Seafood

A caldin is a coconut curry, typical of Goa. Though caldins are made with fresh coconut milk in India, chef Cardoz uses Chaokoh brand canned unsweetened coconut milk. It's thicker and richer than other brands, and imparts a great deal of flavor. It's important not to let the caldin boil during cooking, or the coconut sauce will break.

A sophisticated main course that's quick and easy to make. Accompany the fish with wild rice pilaf and steamed asparagus.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from chef Neil Perry's book Rockpool. Neil also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. For your convenience, we've converted the measures — with as much accuracy as possible — from Australian to American. For those who have metric equipment and wish to follow Neil's recipe to the milliliter, we've included the original measures too. To read more about Neil and Australian cuisine, click here. In this dish, the combination of pastry, fish, sauce, yoghurt and spinach makes a complete dish. The cardamom and tomato are a perfect match, and the fish steams gently inside as the outside of the pastry crisps up. This dish also works beautifully with the flat fish of Europe and America. It is important that the vegetables are well-seasoned and cooked until they caramelise to impart their flavour to the sauce. The depth of flavour of aromatics is so often lost when they are not allowed to do their job properly. The Tomato and Cardamom Sauce goes nicely with all seafood; its deep, rich flavour enlivens the taste buds. The tomatoes are cut up, skin, seeds and all. Slice into thin rounds, then into julienne and chop the julienne to give a uniform dice. Don't chop them as if cutting for concassé, they lose too much juice that way.

Serve with: Unoaked California Chardonnay • wild rice with spring herbs • watercress with orange juice vinaigrette • lemon curd tart with strawberry sauce

Suzanne Rackley of San Rafael, California, writes: "My husband and I had a fabulous dinner at Cobalt in New Orleans. I had the salmon with Martini sauce, and it was great. I would love to impress my friends and family with a new way to serve our favorite fish."

Candida Sportiello writes: "As owner and chef of Il Giardino restaurant, on the tiny island of Ventotene off the coast of Naples, I've been cooking professionally for twenty-five years — but I've been cooking for pleasure for a good fifty years. As is the Italian way, most of my favorite recipes were handed down from my mother and grandmother, so they date from the early 1900s." "I love having so many amazing ingredients at my fingertips on Ventotene: fish, lentils, wild asparagus, mushrooms, fava beans, and artichokes. They make it easy to produce home-style cooking at its best."

A nod to what could arguably be the dish of the eighties, blackened redfish. The technique works equally well with halibut.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Serve steamed rice, and drizzle oriental sesame oil and rice vinegar over blanched snow peas. Mango sorbet topped with sliced tropical fruits is the perfect finale.

Accompany this colorful dish with rice pilaf and baby peas with pearl onions. The kicker: spice bars and orange slices.

"My profession as a real estate agent requires a lot of my time," writes Edi Meadows Morrissette of Westin, Florida, "so it helps that I am lightning-fast in the kitchen. I cook every day, and on the weekends I sometimes make three meals a day. I accomplish that by following my main cooking principles: (1) do a lot of prep work, and (2) keep the kitchen well stocked. For example, at holiday time I might chop onions in advance or bake bread the day before company arrives. And since I converted the bedroom next to my kitchen into a pantry for extra storage, I know I'll always have the right ingredients at my fingertips." Use crusty French bread or the roasted garlic cheese toasts to soak up the fennel-flavored juices.

Barquettes are small, boat-shaped pastry shells that can be filled with sweet or savory ingredients.

If they are available, purchase dry-packed scallops, which exude less liquid.