Shellfish

The best tool for grating is a rotary grater by Zyliss ($20; chefcentral.com) or by Microplane ($25; thekitchenstore.com).

Great on polenta, grits, or steamed rice.

The addition of the sweet vermouth here punctuates the natural sweetness of the canned tomatoes, making this quick sauce taste as if it's been simmered for hours.

You'll want to break out the red-checkered tablecloth when you make this spicy, briny, and superbly balanced version of the Italian-American staple at home.

If you like stuffed clams, you'll love this variation. The mussels are steamed open, then topped with garlicky herbed bread crumbs that truly complement the plump bites of briny flavor beneath.

Salads like this one are found all over Puglia, almost always with carrot, celery, and parsley (we suspect the locals like the combination as much for its gorgeous color contrast with the octopus as for its freshness and crunch) and lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon.

Serve with toasted country bread.

In this appetizer, the spicy squid and the cooling relish are wrapped in betel (pronounced "beetle") leaves, which have a slightly bitter taste. If you can't find betel leaves, Boston or romaine lettuce leaves make a good substitute.

When cooking shrimp in boiling water, 2 minutes does the job. Overcooking toughens them.

Beurre blanc—the classic French butter sauce—is a cinch to prepare and has a tendency to make just about anything taste better. This take on it uses the scallops' juices to add complexity.

While there's no substitute for eating a bowl of mussels on France's Atlantic coast, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to re-create this briny, aromatic dish at home.

The secret ingredient in this dish is a surprisingly modest one: grapefruit. Its tartness balances the unashamed, almost swaggering richness of scallops bathed in a butter sauce.

There's enough garlic butter here to drench every morsel of lobster meat—you'll want to serve crusty bread on the side to soak it all up.

The French version of pesto, pistou is often stirred into soupe au pistou, Provence's vegetable and bean soup. In this dish, the vegetable soup ingredients and pistou are blended together into a flavorful puree that's topped with shrimp. To serve as a main course, add a side of orzo tossed with good-quality olive oil, salt, plenty of pepper, and some grated Asiago cheese.

The ciabatta slices make for man-sized crostini, perfect for a Super Bowl party. If you can, always cut the bread into bite-sized chunks for more manageable portions.

For most people, the word gumbo immediately conjures the Cajun and Creole cooking of Louisiana. But okra (ngombo in Bantu), for which the soup-stew is named, reached South Carolina with the slave trade some years before Europeans settled in Louisiana, and the Creole world, where African, European, and indigenous cultures meet, actually extends up the southern Atlantic coast. There are many different gumbo recipes, all taking advantage of local ingredients and served with rice. This one is a heady, fragrant slurry thick with seafood. If desired, add filé powder (ground dried sassafras leaves), a Choctaw thickening agent with an almost lemony flavor, just before eating.

What gives this thick, voluptuous soup its deep-golden flavor and aroma is toasted dried summer-sweet Cope's corn. Chef Linton Hopkins embellishes the soup with tender, briny shrimp and foresty mushrooms, but it would also be delicious with crabmeat or bacon & or with nothing at all to distract you from its mysterious, soul-satisfying essence.