Snapper

Steaming, a method often used by Asian cooks, works well with delicately flavored red snapper, since the aromatics (ginger, scallion, chile) are easily absorbed by the fish.

Serve this saucy dish with steamed rice or crusty French bread.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This simple entrée is a variation of a dish from Ristorante Don Alfonso in the town of Sant'Agata sui Due Golfi, just outside Naples. There, it's sometimes served on toasted Italian bread, which soaks up the "crazy water" - the tomato-based sauce. The fish is quick to prepare and is also low in fat.

This Yemenite-style dish incorporates a highly seasoned matzo meal coating that keeps the fish moist.

Active time: 1 3/4 hr Start to finish: 4 1/4 hr (includes making stock and rouille)

Trimming the artichokes for this recipe takes a bit of skill but gets easier with each one. Once you have mastered the technique, you'll find this dish is actually quite simple. Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Rouget, or red mullet, is renowned in the Mediterranean for its delicate flavor. It is increasingly available here in the U.S. (Incidentally, the fish is not a true mullet but is a member of another piscine family.) We loved the commingling of flavors that resulted when we put this concoction on a bed of zucchini potato lemon-thyme mash .

Ideally, the sweet wine in the marinade should be Muscat, a famous Samos wine.

Complement the entrée—and the Chinese theme—with rice, stir-fried snow peas, then pineapple sherbet topped with coconut.

This Basque dish is essentially a fish pâté or pudding, called budíns in Spain.

The <epi:recipelink id="102741">sautéed mushrooms epi:recipelinkawould make a great side dish for this fish, along with steamed green beans or broccoli.</epi:recipelinka></epi:recipelink>

Here's an easy but impressive dish from the Admiral's Inn in St. John's Antigua. When ordering the whole snapper from the fish market, have them clean and scale it. If you cannot find whole red snapper, use fillets and bake them about 25 minutes.