fresh fish, tested techniques

Chef Eric Ripert is known for his ability to cook seafood. He has worked at Le Bernardin for decades, helping to maintain its top ratings, with enough 4-star reviews and James Beard awards to make your head spin. He’s written several cookbooks over the years, to celebrate the restaurant, to explain where he came from, and now he writes to share the food he’s eating now. He focused on vegetables in his last cookbook, Vegetable Simple. Now he’s written the cookbook we’ve all been waiting for: Seafood Simple. The celebrated seafood chef is finally letting us all in on how to cook fish perfectly, and I am so ready to learn.

Throughout this book, Ripert focuses on techniques for cooking fish (or not cooking them, as there is a chapter for raw fish), offering recipes for each technique as you go through. But before all that, he gives very specific information on how to prep the seafood, with lots of pictures to help you understand what he means. He teaches how to fillet a flat fish and a round fish, how to remove the skin from a fillet, how to remove pin bones, how to shuck oysters, how to clean shrimp, how to split a lobster, and maybe the most important cooking skill of all, how to season properly.

Then it’s on to techniques. He starts with Raw, Cured, and Marinated, and shares some of his favorite recipes, like Oysters Mignonette, Yellowtail (Hamachi) Crudo, Tuna Carpaccio, Black Bass Tartare, Scallop Ceviche, and Salmon Poke. Then he moves on to Steamed, showing off his Halibut en Papillote, Clams in Chorizo Broth, Linguine Vongole, Shrimp Dumplings, and a gorgeous Salmon Wrapped in Collard Greens with Beurre Rouge. And have I mentioned the photography yet? It’s stunning, clean and inviting, with both the photos of the techniques and the finished dishes.

Next up is Poached, with a Monkfish Bourride with Aioli, Salmon Rillettes, Skate with Brown Butter, Halibut with Warm Herb Vinaigrette, Provencal Fish Stew, and a Shrimp Boil. Then it’s on to Fried, where we find recipes for Calamari with Remoulade Sauce, Crab Cake Sandwiches, Salt Cod Fritters, Lobster Spring Rolls, Fish Fingers, and of course, Fish Tacos. Next up is Baked, so it’s all about the Salt-Crusted Red Snapper, Warm Scallops with Mustard Sauce, Sofrito-Glazed Mahimahi, Snapper with Curry Sauce, and Fluke “Paillard.” Then it’s on to Sautéed (pan-fried, basically), and bring out the Smoked Salmon “Croque-Monsieur,” Brioche-Crusted Red Snapper, Monkfish with Cabbage and Bacon Butter, Calamari Tagliatelle, and Tuna Nicoise.

Next is Broiled, with recipes for Lobster Thermidor, Oysters and Clams with “Snail Butter,” Miso Cod “Nobu,” Crab Gratin, and BBQ-Glazed Striped Bass. And from the heat coming from above to the heat coming from below, we head to Grilled, with Cherrystone Clams with Lemon and Tabasco, Herb-Crusted Yellowfin Tuna, Cedar Plank Salmon, Swordfish with Chimichurri, Shrimp Skewers with Green Curry Sauce, Branzino with Citrus-Flavored Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, Snow Crab with Melted Butter, and Lobster with Green Butter Sauce. Last is Preserved, where you can learn to make Pressure-Canned Albacore Tuna, Sardine Tartines, and Boquerones (Spanish anchovies) Ceasar Salad.

Throughout all the chapters, Ripert emphasizes freshness and sustainability. Freshness is especially important in working with fresh seafood, as there is the potential for food poisoning if the chef is not careful. But also, the fresher the fish, the better the taste, and in all these chapters, Ripert offers up tips for finding the freshest seafood and keeping it as fresh as possible while you prepare it. There are tips for how to shop, how to know what’s in season, and even how to choose caviar if you don’t have much experience with that (like me).

Seafood Simple is a beautiful cookbook filled with the techniques that will take your fish and shellfish cooking to a whole new level. There are well-known recipes along with new ideas and lots of instruction for bring out the tenderness and flavors in these fresh seafoods. Not all of these recipes will be accessible for all cooks. Some of these seafoods are pricey or harder to acquire by those of us in the middle of the country. But the education in this book is priceless. And I think most home cooks can easily find salmon or shrimp they could use, even if they’re not feeling ready to take on some of the more complicated recipes. This is a book you could grow with, starting with the easier recipes and slowly adding more techniques, more challenging ingredients, until you are filleting your own fish and shucking oysters and cleaning shrimp like a pro.

I love Ripert’s approach to cooking. He brings his French background and his decades in a professional kitchen and helps demystify seafood for home cooks. He adds a lot of flavor and a lot of beauty, emphasizing the fish in its elegance, its healthiness, and its deliciousness. I have been a fan of Chef Ripert for many years, and this is the cookbook I have been craving from him all this time.

Egalleys for Seafood Simple were provided by Random House through NetGalley, with many thanks.