Seafood

If you’re in the mood for a light but filling dish, look no further. Halibut is low in fat but delicate, sweet, and flaky, and it embraces the flavors of most anything you pair it with. I like to marinate and then roast halibut before serving it on top of a colorful, warm spring salad of peas and mint. This is my kind of food.

This is my favorite way to eat fish, with a very clean, fresh, and simple preparation. Agave is a natural sweetener from the blue agave plant in South America, and brushed on the salmon it creates a nice caramelized crust. Topped with salsa verde made of citrus zests and herbs, this dish is super-light and perfect on a hot summer day. Jade loves the grilled salmon, too!

I love the look, flavor, and textures of this delicate and pretty dish. It’s a perfect way to spotlight the flavors of spring, when fava beans are in season. Other times of the year you can substitute frozen lima beans for the favas; either way the purée is bright from the mint and satisfies your starch cravings. Just be careful not to overcook the beans, as they can turn an unattractive gray. Red snapper, with its pinkish hue, is a quite flavorful white fish that works perfectly with the fava beans. Finish it off with a drizzle of really good-quality extra-virgin olive oil.

Cooking a fish whole is the best way to ensure it will stay moist and flavorful, and the process is a lot less intimidating than it looks. Branzino is a small Mediterranean sea bass with a mild flavor and delicate texture, enhanced here with a bright, fresh stuffing of fennel and lemon. Todd says he always feels like he’s on a diet when he eats fish, so I cook it with some pancetta to hearty up the dish a bit. Do watch out for small bones when you serve the branzino.

Chimichurri is the A1 sauce of Argentina, and no self-respecting steak there would be served without a dose of this herby green sauce. But chimichurri also has a lot in common with an Italian salsa verde, which gave me the idea to pair it with the more delicate combo of chicken and shrimp. I add oregano for a deep earthiness, and crunchy bites of pancetta put it over the top; you’ll want to serve this sauce over everything from broiled fish fillets to sliced tomatoes or even crostini.

This dish has become very popular on restaurant menus, because it seems extra-special—and tricky to make at home. Special it is, but in fact it’s quite easy to pull off, as it uses frozen lobster tails—no live lobsters to boil. The key is to brown the butter well for a deep, nutty flavor.

Italy is best known for its short-grain rice dishes, like risotto, but long-grain rice is popular there as well. My grandmother Nonna Luna loved to cook rice, and her secret was toasting the grains before adding the broth and a tablespoon of hot sauce. Unlike in a risotto, the grains stay fluffy and separate, not starchy. This dish is super easy to make—the only trick is taking the full six to seven minutes needed to toast the rice grains. That step gives the dish a nutty flavor that takes it from good to great, and the shrimp make it a full meal.

These sandwiches are out-of-this-world fantastic! They’re my take on a tuna melt, complete with gooey cheddar cheese and a sweet-and-sour mayo, but with plenty of lemony tang and peppery arugula. Be sure to slather it on the bread generously before piling on the tuna steak, greens, and cheese to keep everything moist and delicious.

Liguria is a coastal region in northern Italy known for its fresh seafood and many variations of fish stew, among other things. My version uses just white fish with lots of veggies so it is lighter than many traditional fish stews. It is still sophisticated and is made with white wine, which is a perfect pairing with seafood.

The sight of a platter of jumbo shrimp at a party always makes guests happy, but the usual shrimp cocktail is served ice-cold and, in my opinion, is pretty flavorless. I think shrimp taste so much better served warm—especially with this simple and colorful dipping sauce to dunk them into. The ingredients are an interesting combination, and their unique flavors, along with the color of the turmeric, yield a creamy, tangy, and slightly sweet sauce.

When I go to a restaurant and want something light, I immediately look to the carpaccios and crudos, which often feature marinated raw fish. Smoked salmon can deliver the same light, clean flavors but without the worry of serving raw beef or fish at home. I like to arrange the salmon and apples on a platter and let guests pile them onto slices of bread themselves; the color of the salmon is simply stunning next to the green apples, which also contribute crunch and freshness.

Here’s my take on Pad Thai. There are a lot of ingredients here, but most of them keep well in your pantry, and substituting is easy—you could use finely chopped cabbage in place of the bean sprouts or substitute soy or hoisin sauce for the nam pla.

This is a technique popular in Liguria—the Italian Riviera—in which all of the clam liquid is used as part of the sauce, but without much effort. The result is delicious pasta in a little rich, thick sauce—along with a pile of clams. Use the smallest clams you can find; cockles are fine, too. Figure eight to twelve littlenecks or twenty-four cockles per person. Wash and scrub the clamshells very well, as they will cook in the sauce and any unremoved sand will find its way into your mouth. Discard any open or cracked clams before cooking; those that remain shut after cooking may be opened with a knife.

Few things are simpler than a quick tomato sauce over pasta, but as an unending diet it can become somewhat tiresome. Here it’s completely jazzed by the addition of a hefty amount of garlic and a few anchovies. The transformation is as easy as it is remarkable. Canned anchovies—packed in olive oil—are the easiest to use here. Salted anchovies, if you have them, are fine also, but you must mince them first (after cleaning them, of course, which you do under running water, stripping the meat from the skeleton).

A quick way to add great flavor to many simple dinner dishes is already sitting in your pantry or cupboard: anchovies. Anchovies are among the original convenience foods and contribute an intense shot of complex brininess that is more like Parmigiano-Reggiano than like canned tuna. Use them, along with garlic, as the base for a bold tomato sauce or combine them, as I do here, with greens, garlic, oil, and chiles for a white sauce that packs a punch.

Piquillo peppers are wood-roasted peppers from Spain, sold in cans or jars. If you cannot find them, substitute homemade roasted peppers or canned “pimientos.”

Buy snow-white cauliflower with no brown spots; use broccoli or one of the hybrids (broccoflower, romanesco broccoli, and so on) if the cauliflower does not look good. And though it is a full-flavored dish, remember that cooking will mellow the assertive flavors of the anchovies and garlic, so don’t skimp on either. This dish is just as good warm as it is hot.

Another great, simple sauce based on anchovies (there are two in the pasta chapter; see pages 263 and 271). You get acidity, astringency, and fruitiness from the wine, piquancy from the garlic and anchovy, complexity from the thyme, and a smooth finish from the butter—all in about the time it takes to preheat a grill for the steaks. You don’t need great red wine for this sauce, but it should be one with a fair amount of fruit and at least a little structure.

Properly grilled chicken is a pleasure, even when you dress it with nothing but lemon juice—or even salt. But if you make this Ligurian-inspired full-flavored dipping sauce based on anchovies, you can turn the simple grilled chicken into something really special. And the sauce can be used for whatever else you’re serving at the same time. When you’re grilling the chicken, don’t build too hot a fire and keep part of the grill cool—don’t put any fuel under it at all—so you can move the pieces over to it in the (likely) event of flare-ups. And you can broil it if you prefer: adjust the broiling rack so that it is about four to six inches from the heat source and turn the meat as it browns.

Fish breathes new life into the “sandwich” of Mexico and the Southwest, replacing mystery meat with an identifiable fillet of delicate white fish like cod to make fish tacos, a rarity on the East Coast. Instead of frying, as is common in tacquerias, I like to steam the fish in its own juices, which can be done on top of the stove or in a microwave oven (in fact, this is one of the few cooking tasks at which the microwave excels).