Scallop

If you're feeling extravagant, try replacing the scallops with half a pound of lobster. Or substitute a pound of cubed chicken for the seafood and chicken broth for the clam juice.

A spectacular one-dish meal that gets its rich flavor from homemade crab stock. The stock is simple to make and does not require a lot of time. Potato helps thicken the soup; butternut squash adds color.

Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills is as famous for its cooked Japanese fish dishes as it is for its stellar sushi. This scallop dish is a perfect example.

Serving the sauce at room temperature helps bring out the taste of the caviar.

New England has a large Portuguese population. Their numbers are most concentrated in Massachusetts fishing centers, such as New Bedford, Glouchester and Providencetown, where they've had an important influence on the cuisine. One of their specialties is fried scallops, Portuguese-style--a sauté of bay scallops in butter with garlic and parsley. We've elaborated on the basic dish by adding shrimp, mushrooms, green onions and a white wine sauce. Serve it over rice, and offer buttered peas or broccoli on the side.

At the restaurant Antico Martini in Venice, Italy, they include the scallop coral-or roe-in the dish and use fresh porcini when in season.

(San Francisco-Style Seafood Soup) Cioppino is San Francisco's answer to bouillabaisse and, like that famous Provencal seafood soup, is made with a variety of the freshest fish possible. In San Francisco the mixture included Dungeness crab, which adds a unique flavor, but any regional crab will do. If crab is not available, substitute another shellfish. No clams? Try mussels. The point is to treat the following recipe as a guide and use whatever looks best in the market the day you make the soup.

For the opener, spread butter and prepared horseradish on thin baguette rounds, and top them with bay shrimp. Boil small red potatoes and green beans to have alongside the seafood.

To save even more time, buy the peppercorn medley packaged in a pepper grinder in the spice section of the supermarket. Serve with: Curried rice and sautéed snow peas.

The early Yankees often cooked local shellfish in milk-based chowders with potatoes. True to their English heritage, the colonists planted kitchen gardens with as many herbs as they could cultivate, which they put into all kinds of dishes, including chowders.

Star anise has been showing up all over restaurant menus lately, even in seafood dishes. This light and lively first course was inspired by such recipes.

This is a great pasta dish to serve for company. Chances are good that you'll find the Asian ingredients— increasingly carried by everyday food shops—at your local supermarket. We used the Thai Kitchen brand, which is widely available.

At the Marriott Downtown, in Anchorage, chef Patrick Hoogerhyde serves this as a starter, but we like it as a main course.

The leeks are cooked until they're so tender — or "melted" — that they almost fall apart.

Serve this stew over rice or on its own as a soup. Either way, sprinkle lettuce with rice vinegar and oriental sesame oil for a light salad. Sliced blood oranges and holiday cookies will do nicely afterward.

The soy-based sauce for these kebabs draws its various intensely flavored ingredients-cilantro, garlic, ginger and chilies-from the equatorial hot zone, where weather and food alike are fiery.