Quick

Once not only a staple but a main course, this is one of those side dishes many people can’t get enough of. Serve with something light and lean, like plain broiled fish.

Amazing how minor touches in familiar dishes can make such a huge difference. Anyone who grew up eating baked potatoes with butter and sour cream will be pleased and surprised at how aromatic and delicate these are.

A very, very fast dish, because the squid must be cooked only briefly to prevent toughness. So make your side dishes first; rice is the natural choice, and it will keep perfectly well over low heat while you stir-fry. Thai basil is so unlike Italian basil that they might as well be different herbs; not only does the Thai variety look different, but it is infinitely mintier. If you’re using Italian basil, therefore, you might consider adding a small handful of mint leaves. See page 500 for information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla). If your squid hasn’t already been cleaned, see page 98.

Though Chinese cabbages, like bok choy and Napa, have become more widely available here, I still prefer this dish with ordinary green cabbage; its crunch is unsurpassed. Serve this with Basic Long-Grain Rice or Fried Rice (page 506).

Because this dish has only two ingredients, finding the best shrimp is of utmost importance. In Hong Kong, where only live fish is considered fresh, live shrimp are common. Here you may find them at some fishmongers (especially in Chinese neighborhoods) and even in some Western supermarkets. The wine traditionally used for this dish in the south of China is Mei Kuei Lu Chiew and is quite strong and a little sweet; you can find it at many Chinese markets. Shopping hassles aside, this dish is worth trying. Serve it with an assortment of other Chinese dishes or as a starter.

You can make this with sea scallops or true bay scallops (which are rare and quite expensive); don’t bother to try it with the tiny calicos, which are guaranteed to overcook and become rubbery. If you look at a sea scallop, you’ll see a little stark-white hinge on one side; remove that if you have the time; it’s much chewier than the rest of the meat. And if you’re lucky enough to find scallops with their roe (it’s red or beige; you’ll know it when you see it), by all means use them here.

The usefulness of miso is nearly unlimited, and it can convert the simplest of ingredients into an exotic dish, a secret of much of Japanese cooking. Here the fermented soybean paste is combined with scallops and a little seasoning, then allowed to sit for a while before being grilled or broiled. It’s a traditional dish, in some parts of Japan the home-cooking equivalent of slathering something with barbecue sauce before cooking. For ease of use and strict authenticity, the miso should be thinned—it’s too thick to use straight—with mirin, the sweet, golden-colored wine made from rice (and Japan’s most important sweetener before the introduction of white sugar). Mirin, too, comes in a naturally brewed form called hon-mirin; it’s preferable to aji-mirin, which may be boosted with corn syrup; check the label. But the amount of mirin is so small, and its flavor in this dish so subtle, that you can use a fruity, sweet white wine in its place or even honey. If you can, try this with Asparagus Salad with Soy-Mustard Dressing (page 190) or a plain salad. And a bit of short-grain rice, of course.

More than anywhere else, cooks in Portugal combine seafood and meat with abandon, and it usually works. This dish cries out for crusty bread. If you want a milder garlic flavor, add it along with the tomatoes so it cooks a little longer.

I’d had mussels in New York, even as a child, but never did they look so appealing as they did my first night in Rome, laced with onion, garlic, tomato, parsley, and lemon. Since then I’ve learned to love and prepare mussels in a variety of ways, but I always come back to these. Serve with lots of bread for sopping up the broth.

Every winemaking culture in the world cooks with its local product, but only Spain has sherry. And while sherry is not quite all-purpose, as simple white wine is, it is manifestly more powerful and incomparably more complex; in fact it rivals stock in the character it adds to many dishes. (When Spanish food comes with a good-tasting but anonymous “brown sauce,” you can bet it contains a hefty dose of sherry.) Sherry combined with seafood, olive oil, and garlic, as in this recipe, produces a magically Spanish dish, one that is not only classic but awesome and one you can consider a template for many others. You can spend a fortune on sherry, but since each bottle is the product of several different vintages it is consistent from year to year, and the fact that it is stabilized by alcohol enhances its shelf life (refrigerated, an opened bottle retains flavor good enough to drink for several days, and sometimes even longer if used for cooking). In short, all real sherry is good, and bottles costing ten bucks are more than acceptable. Fino is probably best for drinking, but the slightly sweeter, nuttier Amontillado and Oloroso are perhaps a little better for cooking. As is almost always the case in cooking, the clams you use here should be as small as you can find. Tiny ones the size of a quarter are fun, but the slightly larger cockles or West Coast “butter” clams are equally tender and easier to eat. Mahogany clams or good littlenecks are also fine; do not use “steamers,” whose sand will spoil the dish. In any case, buy only live clams; their shells should be undamaged and nearly impossible to pry open. Rinse them, scrubbing their shells if necessary, to rid them of all sand. Those that do not open during the cooking are fine; just pry them open at the table with a dull knife. Serve this as an appetizer or a main course, with good bread for sopping up the sauce.

Simple and incredibly delicious. If you prefer a thick sauce, like that served at many Chinese restaurants, add cornstarch (as directed) at the end of cooking; it’s by no means necessary, however. Use the smallest clams you can find, preferably just an inch or so in diameter. Cockles, which are even smaller, are often the best choice; manila clams (which are brown) are also good. Serve this dish with Basic Long-Grain Rice (page 506).

The first time I had this salad—it was in Saigon—I ate so much of it I could barely eat anything else. So, obviously, you can make it as a main course (serve it with rice). Technically, it’s a starter and a great use for leftover steak. For a traditional, unusual, and wonderful Thai version, toss the beef with 1/4 cup Khao Koor powder (page 587) before dressing. For information on nam pla, see page 500.

The ideal herb for seasoning this salad is rau ram, which is not impossible to find if a well-stocked Asian store or supermarket is in your area; you can pick up your Thai fish sauce (page 500) while you’re there. The best alternative is a combination of cilantro and mint, which comes pretty close. If you don’t have precooked chicken, just simmer chicken breasts (bone-in are best) in water to cover for 10 to 15 minutes. When the meat is done, pull it from the bone (continue cooking the bones, perhaps with a few vegetables like carrots and onions, to make stock) and chop or shred.

Tarator, or skordalia (page 600), is one of the most useful dressings I know, a mayonnaiselike sauce that contains neither egg nor oil. Here it transforms ordinary chicken salad.

This is simply a kind of sea-based mesclun with a distinctively sesame-flavored dressing. Wakame, a dark green, leafy seaweed, is sold dried almost everywhere and is the most common seaweed used in salad. Other seaweeds, ranging in color from light green to bright red to black and in texture from leafy to ferny, are all fine (see page 483). At most Japanese markets and some health food stores, you can find a prepackaged assortment of seaweed salad greens; these are a little more expensive than buying individual seaweeds but will give you a good variety without a big investment.You don’t need much: an ounce of dried seaweed, or even less, is enough to make a salad for four.

Nori, the familiar seaweed used for rolling sushi, is a popular snack in Korea, especially when treated this way. And if you use the pieces of nori to pick up clumps of rice—a common after-school snack—you may find yourself making this frequently.

Haaq is actually the name of a bitter green from Kashmir, not unlike spinach but perhaps a little more strongly flavored. In any case, spinach is used as a substitute throughout India, and this simple preparation is widespread. Neither mustard oil nor the amount of chile (I use only one) is key; but asafetida—also known as hing—the odd yellow powder (it’s made from a resin that is exuded by the roots of the plant) with the off putting aroma, most definitely is. In fact, this is the place to use it and learn to love it, as I believe you will. You can serve this as a side dish (in which case halve the quantities) or as a main course,with rice. It’s also often served with fried fish on top of it.

Like the recipe on page 486, here is yet another super version of “creamed” spinach (true creamed spinach is on page 490), this one popular in Thailand and elsewhere. You can add curry powder or garam masala to this mix or make it into more of a stew by adding some minced pork or shrimp.

The real deal. It doesn’t matter how you cook the spinach in step 1: you can steam, microwave, or boil it, and there’s no difference in the final result. However, if you can get fresh cream, not ultrapasteurized, you’ll see a real difference in both texture and taste in the final dish.

You can use canned black beans for this (you can even use frozen corn), but the salad is best with beans that have been cooked, with good spices, until tender but not mushy.