Shellfish

What to drink: Sparkling wine would pair well with these sweet-spicy flavors.

The unofficial national dish of Spain, paella makes a fantastic main course for entertaining. Once you've prepped the components a couple of hours ahead, the finished product comes together in about 30 minutes. Just add a green salad dressed with Sherry vinaigrette. What to drink: Chilled Spanish rosé (called rosado); Rick Rodgers likes Las Rocas de San Alejandro Rosado.

Peter Tulaney of Brooklyn, New York, writes: "Your magazine has inspired me to become a more creative cook. I've tried this recipe a few times, and the reviews have always been good. The crab cakes are best served over a bed of mixed organic greens in a light vinaigrette."

Broccolini is a hybrid of broccoli and Chinese kale. You'll need to cook and cool the rice before you begin.

The buttery sauce that coats the crabmeat and the shells is part of the pleasure of this dish; to really enjoy it, dispense with the utensils and just eat the crab with your hands. Serve with a green salad dressed with tarragon vinaigrette and plenty of crusty sourdough bread.

Anitra Earle of Yonkers, New York, writes: "I'm a perfume detective who hunts down hard-to-find and discontinued scents. One of the benefits of running my business from home is that I get to cook every day. I usually make dishes that I've relied on for years, like this linguine recipe. It takes just minutes to prepare, and as recipes go, it's practically foolproof."

The delicate, tendriled texture of frisée is essential to the slaw. Round out the lettuce mix with a selection of chicories. What to drink: Barbera d'Alba from the Piedmont region of Italy pairs well with this first course.

Editor's note: This recipe is excerpted from Eric Ripert and Michael Ruhlman's book the A Return To Cooking. To read more about Ripert, click here. This is a hugely luxurious dish, with the sweet flesh of the scallops enhanced by a sauce flavored and thickened with caviar. The dish is rich and creamy, sweet and salty. And it's very easy to make. The sauce base is clam juice, cream, and butter. The scallops are poached for just a minute or two, and caviar is added to the sauce just before serving. That is the only tricky and critical part of this dish: You must be careful to heat the sauce gently once the caviar has been added, bringing it just up to heat without letting it boil. It is, after all, an egg-thickened sauce, and you must be careful of overcooking eggs in this sauce or the caviar will turn hard and white. Treat it as the delicate product it is. Or, as Eric would put it, "Don't whisk it like an idiot. You must be extremely gentle."

Editor's note: This recipe is excerpted from Maguy Le Coze and Eric Ripert's book the Le Bernardin Cookbook. To read more about Ripert, click here. Eric: This was one of Gilbert's specialties and was always one of the most popular items on the menu. I think it closed more than one deal, and definitely led to some second dates. If you want, you can make it with langoustine or spiny lobster.

I've never quite understood the appeal of the traditional shrimp cocktail. I mean, what could be less interesting than cold boiled shrimp dipped in a lackluster mixture of ketchup and prepared horseradish? Here's a shrimp cocktail with gumption, featuring chile-rubbed, grill-seared shrimp served over a colorful, chunky salsa of avocado and sweet corn. You can chill the grilled shrimp before you serve them, but I like the contrast of hot shrimp and cool salsa.

If Chinese broccoli isn't available in your area, you can substitute regular broccoli.

Fideos, pasta nests that are often toasted in oil, are popular on the eastern coast of Spain. Here, the sauce is enhanced with a sofrito, a concentrated mixture that imparts a deep tomato flavor. The browned fideos slowly absorb the seafood-based sauce as they cook.

This recipe makes more smoked-tomato butter than you need for the scallops — use the leftover butter on steak or fish.

If you substitute regular bread crumbs for the panko, the coating will be heavier and the texture denser. In this recipe, the peas are soaked but not precooked before grinding, much like in a falafel.