Shellfish

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

These homemade sushi rolls are filled with avocado and crab.

Chinese bean thread noodles (also called cellophane noodles) are often used in Moroccan dishes, like this starter. Their use stems from the influence of a small Vietnamese community in North Africa.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 35 min We recommend you use only fresh local corn when making this soup. The supersweet corn on the cob sold in plastic-wrapped packages in supermarkets yields an unpleasantly sweet soup. To make this soup vegetarian, simply omit the king crab.

Serve crusty bread and a chilled Pinot Grigio throughout the meal. Beer would be fun, too.

We've called for live lobsters in this recipe, but, to save time, you could use 1 pound (about 3 cups) cooked lobster meat from your fish market.

This recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cooked beet. Wrap a fresh beet tightly in foil and put it in the oven with the almond cake if you're making this whole menu (if you're not, simply roast the beet in a 325°F oven for 1 hour). You could use canned beets instead, but fresh beets have far more vibrant color and flavor.

Ajo Blanco Malagueño This gazpacho from Málaga gets its pure white color and creamy consistency from blanched almonds. Sweet green grapes are the essential counterpoint to the tang of garlic and vinegar. The addition of shrimp comes from chef Bartolomé Rodrigo Lucena.

The butter is also delicious over scallops. Serve the dish with steamed rice.

Inspired by New Orleans's barbecue shrimp, our recipe substitutes chipotle chiles for the traditional cayenne and black pepper. Though this dish is often served as a first course in restaurants, our version is intended as a main course. Use the bread for scooping up the sauce. You could add a green salad or, better yet, stick with the out-of-hand theme and serve it with corn on the cob.

This elegant first course from American Seasons is topped with parsley oil, which is easy to make and could also be drizzled over roasted fish or steamed potatoes, and other vegetables.

Instead of Panela, other soft white Mexican cheeses — such as Oaxaca, or those used for making quesadillas — work well in this recipe. If none is available, substitute Monterey Jack cheese. The stuffed chilies can be assembled one day before baking. What to drink: A Napa or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (or any dry but fruity white wine).

Green chilies, cumin, and chorizo flavor this spicy southwestern rendition of the eastern seaboard classic.

Serve over steamed basmati rice. Garam masala, a spice mixture, is available at Indian markets and some supermarkets.

If you are looking for a chowder that is deeply flavored and hearty but not overly rich, this is it. It's perfect for a casual occasion, but the "meatballs" deliver an element of surprise, along the lines of an optical illusion, and make it really quite special. The idea for this chowder came from an old San Francisco recipe for "Force Meatballs" in a cookbook called Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures (1907), reprinted in Richard Hooker's Book of Chowders. The "meatballs" were actually made from crabmeat, a fun idea that I knew had great potential. Tilden, a renowned Bay Area amateur cook, left only these instructions for his meatballs: "Serve in any fish chowder or soup." So I paired my version of his meatballs with a chowder that had flavors similar to cioppino, the famous San Francisco seafood stew flavored with garlic, onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes. I served it to my wife and kids, telling them only that it was "meatball chowder." The well-browned meatballs look like the real thing, so they were all a bit dumbfounded when they tasted them. My son, J.P., said "Wow, they taste like crab cakes!" Everybody loved the chowder!

Cappe Sante con Mandorle Venice and nearby Trieste are two Italian cities that know how to use scallops well. After all, the shellfish is abundant in the northern part of the Adriatic. In this recipe, from Venice's Fiaschetteria Toscana, almonds add texture to an otherwise soft dish, and the brandy playing off the natural sweetness of the scallops gives the sauce a Sherry-like flavor.