The New York Times Seafood Cookbook

Over the years, New York Times cookbooks have won fans for their wide and winning recipe range. The New York Times Seafood Cookbook, edited by New York Times food writer Florence Fabricant, upholds the tradition, offering more than 250 recipes for nearly 100 kinds of fish and shellfish, presented alphabetically, from anchovies and barnacles to squid and yellowtail tuna. Additional chapters treat caviar and smoked fish and mixed seafood dishes, such as bouillabaisse, gumbos, and noodle preparations. The recipes come from contributors including chefs Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, and Fabricant herself.

From a vast recipe selection, dishes like Malaysian-Style Ginger Crab with Chile Sauce, Saucy Scallops with Spicy Bacon Corn Relish, and Roasted Cod with Niçoise Vinaigrette typify the "modern" dishes, while Corn and Lobster Chowder, Southern Fried Catfish and Hushpuppies, and a particularly nice seafood paella, exemplify more traditional fare. This is food that works for many occasions and that most readers can prepare pleasurably. Particularly useful, however, is the book's introductory material, which presents a wide range of topics--on today's expanded seafood market, environmental concerns, and acquaculture, among them--in concise, up-to-the-minute form. The usual rules concerning shopping, portion size, cooking techniques and the like are here too, but receive particularly sensible attention. (The wise shopper, says Fabricant, knows how to substitute one species for another when the market lacks a planned-on choice, finding substitutes that behave similarly in the pan to unavailable types.) The book's alphabetical organization (each entry also features a species "profile") allows readers to find specific information without hunting. Illustrated with color photos, the book offers truly useful information as well as that wide recipe range, as welcome now as ever. --Arthur Boehm