Seafood

Deidre A. Pallouras of Rochelle Park, New York, writes: "My husband and I recently traveled to Cincinnati, where we dined at Daveed's at 934 in Mount Adams. Although everything we ate was delicious, we were most impressed by the incredible salmon with horseradish cream. I'd love to try to recreate the dish at home."

These crab cakes are flavored with the "holy trinity" of Cajun cooking: onion, green bell pepper, and celery. Serve them with a helping of coleslaw or a green salad.

This rich and flavorful dish was inspired by a recent trip to Brazil. If you are making the coconut rice to accompany the shrimp a 14-ounce can of coconut milk will be enough for both dishes.

Jamaican jerk seasoning — a blend of chiles, thyme, garlic, onion, and spices — gives the grilled fish a reddish-brown finish. It's a supermarket staple now; look for it in the spice aisle. Serve with: Rice salad and grilled squash.

This light, spicy soup is delicious hot or chilled. The sautéed aromatics turn the broth a rich red-orange, more reminiscent of tomato than watermelon. See if your guests can guess the main ingredient. Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 1 hr (3 hr if serving chilled)

This recipe calls for giant 4 1/2- to 5-ounce prawns, which can be ordered from some specialty fish markets. If unavailable, substitute 24 large prawns.

My mom ate a lot of things — frogs' legs, escargots, sweetbreads — that horrified me as a child, but I took to caviar right away. She didn't use the good stuff, but even made with supermarket roe, this dish makes an elegant impression. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 30 min (includes making pancakes)

Serve thick-cut french fries and a mixed-greens, beet and onion salad alongside the fish. Finish with a purchased custard pie; tall glasses of mint iced tea would complement all of it nicely.

A dish created by Kevin Taylor, Chef of Café Iguana, in Denver, Colorado.

Pecan-studded rice pilaf and sautéed pattypan squash are great with the scallops, and lemon pound cake with sugared berries tops off the meal nicely.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Sharpen your cutting and chopping skills and see how to prepare salmon like a pro with our technique videos.

The bold flavors of Spain's famous paella-sausage, seafood and saffron-meet the luscious, creamy texture of Italy's risotto in this beautiful rice dish. Pour a chilled dry white wine during dinner, and offer flan for dessert.

The following recipe calls for filé powder, a spice made from the dried, ground leaves of the sassafras tree. Although often added as a thickener to gumbos while they cook, filé powder can also serve purely as a seasoning. As in this recipe, it is then sprinkled over the gumbo at the penultimate moment.

Using a pastry bag to pipe the hummus onto the pita toasts saved us a lot of time (and made for nice-looking hors d'oeuvres). You can make your own pastry bag with a heavy-duty plastic bag. Just spoon the hummus into the bag and squeeze it into one corner. Then snip off the corner to make a small hole and begin piping.