Taste & sea: Local chef offers seafood cooking demonstration

Free lecture continues 8th annual Sea Grant/Cooperative Extension series on August 22

NARRAGANSETT­-Join Chef Normand Leclair at a free cooking demonstration featuring locally available seafood at the Westerly Public Library at 6 p.m. on August 22.

Leclair will prepare "Salmon with Green Lentils" and "Haddock with Summer Tomatoes" from his book, Culinary Expressions, and share the results with the audience.
           
Leclair’s first tip for successfully preparing seafood is to be sure it is really fresh. “Good, fresh fish, if it has any odor at all, smells like the ocean,” he says.
           
He promises to tackle challenges people face when cooking salmon: taking the skin off, which Leclair assures is easy, and the fear of undercooking it. “The big problem with salmon is that people overcook it. Properly cooked salmon should be pink inside,” he says.
           
Haddock, Leclair says, used to be overfished, but is coming back around. “Haddock was the mainstay in New England” when he opened his restaurant, he says, and this preparation will pair the fish with flavorful native tomatoes in season in August.
           
The dishes, with accompaniments, will give the audience a generous taste of fish that are both healthy to eat and sustainably harvested.
           
Culinary Expressions, which includes recipes for chicken, soups, appetizers, side dishes and desserts, as well as seafood entrees, will be available at the demonstration or may be ordered on-line at www.culinaryexpressionscookbook.com. Leclair says he wrote the book with the average home cook in mind who has only half an hour to put dinner on the table. The book is peppered with stories from his days as owner of the former Red Rooster Tavern in North Kingstown.

The lecture is free, but seating is limited, so reserve your place by calling Rhode Island Sea Grant Communications at (401) 874-6842. The library is located at 44 Broad Street, Westerly, next to Wilcox Park. Sponsored by Sea Grant, the URI Cooperative Extension/Nutrition and Food Sciences Department, and the Westerly Public Library.

For information about the other talks in this year’s Summer Community Lecture Series, “Living With a Changing Marine Environment,” visit seagrant.gso.uri.edu/news.

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