How Martha Stewart Seasons Her Grilled Fish For A Simple, Delicious Dinner

Although Martha Stewart is the queen of all things entertaining, some of her best cooking and entertaining hacks  are quite simple and easy to implement for home cooks. From making pillowy soft scrambled eggs with her cappuccino machine to using a T-shirt as a cheesecloth substitute, she's clearly not afraid to be bold. Her recipe for grilled whole fish with lemon and thyme, which she promoted on her Instagram, embodies that same spirit — bold yet still sensible, using three seasoning ingredients: Oil, thyme, and lemon. 

She explains that she starts this dish with what she calls "impeccably fresh fish" and flavors it for cooking with just those simple additions. Stewart uses a grill basket for easy flipping, making it easier to turn and reposition the fish for the optimal cook. For an extra layer of flavor once the fish is cooked, she serves this dish with a sorrel-based green goddess dressing. This summery, light, fresh-tasting dish comes together in just about 20 minutes and would be excellent for a dinner party or a simple weeknight meal.

Stewart's top cooking tips cover a range of foods and cuisines, and there are many Martha Stewart seafood-oriented hacks worth trying. For one, she recommends cooking lobster in hard liquor — adding something like vodka or tequila to the cooking water — which she believes adds flavor to the meat. She also recommends not too much salt, but adding aromatics and lemons to the water for a proper shrimp boil. Surely, she has a soft spot for the citrus fruit. 

She also has a fair number of tips for preparing seafood dishes that don't just taste good, but look good as well. She prefers to serve her shrimp cocktail on a cake stand, which not only gives it an elegant appearance, but also allows guests to easily access the all-too-important cocktail sauce for dipping.