3.) Rick Stein’s Complete Seafood – A step-by-step Reference (Ten Speed Press, 2008)
“For all things fish related, we've found no better source than Rick Stein's Complete Seafood, a handsome, amply illustrated volume that details the selecting, handling, and cooking of every species imaginable." Saveur magazine
San Francisco’s esteemed seafood chef, Parke Ulrich, executive chef at Waterbar, is a big fan of Rick Stein when it comes to inspiration. When asked what would be his favorite go-to seafood cookbook, he barely breathed before stating it was Rick Stein’s Complete Seafood.
“This would be my one cookbook,” Ulrich said. “It has terrific pictures of technique, great basic recipes with a lot of different types of fish and shellfish. It gets people excited about eating and cooking something they might not be too familiar with.”
Written with Stein’s friendly style, the books aims to teach readers simple skills to help them make dishes for both entertaining and casual family meals. It’s overflowing with charts, photographed steps, and detailed instructions of a seeming limitless repertoire. Included are how to scale and gut a fish, bake in a salt pastry crust, prepare live crabs and even clean and stuff squid – techniques most of us assume should be left to the chef.
No wonder it was the James Beard 2005 Cookbook of the Year.
