Starter

Many people will find this their idea of paradise: simply grilled shrimp in a strong-flavored soy dipping sauce.

This is a Southeast Asian–style preparation, mildly sweet and mouth-puckeringly sour. It’s also ridiculously fast; if you start some rice before tackling the shrimp, they will both be done at about the same time, twenty minutes later. (This assumes your shrimp are already peeled, a task that will take you about ten minutes and one that should be undertaken before cooking the rice.) For best flavor, see if you can find head-on shrimp; they make for a more impressive presentation, and it’s fun to suck the juices out of the heads themselves (which, I realize, is not something that everyone enjoys). But none of these assets is worth making head-on shrimp a sticking point. Note that this technique will work with scallops or cut-up squid; each will take slightly less time to cook than the shrimp.

In seviche, the scallops are “cooked” by the acidity of the citrus.

Despite its name, this dish isn’t fiery hot, but the addition of a fair amount of paprika gives the shrimp a bright red color that makes people think they’re eating spicy food. The real key here is fresh paprika, not that tin you inherited from your mother. After you buy it, taste it; if it is hot, use half a teaspoon. You can let the shrimp sit in the spice paste for hours. (In fact, I like to dump both shrimp and paste into a covered plastic container, shake them together to coat the shrimp, then carry the container to a party and grill the shrimp there.) But you can also mix the two together right before cooking.

You can buy peeled shrimp, but shrimp poached in their shells have more flavor (as do shrimp poached in salt; the water should taste salty). If you’re going to peel the shrimp yourself, as I recommend, it pays to buy larger shrimp and cut down on the work. Go for those in the range of 30 to 40 per pound (sometimes labeled U-40 as in “under 40”), or even larger if the cost is not prohibitive. To subtly improve the flavor of the shrimp, add other seasonings to the poaching liquid—the easiest thing is to grab a handful of pickling mix, which usually contains peppercorns, allspice, bay leaf, and coriander and dill seeds. Throw in a couple of cloves of garlic or a piece of onion if you like.

Crab has the best texture and among the best flavor of all of the crustaceans, and the best crab cakes are those that showcase the crab most fully. So getting the most out of crab cakes often means putting the least into them. When you start loading crab cakes up with white bread, corn, curry, and complicated sauces, you might be making them different, but you’re not making them better. I usually serve my crab cakes with nothing more than lemon wedges, but tartar sauce and aïoli (recipes for both are on page 306) are both excellent choices if you choose to make a condiment.

Much of the flavor of shrimp can be lost in the cooking, especially when you’re grilling or broiling, which allows the juices exuded by the shrimp to escape. Far better at preserving the crustacean’s essence is cooking it in liquid, and among the best of those liquids is olive oil. This is not sautéing, but cooking the shrimp slowly in the oil, to tease out its liquids without evaporating them, so these juices combine with the oil to create an irresistible sauce. I usually peel shrimp before cooking, but in this instance the shrimp are better left unpeeled, for the simple reason that the shells contain as much flavor as the meat (maybe more), and you want that flavor in the sauce. The results are a little messier, and certainly more difficult to eat, but they are tastier—and the dish is easier to prepare.

In a cafe in southern France about thirty years ago, I sat in a bistro and timidly prepared to order salade Niçoise. Just then, a huge bowl of steaming, powerfully fragrant mussels was delivered to a man sitting at the table next to me, and I boldly changed my order. The hot mussels were essentially tossed with fennel and fennel seeds, which I could see, but the licorice bouquet and indeed flavor were far stronger than that combination alone could provide. Later, I realized that there was a secret ingredient: an anise liqueur, either Pernod or Ricard. The combination is alluring.

Many years ago in Barcelona, I saw mussels and clams cooked a la plancha—on a thick slab of hot metal much like the griddles used by short-order cooks. The technique is common in Spain, indeed throughout the Mediterranean. Though the mollusks are usually served unadorned, they’re filled with their own flavors as well as a certain smokiness contributed by their juices, which burn on the hot surface. This smokiness sometimes makes people think that mussels cooked this way are cooked over wood, but that is not the case, nor is it necessary. It’s best to serve the mussels in the same skillet in which they cooked. To eat, remove a mussel from the shell and dredge it on the dried juices of the pan.

Everyone loves bread salad, which—traditionally at least—was most often made with stale bread. You can wait around for bread to get stale, but really the best way to ready bread for salad is to use the grill or broiler to quickly dry the bread while charring the edges slightly, adding another dimension of flavor to the salad. But watch the bread carefully as you grill or broil it; a slight char is good, but it’s a short step from toast to burned bread. The time you allow the bread to soften after tossing it with the seasonings varies; keep tasting until the texture pleases you. If your tomatoes are on the dry side, you might add a little extra liquid in the form of more olive oil and lemon juice or a light sprinkling of water. Because it’s juicy, almost saucy, and pleasantly acidic, this salad makes a nice accompaniment to simple grilled meat or poultry and has a special affinity for dark fish such as tuna and swordfish.

For potato salads, my dressing of choice is usually a simple vinaigrette—here no more than oil and vinegar—augmented by a handful each of chopped shallots for crunch and flavor and parsley for color and freshness. The result is a great summer dish, good-looking and good tasting. As it stands, this is a potato salad with mussels; if you like, you can increase the amount of mussels, by as much as double, giving each component equal weight.

You can use any short-or medium-grain rice you like for this dish, which is most easily made with leftover rice

Sometimes a simple salad features such powerful flavors that by adding a couple of straightforward ingredients a whole meal appears as if by magic. Here the starting place is a Southeast Asian–style cucumber salad, with a dressing made from lime juice, lemongrass, fish sauce (called nam pla in Thailand and nuoc mam in Vietnam), and a few other strong seasonings. This dressing commingles perfectly with the natural juices of the cucumbers to moisten the greens. Top all with grilled scallops—or other fish or meat—and you create an easy one-dish meal whose flavor really jumps off the plate. It looks lovely, too, especially if your cucumbers are good enough to leave unpeeled. And (although not by design, I assure you), this salad is extremely low in fat.

I devised this recipe to harness the delicious juices shrimp exude as they’re cooking—the shrimp essence. Not wanting to completely overwhelm delicately flavored greens with the powerfully spiced shrimp, I use a mixture of arugula, lettuce, and a high proportion of mint, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice. The result is a nice, juicy, big, flavorful and easy salad.

This is a nearly traditional salad in which the grapefruit plays a leading role, complementing mild shrimp and allowing you to make an almost ridiculously easy dressing, made up of nothing more than fish sauce (called nam pla in Thailand and nuoc mam in Vietnam), or soy, lime, a bit of sugar, and some water. Use good shrimp—Pacific or Gulf whites are the best, though the less expensive and widely available tiger shrimp are acceptable—and buy them big, because you’ll have fewer to peel.

Many cucumbers are best if they’re salted first. The process removes some of their bitterness and makes them extra-crisp—it takes some time but almost no effort. Start with one or two Kirby (pickling) cucumbers per person—or half of a medium cucumber or about a third of a long (“English”) cucumber. For a full-meal cucumber salad with a Southeast Asian flair, try Cucumber Salad with Scallops (page 54).

This is simply a kind of sea-based mesclun with a distinctively sesame-flavored dressing. The only challenge in making it lies in the shopping. Few supermarkets carry any seaweed at all, so you need to hit an Asian or health food market for any kind of selection. At most Japanese markets and some health food stores, you can find what amounts to 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.

This is a salad for a small crowd, though it can be made as big or as little as you like. But please, see this ingredients list as a series of suggestions rather than dogma—a chopped salad can contain any combination that appeals to you, including raw vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower or crunchy cabbages like bok choy, as well as nuts, seeds, and fruit.

As far a cry from iceberg lettuce and bottled dressing as you can imagine, this is a magical combination of powerful flavors made without cooking or any major challenges. Simple as this salad is, without top-quality ingredients it won’t amount to much. So use sherry or good balsamic vinegar to make the dressing, use pears that are tender and very juicy, not crunchy, mushy, or dry, and use real Italian Gorgonzola. It should be creamy; if you can taste it before buying, so much the better. This rich salad can serve as the centerpiece of a light lunch, accompanied by little more than bread. It makes an equally great starter for a grand dinner—followed by roasted meat or fish, for example—or a simple one, served with soup.

A load of herbs and a strongly flavored vinaigrette make this salad special. Choose either the soy or the nut vinaigrette depending on what appeals to you, what you’re serving the salad with, and what you’ve got on hand.