30 Minutes or Less

You can buy tamarind paste (page 46) from Middle Eastern stores. Serve the scallops as an appetizer accompanied with a leaf salad.

A Greek way of cooking mussels.

A Moroccan way with shrimp that is quick to do and really delicious. If you buy the shrimp frozen, let them thaw in the refrigerator before peeling.

This can be served as a first course or a main dish. It has a deliciously fresh tomato flavor with a touch of cinnamon.

A North African—particularly Libyan—specialty. Algerians call the piquant sauce chetitha. The dish is not for everybody, and it is not for a delicate fish.

Preserved lemon and olives are a favorite combination for fish dishes in Morocco and other North African countries.

Algerians serve deep-fried Dover sole over a bed of shakshouka, but other flat fish, such as lemon or gray sole or flounder, are excellent with the sautéed Mediterranean vegetables— and they can be broiled.

For this delightful and simple Moroccan dish, use fish fillets—monkfish or any firm-fleshed fish such as bream, turbot, haddock, cod—and have them skinned.

Pan-cooking with the famous marinade is the simplest and quickest way of preparing a Moroccan-style fish dish.

I discovered it in Istanbul. I don’t believe it is traditional, but the raki—the anise-flavored spirit—is a pleasing touch. You can use other fish too.

Although Turkey is surrounded on three sides by sea, it is not very strong on fish dishes. Seafood has not been part of the old Anatolian cooking traditions. Even in the coastal resorts, where seafood restaurants have mushroomed with the tourist trade, locals are not interested. The exceptions are Izmir and Istanbul, both famous for their fish markets and fish restaurants. The usual fare, like everywhere in the Middle East, is grilled or deep-fried fish. Swordfish kebab is a Turkish specialty, but other countries use other firm-fleshed fish, such as monkfish and tuna.

Tuna is usually overcooked in the Middle East. But the best way of eating it is seared on the outside and raw on the inside, which makes it deliciously, meltingly tender. Otherwise it quickly dries out. It can be brushed with oil and cooked on the barbecue or under the broiler, but an easy and perfect way is to pan-grill it. The dressing is a glamorized version of the ubiquitous oil-and-lemon one. It is good with all kinds of fish.

You have to love garlic to appreciate this most ancient of sauces.

A refreshing summer soup from Iran.

A simple and delightful Armenian peasant soup.

This is an instant salad to make with canned chickpeas, but they must be good-quality.

Okra is one of the most popular vegetables in the Arab world.

The most popular item on the menu in the fish restaurants along the long Lebanese coast are the deep-fried red mullet that come accompanied by a tahini sauce and very thin crisp deep-fried bread. They are fried whole, coated with flour, but at home I find it easier to pan-fry red mullet fillets.

Use raw king prawns for this dish; they are gray and turn pink when they are cooked. Some supermarkets sell them ready-peeled.