Salmon

A terrific way to finish off the cranberry relish. Make full use of your oven — and your time — by roasting small red-skinned potatoes alongside the fish, then tossing the potatoes with butter and parsley to have as a side dish. Boil slim green beans or haricots verts to complement the main course. End the meal with slices of marble pound cake ("toasted" briefly in the oven) topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

The Ginger Fried Rice with Shiitake Mushrooms is a perfect side dish for this salmon.

If you prefer, the eggs can be fried instead of poached. Do-ahead steps make this dish very manageable — even for six. The sauce can be prepared the day before.

"As a kid, I'd accompany my mother to her job at the racetrack, where she would lead the horses out to the starting gate," writes Michael Hunter of Studio City, California. "Eventually I was helping out in the stalls, and when I got older, I became a jockey. My mother was also the person who, in a roundabout way, inspired my other passion: cooking. I'd come home from school, and she would have prepared something from a box or can. I didn't always like what was on the dinner table, so one day I asked her to buy me a cookbook. Pretty soon I was making dinner for us almost every night. Now, after seventeen years of racing horses and cooking for family and friends, I'm making the jump to professional cooking."

At Lantana's, the salmon is served with spiced banana fritters.

Not an ounce of flavor escapes this dish! The salmon is seared, trapping its rich flavor, briefly baked, and then drizzled with a thick, lightly fragranced orange ginger glaze — a balanced companion for a fish as flavorful as salmon. Salmon provides ample amounts of protein, B vitamins, vitamin A, and omega-3 oils.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This is a delicate, light-tasting soup.

In the book American Gourmet, Jane and Michael Stern describe beef Wellington as a "lardaceous dish" that is "rich beyond reason." The pastry-wrapped beef was the ultimate in dinner-party fare in the sixties. In our re-creation, salmon fillets cook in frozen puff pastry sheets, which arrived in the seventies.

Try serving this on toast points for an appetizer or a first course.

To make the nori rolls in this recipe we used a bamboo sushi mat, available at Asian markets and some specialty shops. It's possible to make the rolls using a double thickness of aluminum foil instead of a sushi mat, but using a mat makes the process much easier.

Salmon and cod also work well.

At The Painted Table in Seattle, Washinton, the fish comes with just the beet broth, but the beets themselves are delicious, too.

This simple appetizer is a clever blend of sweet, salty and tangy flavors.

Look for wild salmon fillets. You can ask the fishmonger to remove the pinbones, or remove them at home with tweezers. Serve with: Alsatian Riesling • sautéed sugar snap peas • rice pilaf with watercress and green onions • white chocolate crème brûlée

This is a nice starter for brunch or supper. It can be made a day ahead and rewarmed before serving.