Sal CooksThe Fish Counter Kitchen · Sal Rizzo
Sal RizzoFishmonger · 38 years behind the counter

You bought it at Costco. Now cook it like a fishmonger.

The shrimp, the salmon, the lobster tails, the cheap white fish. 280 recipes and methods that start in the store aisle and end on your plate, with the minutes, the temperature and a less-salt line on every one.

Seven cookbooks · five printable tools

The Sal Cooks set: seven cookbooks, three add-ons, five printable tools and a recipe open on a phone
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Who I am
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My kitchen. Fish four or five nights a week, still.

Thirty-eight years on the other side of the fish counter.

I'm Sal Rizzo. I started in a family fish market back East and finished in the seafood departments of big grocery stores. Thirty-eight years of weighing shrimp and answering the same questions.

Every day somebody asked me the same things. How do I thaw this? How long does it cook? Why did my salmon go white and dry? Why is my shrimp rubbery? I'd tell them across the ice, and the next week they'd come back and say it worked.

When I started the channel, the comments asked the same questions, plus one more: Sal, do you have a cookbook? Now I do. Every recipe starts where you do, in the store aisle, and gets to the point in the first sentence. No life story before the ingredients. The weight, the minutes, the temperature, and what to do if you're watching your salt.

$37 once. No subscription. Yours forever. Access the minute you pay.

Where it goes wrong

Thirty dollars of seafood, ruined in the last two minutes.

The fish was fine when you bought it. What goes wrong happens at home: the thaw, the heat, and the minute you leave it in the pan too long.

What the bag says
Thaw.
Cook thoroughly.
Serve.

and you're on your own from there

What the counter knows
Cold water, 15 minutes.
Pat it dry.
Off the heat at a loose C.

and a recipe built around each one

Seafood is the easiest thing in the store to cook and the easiest to ruin. Shrimp goes from right to rubber in about a minute. Salmon dries out a few degrees past done. Crab legs are already cooked when you buy them, and most people boil them again for fifteen minutes. None of it is hard. Nobody ever wrote it down for you.

So every recipe in the set is laid out the same way, in the order you need it, from what to grab in the store to the minute it comes off the heat.

Line oneWhat to grabthe product and the store
Line twoWhat it costsabout, per plate
Line threeThe thawthe safe way, timed
Line fourThe prepdry, trimmed, seasoned
Line fiveThe heat°F and minutes
Line sixWhen it's donewhat to look for
Line sevenLess salton every recipe
One page from the books

The store, the price, the minutes. Then dinner.

This is how every recipe is set out. You can check every number on it: the price on the shelf, the minutes on the clock, the color of the shrimp.

The two-pound bag of frozen shrimp at the warehouse club is the best buy in the seafood aisle and the one people cook worst. Volume One is forty recipes and methods for that bag: fried, boiled, the cocktail, the boil, the skillet. Not a member? Every recipe names the other places to buy it, from Walmart and Aldi to the supermarket fish counter.

Prices are approximate and change by region and season. The book says so, and so do I.

Volume One · SkilletServes 2

Garlic Butter Shrimp in Ten Minutes

What to grabA bag of frozen raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, 21–25 count. At Costco the 2‑lb bag runs about $14. Walmart, Aldi or the supermarket freezer case work too.
10 minutes· 12 oz of the bag· about $2.60 a plate
  1. Thaw the shrimp in a colander under cold running water, 10 to 15 minutes. Pat them very dry.
  2. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a 12‑inch skillet over medium‑high until it shimmers. Shrimp in one layer, 1½ minutes.
  3. Turn them. Add 2 tbsp unsalted butter and 4 sliced garlic cloves. 1½ minutes more, until pink, opaque and curled into a loose C.
  4. Off the heat. Half a lemon and a handful of parsley. Eat.
Less saltRead the bag first: “salt” or “sodium tripolyphosphate” means it's already salted. Unsalted butter, no added salt, and the lemon does the rest.
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The rules nobody prints on the bag

Most seafood is ruined by a habit, not by a recipe.

Same shrimp, same salmon, same pan. What changes is a handful of things a fish counter does without thinking and a home kitchen was never told.

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A loose C is done. A tight O is overcooked. That one look is half of Volume One.
What most kitchens doWhat the counter doesWhy it matters
Thaw shrimp on the counter or in hot waterColander, cold running water, 10–15 minutesFaster than you think, and the outside never sits warm while the inside is still frozen.
Thaw vacuum‑packed fish in its sealed bagCut the package open firstThe label usually says so in small print. It's a food-safety rule, not a suggestion.
Cook salmon until it looks dry, “to be safe”An instant‑read thermometer in the side145°F is the safe rule. Past that, a fourteen-dollar fillet turns to chalk.
Boil crab legs for fifteen minutesSteam them 4–6 minutesKing and snow crab are sold already cooked. You are only warming them up.
Wet scallops into a crowded panPat dry, very hot pan, 1½–2 minutes a sideCrowded scallops steam gray. Dry ones in a hot pan get the golden crust.
Fry fish in a pot of oilA rack on a sheet pan at 425–450°FThe crunch comes from the coating and the rack, not from a quart of oil.
Old Bay by the spoonfulHalf the Old Bay, plus lemon and pepperMost seasoning blends are mostly salt. The flavor stays, the sodium drops.
Reheat “cooked” frozen shrimp until hotJust warm it throughIt was cooked at the plant. Cook it again and it turns to rubber.

Eight of the rules the books are built on. Every one of them works with the pan you already own.

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Butterflied, broiled about a minute per ounce, pulled at 140–145°F.
The restaurant night

The lobster tail on the steakhouse plate came out of a frozen bag.

The same kind of tail you can buy in a multipack at the warehouse club. What the restaurant has that you don't is timing, and timing fits on one page.

Volume Three is the night out at your own table: lobster tails broiled, baked, grilled and butter-poached, king and snow crab warmed the right way, scallops with a real crust, mussels in white wine, and surf and turf for two. Lobster, crab and scallops are the easiest seafood to cook and the easiest to ruin, and a ruined one costs thirty dollars.

Less salt, on every recipe

“What about those of us who have to watch our salt?”

That question shows up under my videos every week. So every one of the 280 recipes and methods ends with a line called Less salt: a plain swap, not a lecture.

Most of the sodium in a seafood dinner doesn't come from the fish. It comes from the frozen shrimp that was already treated with salt at the plant, the seasoning blend, the soy sauce and the bottled sauce. The books show you where it hides and what to use instead, so the dinner still tastes like something.

Cooking advice, not medical advice. Ask your doctor what your own daily limit is.

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Volume Two cooks salmon forty ways, from a Tuesday fillet to a whole side for company.
What you get

Seven cookbooks. 280 recipes and methods. About 619 pages.

All of it arrives at once, in PDF. Read it on your phone in the store, or print the recipe you're cooking tonight and stick it to the fridge.

The three everybody buys

Shrimp Every Way

40 recipes and methods · 87 pages

Fried, boiled, steamed, grilled and the restaurant cocktail, from a bag in your freezer. The thaw, the brine, the heat and the minute you take it off, in every recipe.

The Salmon Book

40 recipes and methods · 89 pages

Weeknight salmon, company salmon, and the salmon you smoke and cure yourself: hot-smoked on a kettle grill, gravlax and lox, instead of paying deli prices.

Lobster, Crab and Scallops

40 recipes and methods · 87 pages

Lobster tails from the frozen bag to the restaurant plate, king, snow and blue crab, scallops with a golden crust, and the clams, mussels and oysters that finish the night.

Cheaper, crispier, better seasoned

The Five-Dollar Fish Cookbook

40 recipes and methods · 88 pages

Tilapia, swai, pollock, catfish and cod, cooked so nobody guesses the price. The soak that takes out the muddy taste, the Friday fish fry, the fish taco and the plate that eats like steak.

Crispy Without the Fryer

40 recipes and methods · 87 pages

The oven, the air fryer and a dry skillet: the crunch of fried fish with a spoonful of oil. The method first, then forty recipes that use it.

Sauces, Butters and Spices

40 recipes and methods · 91 pages

What to put on fish and when to put it on. The spice shelf, the butters, tartar and cocktail sauce made better in five minutes, and a less-salt way for every one.

The rest of the table
The one that makes it dinner

Chowder, Pasta and Supper

40 recipes and methods · 90 pages

Fish isn't a dinner until something is next to it. The chowder on a cold night, linguine with clams, the pot of gumbo that feeds ten, shrimp fried rice better than takeout, and the potatoes, rice, corn and bread that turn a fillet into supper.

It ends with a week of fish dinners, so the whole set works on an ordinary Monday.

And five printable tools

Made for the fridge door and the shopping cart, not for reading.

Big type, check boxes and room to write. Print them once and keep them where you cook and where you shop.

Doneness Chart

Every fish and shellfish in the set, with the temperature and what done looks like, on one sheet.

Less-Salt Card

Where the sodium hides in a seafood dinner, and the swap for each one.

Thaw and Storage Chart

How to thaw each one safely, and how many days it keeps in the fridge and months in the freezer.

Costco Seafood Shopping List

What to grab in the warehouse seafood aisle, with room for your own prices, so you shop the list and not the samples.

Recipe Cards

The weeknight favorites on cards you can print, prop up by the stove and splash on.

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Order the cookbooks

Seven cookbooks for less than one seafood dinner out.

Pay for one book and the other six come with it, with the five printable tools on top.

What you get for $37

Volume One · Shrimp Every Way

Fried, boiled, the cocktail, the skillet. From the bag.

$12
Volume Two · The Salmon Book

Weeknight, company, smoked and cured.

$12Included
Volume Three · Lobster, Crab and Scallops

The restaurant night at home.

$14Included
Volume Four · The Five-Dollar Fish Cookbook

Cheap fish nobody guesses the price of.

$10Included
Volume Five · Crispy Without the Fryer

Oven, air fryer, dry skillet.

$10Included
Volume Six · Sauces, Butters and Spices

What to put on it, and when.

$9Included
Volume Seven · Chowder, Pasta and Supper

Everything that goes beside the fish.

$10Included
Doneness Chart

Every fish, °F and what done looks like.

$4Included
Less-Salt Card

Where the salt hides, and the swap.

$4Included
Thaw and Storage Chart

Thaw it safely, keep it right.

$4Included
Costco Seafood Shopping List

The seafood aisle, item by item.

$4Included
Recipe Cards

The weeknight favorites, by the stove.

$4Included
Total value$97
$37
Pay once · yours forever
Get the cookbooks — $37

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7day
guarantee

Seven days, my word on it.

Cook from it. Make the shrimp, the salmon, a fish fry. If it isn't what you hoped, write to [email protected] within seven days and every dollar comes back. No forms and no hard questions.

Available at checkout

Three short add‑ons, if you want them.

They're offered as a tick box on the payment page at $9.90 each. You don't need any of them to use the set.

Add-on one

The Holiday Seafood Table

The Feast of the Seven Fishes, Christmas and New Year's Eve, planned and cooked without panic: what to buy frozen in November, how much per person, and the timeline for the day.

$9.90tick box at checkout
Add-on two

Freezer to Table

For the night you forgot to thaw it. Dinners cooked straight from the frozen bag, no thawing and no planning ahead, on the table in about thirty minutes.

$9.90tick box at checkout
Add-on three

One Bag, Eight Dinners

The warehouse club sells seafood for six, and most of us cook for two. Split the big bag the day you bring it home and turn it into eight different dinners for two, with nothing thrown away.

$9.90tick box at checkout
How it works

From paying to reading Volume One, about thirty seconds.

You pay $37

Once, through a secure checkout. I never see your card number, and there's nothing to cancel afterward.

Everything opens

In your members area, right after you pay. Phone, tablet or computer, all twelve files at once.

Cook tonight

Your access also goes to your email. Print the Doneness Chart for the fridge and pick a recipe for the bag already in your freezer.

Questions

Before you order

What am I actually getting?

Twelve files, open the moment you pay: seven cookbooks in PDF, 280 recipes and methods, about 619 pages in all, and five printable tools. Nothing ships. You log in to your members area and everything is there.

Do I need a Costco membership?

No. Costco comes first because that's where most of my viewers shop, but every recipe names other places to buy the same thing: Walmart, Aldi, Sam's Club, the supermarket freezer case or the fish counter.

I have to watch my salt.

Then this set was written with you in mind. Every recipe ends with a Less salt line, and there's a printable Less-Salt Card for the fridge. It's cooking advice, not medical advice, so ask your doctor what your own limit is.

It's just the two of us.

Most of the recipes are written for two to four and say how to scale them. The add-on One Bag, Eight Dinners is built entirely around cooking the big warehouse bags for two.

Do I need an air fryer or a smoker?

No. A skillet, a sheet pan and an oven cover nearly everything. The air fryer recipes are there if you have one, and the smoked salmon is done on an ordinary kettle grill. The one thing I'd buy is a basic instant-read thermometer, about $15 to $25.

Is this the same as the videos?

No. A video is one idea at a time. The books are 280 recipes and methods with the amounts, the minutes and the temperatures, laid out so you can cook straight from the page.

I already have your Fish Counter Set.

That set is about buying fish: the counter, the label, the knife. This one is about cooking it. They sit side by side without repeating each other.

Is this a subscription?

No. One payment of $37 and it's finished. Nobody will charge your card again.

What if it's not for me?

Write to [email protected] within seven days and every dollar comes back. I won't ask you why.

The fish is already in your freezer. Now you know what to do with it.

Seven cookbooks, five printable tools, and thirty-eight years of answers from behind the counter, for less than one seafood dinner out.

Get the cookbooks — $37

$37 once · Instant access, PDF · 7-day guarantee

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