Shellfish

Serve this dish with French bread to get all the delicious sauce.

At Geronimo, located on eclectic Canyon Road in Santa Fe, this is served with a mixed green salad and roasted corn on the cob. The idea here is to dip the lobster meat into the spicy vinaigrette.

Mimosa in Los Angeles uses coconut milk in this version of a Breton classic.

This recipe is part of a grill menu that includes Dijon and Tarragon Grilled Chicken and Grilled Corn with Roasted Garlic Butter . Since you'll be lighting the grill to prepare the chicken and the corn for this menu, try steaming the clams in a pot on the grill as well. The grilled bread slices are good for soaking up the rich broth; if it is easier, the bread can be toasted in the broiler.

Soaking the crabs in milk helps plump them up when cooked. Combining butter and oil results in crispy crabs.

Linguine alle vongole
Adapted from Esca For this pasta dish, David Pasternack strongly recommends using a hard, sturdy dried pasta—in other words, don't be tempted to buy fresh or egg linguine. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 20 min

"Can you obtain the recipe for littleneck clams from Antonio's Restaurant in New Bedford?" writes Michelle Dooley of Hanover, Massachusetts. "I read about the restaurant in your magazine, and now that I've been there, I'd like to try my hand at preparing this dish." Serve these clams with crusty bread and a salad to round out the meal.

The simple, delicious and versatile ginger sauce would also be terrific with shrimp. Look for rice vinegar in the Asian foods section of the supermarket. Serve the scallops with crusty bread or rice.

"On a trip to Longboat Key in Florida, my fiancé and I ate at Pattigeorge's," writes Wendy J. Harbart of Forest Hills, New York. "The five-spice calamari was out of this world."

The leeks are cooked until they're so tender — or "melted" — that they almost fall apart.

Serve these mussels with a frisée salad dressed with red wine vinaigrette. Add french fries, plus a baguette for sopping up the sauce. Lemon tart would be good for dessert. See how to clean mussels.

A lightly dressed salad of baby greens would complement this entrée nicely; serve rum-drizzled grilled pound cake slices afterward.

Culinary archaeologists Susan Lord and Danilo Baroncini named their cookbook Pani Caliatu (available from Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York), for the traditional Aeolian twice-dried bread. For this recipe, the people of the Aeolian Islands use totani (flying squid). The recipe works just as well with squid found in the U.S. Since squid is often sold cleaned and in parts, be sure to get one set of tentacles per squid body to ensure that there will be enough stuffing. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

In manor-house cooking, meat, poultry, and fish were preserved by being "potted" — minced and combined with seasonings, then packed in a container and covered with a layer of fat or butter. The fat was removed before serving, and the contents of the container spread on toasts or crackers.

George Kelso of Edinburgh, Scotland, writes: "Although I grew up in Scotland and spent my early years as a chef here, I didn't start specializing in Scottish food until much later in my career. After working in London and at various restaurants in England, I returned to Scotland in 1988 to become chef at Ardsheal House in Argyll, where I started cooking exclusively with Scottish ingredients. We grew our own fruits, vegetables, and herbs, and even raised our own hens and ducks. That experience inspired the kind of cooking I do today at Haldanes, where I'm chef and owner. I keep the food preparation simple and use the freshest produce. That's why I use local suppliers as much as possible." Slices of prosciutto are fried until crisp for a delicious garnish.

Star anise has been showing up all over restaurant menus lately, even in seafood dishes. This light and lively first course was inspired by such recipes.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.