Taste of the Sea - Softcover

Going only by the enthusiasm bursting out of this cookbook, the easy money says that Rick Stein, author of Taste of the Sea (and star of a British TV cooking show of the same title), is to seafood cookery what Richard Simmons is to weight loss. Stein opened a seafood restaurant in 1975 and has witnessed the rise in popularity of fish and shellfish in Great Britain in the intervening years. The same rising arc is true for the United States.

Stein breaks his cookbook into sections dedicated to choosing, prepping, and cooking techniques as well as basic recipes for stocks, sauces, flavored butters, and dressings. The fish and shellfish recipes he divides into oily fish, Mediterranean fish, round fish, flat fish, large fish, crustaceans, shellfish, and then a collection of soups, stews, and pies. He includes a list of fish alternatives for the American and Australian markets, where some of the British and European fish won't be available.

Take equal measures of passion for seafood and delight in brilliant flavors from Asia, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and North Africa, and you'll have a sense of how Stein enlivens his seafood recipes. Sure, you'll find salmon in sorrel sauce, or seafood thermidor, but that's just the comfort food side of this book. Look also for a Thai seafood salad, a Goan shark curry, and a Dover sole with cilantro, cumin, and chiles. This book is a good place to start for those who need a little extra nudge in the seafood direction. --Schuyler Ingle

Rick Stein is the high-spirited host of the lively new public television series Fruits of the Sea. After graduating in English from Oxford, he and his wife Jill opened The Seafood Restaurant in 1975. Located in the tiny Cornish fishing village of Padstow, England, the restaurant has twice been voted the Egon Ronay Restaurant of the Year. Renown for his passion for the sea and its fruits, as well as his prowess in the kitchen, Stein has spent many years exploring the culinary wonders of the sea that surround his seaside community. His travels in pursuit of the ocean's bounty have taken him as far as Australia, America, Indonesia, and the Mediterranean. He lives with his wife and three sons, and a small terrier named Chalky, overlooking the sea in Cornwall.