Every few decades a chef or a teacher writes a cookbook that is so comprehensive and offers such depth of subject matter and cooking inspiration that it becomes a virtual bible for amateur and professional alike. Author James Peterson, who wrote the book Sauces, a James Beard Cookbook of the Year winner, and the incomparable Splendid Soups, once again demonstrates his connoisseurship with Fish & Shellfish, a monumental cookbook that will take its rightful place as the first and last word on seafood preparation and cooking.

Fish & Shellfish demonstrates every conceivable method for preparing sumptuous meals of fish and shellfish, from baking, braising, deep-frying, grilling and broiling to poaching, panfrying, marinating, curing and smoking, steaming, and microwaving. Whether your taste runs strictly to shellfish or to everything seafood, Fish & Shellfish offers the equivalent of a complete cookbook on each subject. Within the chapters on finfish you'll learn how to prepare enticing recipes remarkable for their ease of preparation, their versatility, and their originality Here Peterson offers such splendid flavors and textures as succulent Stuffed Striped Bass with Spinach, Shrimp, and Mushrooms; crunchy Halibut Fillets with Curry, Herbs, and Almond Crust; delicate Salmon Fillets A la Nage with Julienned Vegetables; savory Braised Tuna with Vegetables; and fiery Thai-Style Swordfish Satay.

If it's shellfish you prefer, there are pages and pages of recipes for baking, frying, steaming, or serving raw everything in a shell, including mussels, clams, oysters, scallops, lobster, shrimp, crab, and crayfish. Peterson explains how to judge freshness and how to prepare shellfish delights, including lemony-flavored Steamed Mussels with Thai Green Curry; aromatic Littleneck Clams in Black BeanScented Broth; a simple and comforting Linguine with Clam Sauce; elegant Hot Oysters with Leeks and White Wine Sauce; rich and savory Braised Scallops with Tomatoes and Fresh Basil; Steamed Lobster with Coconut Milk and Thai Spices; Shrimp with Tomato Sauce, Saffron Aioli, and Pesto; hit-the-spot Sautéed Crab Cakes; and Japanese Style Grilled Squid, to name but a few of the brilliant and vast array of wonderful seafood selections.Fish & Shellfishalso offers techniques for preparing raw, marinated, cured, and smoked fish.

As you exploreFish & Shellfish, you'll learn not only the essentials of seafood preparation but everything in between, including how to make a curry sauce, which red wines to cook with, how to fry parsley, and how to make Vietnamese dipping sauces. You'll learn the secrets of a variety of coatings, how to blacken fish, add stuffings, and deglaze the pan for sauces, as well as discover the delights of salsas, chutneys, relishes, mayonnaises, and butters.

Here is seafood in every incarnation, from soups, stews, and pastas to mousses, soufflés, and salads. Try everything from pureed Marseilles-Style Fish Soup and Moroccan Swordfish Tagine with Olives and Saffron to Homemade Cuttlefish-Ink Linguine, and Crayfish Stew with Tomatoes, Sorrel, and Vegetables.

Jim Peterson has traveled the world and brought back the best international seafood flavors, textures, and techniques. Now you can improvise on your own with Thai marinades, Indian spices and condiments, and Japanese grilling methods, all of which play off more familiar ingredients to produce memorable dishes.

At the end of Fish & Shellfish you'll find a complete Finfish Dictionary, where you'll learn all you need to know about more than sixty species of saltwater and freshwater fish. There's also a 32-page section of color photographs that pictures many of the mouthwatering recipes in the book. And the step-by-step pictorials in the color section will show you how to prepare fish and shellfish for cooking.

James Peterson's books have been hailed as the most companionable and dependable of cooking guides. Replete with tables, timing charts, advice about equipment, safety preparations, a glossary of foreign ingredients, and an exhaustive index, Fish & Shellfish will give you the power of flexibility and spontaneity as it transforms you into an accomplished seafood cook. Here is a fundamental cookbook that you will come to depend on every time you think seafood-and now you'll be thinking seafood all the time.

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Praise for the fully revised and updated Splendid Soups

"Jim Peterson's Splendid Soups is a comprehensive and mouthwatering atlas of the world of soup. It not only covers soups of all nationalities and every garnish, but provides a handy list of sources for every hard-to-find ingredient and kitchen tool, too. More importantly though, through his gargantuan world tour Jim empowers home cooks to strike out on their own and invent new soups. It just makes me want to get into the kitchen and start cooking!" -SARA MOULTON Host, The Food Network's Cooking Live; Executive Chef, Gourmet magazine; Food Editor, Good Morning America

"We love James Peterson. Splendid Soups is a bountiful source of enticing ideas!"-the moosewood collective Authors of the Moosewood Restaurant Cookbooks...

Winner of the 1991 James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award.

"James Peterson has done for sauces that which Escoffier did for the cuisine of La Belle Epoque...Sauces is a manual for the professional cook and, as such, it will rapidly become a classic and indispensable reference."—Richard Olney, from the Foreword.

"...another cookbook that can stand among the best reference works."—Gourmet Magazine.

"This is a book I wish I had written myself...Every few decades a book is written that says all there is say on a subject, or has all the information and passion that sets the standard for professional and amateurs alike. Sauces is one of the best culinary books of this century in English."—Jeremiah Tower, Stars Restaurant.

The ultimate reference for sauce making is now better than ever. This updated and expanded edition includes more than 500 recipes, including traditional and contemporary versions of almost every sauce imaginable. You'll find classic white and brown sauces, both starch-thickened and flourless; popular meat and fish sauces made with drippings and juices; sauces based on egg yolks, including bearnaise, hollandaise, mayonnaise, and their variations; sauces made with butter, including the beurre blanc-based sauces that revolutionized modern cookingl vegetable purees, dessert sauces, and many more.

The new edition features all-new chapters on Asian sauces and pasta sauces, plus nearly 50 new recipes, many that cater to lighter, contemporary fare. And a new 32-page color insert clearly and brilliantly illustrate the fundamentals of good sauce making. More than just a compendium of recipes, Sauces explains how and why the ingredients of a sauce are combined.

James Peterson is a chef and cooking instructor. He is also the author of Fish and Shellfish and Splendid Soup, which was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award....

James Peterson is the premiere go-to source for home cooks of every level. His newest book and the second in a series of instructional tomes, BAKING teaches all the essential basics--how to make fail-proof tender pie dough, a fabulous birthday cake, sourdough starter that actually works, legendary babka, and more. In more than 300 recipes, each accompanied by handy instructional photos, Peterson guides readers through the techniques for creating perfect breads, cakes, cookies, pies, and pastries, each and every time with confidence. Readers working their way through the book will learn every fundamental of baking, and discover the recipes and nuances that ensure consistent, impressive results....

From America’s favorite cooking teacher, multiple award-winner James Peterson, an invaluable reference handbook.

Culinary students everywhere rely on the comprehensive and authoritative cookbooks published by chef, instructor, and award-winning author Jim Peterson. And now, for the first time, this guru-to-the-professionals turns his prodigious knowledge into a practical, chockablock, quick-reference, A-to-Z answer book for the rest of us.

Look elsewhere for how to bone skate or trim out a saddle of lamb, how to sauté sweetbreads or flambé dessert. Look here instead for how to zest a lemon, make the perfect hamburger, bread a chicken breast, make (truly hot) coffee in a French press, make magic with a Microplane. It’s all here: how to season a castiron pan, bake a perfect pie, keep shells from sticking to hardcooked eggs. How to carve a turkey, roast a chicken, and chop, slice, beat, broil, braise, or boil any ingredient you’re likely to encounter. Information on seasoning, saucing, and determining doneness (by internal temperatures, timings, touch, and sight) guarantee that you’ve eaten your last bland and overcooked meal.

Here are 500 invaluable techniques with nearly as many color photographs, bundled into a handy, accessible format....