the method up or down, used a bigger or smaller baking dish as appropriate. If you use a bigger dish, make sure that it will rotate freely in the microwave oven on the turntable.

The ultimate step prior to steaming is to place the cover in its place on top of the baking dish then place this dish in its microwave oven.

I have grown accustomed to using two identical microwaves and heat or cook two items at the same time when preparing meals. Having two gives one flexibility which saves time. Of course this is a post hoc argument. I have had two identical microwaves at hand for many years now.

Every Modern Kitchen Needs Two Microwave Ovens

Having used microwaves for cooking meals for some time I know well the inconvenience waiting for the microwave to serially cook several dishes per meal when you have two or three things on your chosen menu. Sometime in the 1980's I took advantage of the advancing state of technology and purchased my first pair of identical Sharp Carousel microwaves for my former price of just one in order to improve diner preparation whether for one or two people or more.

When Jean and I married in November 2003 I moved my residence to our Rochester NY area home. The two microwaves came with me. Of course, shortly thereafter in mid 2004, one of my pair of Sharp Carousels slagged itself for some reason, perhaps a malfunction induced by the jostling of moving my household “stuff” 300+ miles west of my former home.

Thus in 2004, Jean and I purchased another pair of that year's Sharp Carousel model 1200W microwave ovens, at an even better unit price, and simply discarded the broken one while keeping the still working member of the prior pair as a now unused spare in storage in the basement.

These days, with our two identical microwaves in the kitchen, while I am proceeding with the 15 minute fish (or other) entree cooking process in one of our microwave ovens, Jean can be executing the two ~5 minute cycles in the other microwave oven required to prepare the veggie and starch component of our meals while we are both also relaxing and watching the evening news broadcasts on the kitchen television. At breakfast we can be heating our two cups of refrigerator saved coffee simultaneously in the two microwave ovens. After dinner, Jean can be heating up hot fudge sauce in one microwave while I am softening a half gallon container of Haagen Daz Vanilla ice cream from the freezer in the other. Two identical microwaves are definitely better than just one!

After placing the covered baking dish on the turntable in the center of one of our Sharp Carousel Microwave ovens, cooking commences. (Pay attention to the universal caveat for recipe and cooking instructions: different microwave ovens will behave differently for the same ingredients so timing advice is only good to within ten percent or so. The times I show work well with either of our identical Sharp Carousel 1200W 2.45GHz microwave ovens. )

I thaw and steam our frozen swordfish or salmon steaks to perfection in 3 phases taking a total of 15 minutes once I have completed the preparations in perhaps 5 minutes. While these three phases are in process, Jean uses our other microwave oven on the opposite side of the kitchen to prepare the vegetable part of dinner and the potatoes or rice pilaf side dish that make up a balanced evening meal, as seen in A Swordfish meal for two.

Phase 1: Place the covered baking dish with the frozen swordfish or salmon steaks, parsley, spices and water in one microwave oven. Enter a cook time of 5 minutes and press the start button to begin steaming and thawing the fish in the microwave oven at full power. While Phase 1 is cooking, set a kitchen countdown timer to 5 minutes to time Phase 2. When the microwave finishes its cooking cycle, go on to:

Phase 2: Start the 5 minute kitchen countdown timer to let the swordfish steaks absorb and distribute internally the heat generated in Phase 1... While the timer is counting down, enter a cook time of 5 minutes in the microwave oven for Phase 3. When the timer rings, go on to the next phase.

Phase 3: Press the start button again for 5 minutes on full power to complete steaming the fish in the microwave oven.

When the cooking is completed, using pot holders or oven mittens, remove the very hot baking dish from the microwave oven, place it on a ceramic hot plate / trivet on a horizontal surface. Then with the pot holders/oven mittens, remove the cover. After cooking the two swordfish steaks look like this:

Then I use a spatula to serve each steak as a single entree portion on one of the evening's dinner plates that Jean has prepared with our other dinner elements. I spoon some of the ample parsley flakes and a little bit of the liquid in the baking dish over the swordfish steaks as well as the rice or potato of the dinner when served on the dinner plate with the vegetables..

I personally take my own portion of the rice pilaf or mashed potatoes in a small Corelle 6” bowl so that I can put the rest of the fish liquid soaked parsley flakes and some of the fish liquid on top as a sort of gravy.

The end result comes out as captured in A Swordfish meal for two. When prepared in this fashion, the swordfish is cooked quite moist and tender. We have been using this technique for frozenswordfish and (and frozen salmon) for several years now. It has to be one of the quickest and easiest dinners to prepare among the dozen or so alternatives we regularly use.