The Bright Zest Your Seafood Has Been Missing

With how well they go together, seafood and citrus might as well be one of the great culinary duos, akin to peanut butter and jelly or salt and pepper. A few orange slices on salmon, freshly squeezed lime juice on shrimp, or lemon zest with lobster are all incredible, but those aren't the only citruses that deserve a spot on seafood. Grapefruit is already a tremendously underrated fruit and it's exactly what your seafood needs.

Grapefruits are definitely one of the most mouth-puckering fruits around. They take tartness to the extreme and finish things off with a bitter aftertaste. Yet, that's nothing that seafood can't handle. The cuisine is already naturally sweet, tempering grapefruit's bitterness while prolonging that honeyed flavor you get when you take the first bite. The grapefruit elevates seafood with zing that makes each bite more enticing than the next.

You can add a splash of the juice when steaming shellfish or add slices of it to seafood when cooking it in the oven, similarly to how we prepared roasted red snapper with citrus and pistachios. One of our favorite ways to use grapefruit, though, is the zest. Opting for it over the juice gives you a little more control over how much flavor you want to impart since the citrus does possess a dominating flavor. It's easy to sprinkle the zest onto scallops you're sautéing, whisk it into a marinade for tilapia, or use it as a finishing touch for seafood pasta.

It's easy to hone in on the more challenging parts of grapefruit's taste, but you can avoid this by pairing it with complementary ingredients. In this citrusy fish tacos with grapefruit salsa recipe, the grapefruit is paired with other bright items like mint and bell pepper to distract from the bitterness and elevate the zestier parts. This translates easily into a marinade for milder fish like halibut or cod. Add the grapefruit zest, minced mint, and paprika to a mix of avocado oil and Greek yogurt for a creamy marinade for the fish. For a grounding element, include some cumin or nutmeg.

Any warm, fiery spice makes a natural pair with grapefruit. The bitterness finds its home in the earthier nuances while the electrifying flavor wakes up the headiness of the spices. To get a taste of this, sprinkle some grapefruit zest onto a baked salmon with a ginger-rhubarb sauce. The spicy ginger meets its match with a citrus that's equally as bold. The grapefruit also lifts up the additional warmth that comes from the cloves and bay leaves the rhubarb is cooked with. If all you want is to get a taste of grapefruit's more refreshing aspects, though, it can be paired with a few herbs. Make a simple seafood boil with clams and mussels using a crisp white wine, thyme, white onions, garlic, marjoram, and grapefruit zest.