Seafood

You'll want crusty bread for sopping up this San Francisco fish stew.

Lightly salting a center-cut tenderloin, a.k.a. chateaubriand, overnight allows the salt to penetrate this luxurious roast and keep it extra-flavorful and juicy.

Spread this creamy, smoky spread on toasted pumpernickel, flatbread, or bagel chips.

This streamlined version of a favorite Malaysian street food noodle dish, char kway teow, substitutes Spanish chorizo for the Chinese sausage sometimes used. The smoked paprika that flavors the chorizo may be far from traditional, but it adds another layer of depth to this seductive stir-fry of rice noodles with shrimp, egg, and jicama. There's just enough chile paste for a mild buzz of heat, but not so much that your mouth is on fire. If the jicama seems like a weird Mexican-Malaysian fusion idea, then you probably don't know that jicama is used in Asia, where it's known as Chinese turnip or potato. Its sweet crunch is reminiscent of fresh water chestnuts. Don't expect a supersaucy dish, but rest assured there's enough sauce to coat everything.

My introduction to skate took place when I was a child, during a summer spent on Cape Cod, where, with my older brother and sister, I ran into a fisherman. He was an old salt, his arms deeply tanned and wrinkled from the sun, his beard scraggly and speckled with dried seawater. We asked what he had been catching. "Skate," he replied. Not familiar with the fish, we inquired further and he told us, "In New England we call skate poor man’s scallops." He explained that "back in the day," people on the cape would cut out rounds of the meat as a substitute for scallops because the species shared a common sweetness. What he didn’t tell us is that skate is notoriously difficult to work with when whole. I learned that lesson the hard way and, at the same time, realized the true value of the fish. In the fall of 1999 I had a lot of free time on my hands. Annisa wasn't open yet and I was just learning the art of angling. Jen and I had driven all the way from Manhattan to Shinnecock Canal on Long Island because we heard that striper fishing was particularly good there. After a few hours, and a rough time of it, I landed my skate. I am by no means squeamish, but this fish broke me. None of my extensive culinary training prepared me for what followed. It was the skate that would not die. It took hours; multiple gashes in the head; a three-and-a-half-hour airless trunk ride from Long Island back home to Manhattan, and a drag-out struggle on the cutting board. We gave up the good fight and decided to let the skate die while we watched TV in the next room. Since that traumatic experience, I have not personally killed another skate, but it’s often on the menu at annisa. It is robust and, yes, sweet-flavored, but to call it "poor man’s scallop" is inaccurate and doesn’t do justice to the distinct character of the fish.

On New Year's Eve 1996, we decided we wanted a warmer place to celebrate, so we jumped on a train to New Orleans, took a paddleboat down the Mississippi, and ate dinner while watching the fireworks. The next day, there was the Sugar Bowl game and the Court of Two Sisters on Royal Street, in the French Quarter, where we went for mimosas and brunch. This routine became a tradition for a few years—but now it doesn't beat toasting in the year with our girls, so we brought the flavors home. This recipe holds a particularly funny memory for us. One year we had a bowl of some of these saucy, spicy shrimp at a restaurant on the pier, just before jumping on the paddleboat. Pat couldn't keep the spoon away from his mouth, and he ended up spilling a tremendous amount of that dark roux down the front of his white sweater. So there he was, sipping champagne and watching the fireworks with a huge stain! He didn't mind a bit.

Crab may be my favorite food of all time—except maybe for scallops or octopus#151;and I like it any way I can get it, including in this totally kicky ceviche dish. I know this combination of foods sounds totally off the wall, but I love to play with food, and this play knocks it out of the park. Trust me! (And if you don't want to trust me, trust the diners at The Surf Lodge, where this dish is a top seller and the one people always ask for.)

This one is Italy, pure and simple. Which is precisely what Italian cuisine is all about: Get yourself fresh, pure ingredients in season, plus some fine, real condiments and seasonings, and put it all together without a lot of fuss, and ecco! A simply superb meal, as healthy as they come and as good as eating gets. It's also beautiful on the plate. Note that scampi does not, in fact, mean shrimp, as many people think, but rather refers to the popular lemon, garlic, and oil preparation for shrimp in so many red-sauce Italian joints.

"Pumpkin is for more than just pie. I like it in ravioli, soup, and this curry dish!"

Shrimp are a great go-to for lowfat protein. Opt for those farmed in the United States: Foreign farms use potentially harmful antibiotics and chemicals.

Make or buy a savory cornbread to use in this luxurious stuffing; the kind you use will determine how much broth you'll need to moisten it.

We swooned over deputy food editor Janet McCracken's pumpkin seed and cilantro pesto when she made it in the BA Test Kitchen. Now we use it on rice, pasta, roasted vegetables, and chicken, too.

A high-in-folate parsnip looks like a funky carrot, but this root veggie is sweeter and slightly nutty.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Black Rice with Squid .

• Fish stock can be made with a mixture of any white fish and crustaceans, and crabs are a very good addition.

This recipe is a twist on the classic lemon-and-caper-based Italian piccata sauce. Here I feature spicy smoked paprika and tangy kalamata olives, creating a unique, savory flavor. I've used cod, though halibut would also work well. The trick is to choose a thicker fish that can absorb this spicy sauce. Serve with a big green salad or steamed kale.

Soybeans are the only complete vegetable protein, delivering all nine of the amino acids that help build fat-burning muscle.

Be a bean counter! The new USDA guidelines recommend having 1 1/2 cups of legumes weekly for their protein, fiber, iron and more. This hearty, lightly tangy dish gets you a third of the way to your goal.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Alex Brown and Evan George's Savory Rolls . The next best thing to foraging your own wild mushrooms and huffing their death-matter musk from a Hobbitshire-like hillside in NorCal while your guide trips on psilocybin shrooms is (obviously) slurping crispy hot shrooms right out of the cast-iron skillet they were cooked in. Admittedly, it's a distant second. But it still feels nasty. Thanks to the whole steak joint steeze revival, it’s now totally acceptable to eat out of cast-iron. Here we do a mushroom mélange of various shapes, sizes, textures, and prices. Omit and add as you like, especially if you actually get to forage for wild ones.

Gravlax, typically made with salmon, gets an aromatic twist with grapefruit zest and crushed green peppercorns. Plan to make this at least 3 days ahead to let the fish cure.