The Seafood Cookbook: Classic to Contemporary - Tapa dura

In this unique, essential cookbook, Pierre Franey, author of The 60-Minute Gourmet, goes beyond standard recipes to reinvent fish cooking for the eighties. In The Seafood Cookbook: Classic to Contemporary, master chef Franey and New York Times food critic and feature writer Bryan Miller have created more than three hundred original recipes that combine classic techniques, modern taste trends, and unrivaled convenience. The combination of Franey's skills and invention and Miller's knowledge of the current food scene as a professional critic have resulted in a book that melds the fundamentals of classic cuisine with the movement in America toward lighter, quickly prepared dishes.

Every, aspect of The Seafood Cookbook reveals the authors' intention to remove the cloak of mystery that surrounds buying and preparing seafood. Chapters are organized by cooking techniques since any one technique can apply to a variety of fish. Each chapter -- on baking, sauteing, deep-frying, grilling, poaching, and braising -- offers recipes for commonly available fish in American markets. In keeping with Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet philosophy, 70 percent of these recipes can be made in an hour, a third of them can be made in thirty minutes. This lighter, faster, fresher approach carries over to the later chapters on sauces, stocks, vegetables, salads, and side dishes.

From classics like Oyster Stew and Salmon Mousse to the best synthesis of French techniques and the new light cuisine -- deliciously realized in such dishes as Fillets of Flounder with Parsley and Mustard Sauce, and Carpaccio of Tuna with Ginger and Lime Dressing -- the recipes in The Seafood Cookbook are as quick and easy as they are innovative.

The introductory chapters give clear instructions on how to buy and store the freshest fish and shellfish. One hundred and fourteen original line drawings beautifully illustrate the various species and basic techniques such as cleaning shrimp and squid and forming quenelles. The final chapter, offering a common-sense formula for pairing wine and seafood, is more helpful than any wine list.

Once a food that intimidated many cooks, fish is now, thanks to Pierre Franey and Bryan Miller, faster and easier to prepare, and more delicious than ever before.

Pierre Franey is the author of The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet, The New York Times More 60-Minute Gourmet, and Pierre Franey's Low-Calorie Gourmet. Formerly the head chef of the famed Le Pavillion restaurant in New York City, he has written for The Times since 1976. He lives in East Hampton, New York.

Bryan Miller is the restaurant critic and feature food and wine writer for The New York Times. He is the author of the forthcoming The New York Times Guide to Restaurants in New York City. He lives in Manhattan.