Seafood

The corn coulis also pairs nicely with pork tenderloin, shrimp, or grilled chicken. Active time: 35 min Start to finish: 45 min

Once the mustard butter is prepared and the chicken is marinated, this quick sauté comes together in just minutes. Any leftover fennel-mustard butter makes an instant sauce dolloped onto grilled fish.

Japanese bread crumbs, called panko , give these cakes a light, crisp coating. Panko is sold at Asian markets and can often be found in the seafood section of large supermarkets. But if it's unavailable, plain dry bread crumbs are an acceptable substitute.

Cranberry sauce or huckleberry preserves can be substituted for the lingonberry preserves. Serve with: Roasted fingerling potatoes tossed with dill, and a mixed green salad.

Spaghetti stands in for rice in this version of the Spanish favorite.

A whole mackerel or bluefish is about 2 feet long, so you will just be able to fit it on an angle in a large rectangular gas grill or a wide oven; see cooks' notes, below. You might want to measure your grill (or oven) before choosing a fish to make sure you'll have enough room. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 hr

If you prefer, use honeydew melon for an equally good salsa. Offer buttered new potatoes and sautéed spinach with the fish. Afterward, serve slices of pound cake with rum-soaked raisins and store-bought caramel sauce. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

These steaks are delicious served with creamed spinach and roasted new potatoes.

The flavorful olive salad is also nice with sea bass, red snapper or tuna. Serve with steamed new potatoes, and uncork a Sauvignon Blanc to go with dinner.

These hors d'oeuvres—a dressed-up version of shrimp toasts—are adapted from a recipe by Chinese cooking authority Nina Simonds, a longtime contributor to our pages.

Note: To slice the cucumber in the following recipe into a paper-thin spiral, we used a Japanese rotary device known as the Benriner vegetable slicer.

Miso, a fermented soybean paste, can be found in Asian markets, specialty foods stores and in the Asian section of most supermarkets. It is usually sold in plastic tubs and has a long shelf life.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. A spicy pepper coating and an Asian-style sauce give these tuna steaks an intense flavor. Joan serves mashed or oven-roasted sweet potatoes alongside. Look for the sesame oil in the Asian foods section of the supermarket.

Liptauer gained its name from the provenance of the fresh sheep's milk cheese with which it was originally made, Lipto, Hungary. Our version of this seasoned spread is made with cream cheese.

I'm not sure if shrimp is so popular because of its versatility or if it's the other way around. In any event, shrimp is one of America's favorite seafoods, so I was a bit surprised not to find a tradition of shrimp chowder anywhere in this country. The lion's share of chowders orignated in New England, but shrimp are only caught here in the winter, up in Maine. "Maine" shrimp (Borealus red shrimp) are small and delicate. They are good in a quick-cooked stew or pureed in a rich bisque, but they become very soft in the extended cooking time involved in making a chowder. In the Southern states, along the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, big white shrimp are abundant, but they are traditionally cooked in gumbos and "muddles" (seafood stews). And I found no trace of an authentic shrimp chowder on the West Coast. So, starting with a clean slate, I was able to create a chowder that expressed what I think a shrimp chowder should be. The is a lovely creamy pink chowder with delicious fennel flavor.

(Buckwheat Yeast Pancakes with Three Caviars)