jane warren's Reviews
Cookbook Reviews
Rick Stein's Complete Seafood: A Step-by-step Reference
By Rick Stein
Ten Speed Press - 2008
If you like seafood then you absolutely must get this book. I've eaten at two of his restaurants in Padstowe, Cornwall and gone to his cookery school. I have other Rick Stein cookery books but this one is the first, most important one to own. I love it as much for the end notes as the recipes.
Chapter Thirteen has pages and pages of necessary information on seafood families. This is followed by the 'most' useful diagram section which helps you identify what fish you are buying. Why is this important?
If you 'really really' like fish when you go to the fish market to buy some for dinner (that evening hopefully) you do not go with a recipe in mind. You go looking for the nicest, freshest, best looking piece of fish they have. The category of fish determines how it should be cooked and recipes in this book are grouped like for like so that hideous mistakes can be avoided. Lordy, I sound like a food snob. But....
I ate at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Muscat a few weeks ago where the chef foolishly adapted the recipe for Sole Veronique (a classic!) and served it with tuna instead of sole. The combination was, frankly, disgusting. And a crying shame too since tuna in Muscat is locally sourced, hauled out of the sea daily and sold at the local fish market and is so fresh and tasty that it even makes brilliant sashimi. I was tempted, when I returned home, to send a copy of this recipe book to the head chef at the Grand Hyatt with some selections underlined.