Rick Stein's Complete Seafood: A Step-By-Step Reference Book

The encyclopaedic Rick Stein's Complete Seafood is particularly welcome. Not only does the chef's book offer 150 attractive recipes and step-by-step instructional colour photographs, it classifies the world's seafood in a thorough, approachable and up-to-date way. This is no small accomplishment. Fish classification is notoriously vexed; local usage can result in multiple names for the same fish--one person's dolphinfish, for example, is another's mahi mahi--or dozens of different fish with the same name. Grouping seafood by anatomical distinctions, such as billfish (which includes swordfish and marlin), as well as by family, helps create a clearer picture; and colour illustrations, plus a valuable chart that delineates common, Latin and family names, as well as home-region, further elucidates what's what and where. In addition, the oversize book's technical illustration, which delves far beyond the usual guide to filleting, skinning and the like, is an informative trove. Preparing flatfish for broiling and for deep frying are two examples of this thoroughness that also covers baking whole fish in foil; butterflying raw shrimp for broiling; and preparing raw, smoked and cured fish, among other key methods. The central section of the book is devoted to Stein's recipes, which range from the simple and direct--Baked Sea Bass with Roasted Red Pepper, Tomatoes and Anchovies, and Sautéed Soft-Shell Crabs with Garlic Butter, for example--to the more dressy--such as Fillet of Bass with Vanilla Butter Vinaigrette and Mussels en Croustade with Leeks and White Wine. Offered with suggestions for using alternative fish types, the formulas also help readers make sense of seafood's bounty--and to find recipes based on market availability. This book, designed for all cooks with more than a passing interest in seafood, is among today's best kitchen resources. --Arthur Boehm, Amazon.comRead More