Salmon

The flavors of gravlax are used in a new and different way here. (For safety's sake, buy only the best-quality frozen fish, which may need to be ordered ahead.)

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Seduced by Bacon. To read more about the book, click here. These salmon fillets are a great main course when you want something special and don't have a lot of time. They are super-easy and quick to make as well as delicious. . . . There are some fine ready-made sauces, called Chinese barbecue sauce, in Asian markets and even on supermarket shelves.

Moderately priced avruga caviar (smoked herring roe from Spain) gives cooks a chance to throw caution to the wind and experiment. Stephen Harris purées it into a slate-gray emulsion, bringing visual drama and a smoky flavor to delicate salmon. Fleur de sel is a good substitute for his house-made sea salt.

Preserved lemon, an essential ingredient in Moroccan cooking, is made by pickling lemons in salt, lemon juice, and olive oil. Here, preserving just the peel (begin at least a day ahead) is an easy way to add an exciting note to the crème fraäche.

Here, the old trick of moistening scrambled eggs with cream cheese is elevated with Boursin, which also adds flavor. This makes a good brunch dish or, when served with a salad, a satisfying light supper.

Just a sprinkle of zest and a dab of lime butter sauce beautifully highlight the flavor of grilled salmon.

Wild rice has an affinity for fish, and we think it's particularly good alongside tender pieces of smoked salmon. Crisp snow peas and wedges of hard-boiled egg round out the salad, and a refreshing dill vinaigrette brings all the flavors together.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown's Weekends. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here. I love an all-in-one dish!

If you have a nice sharp chef's knife, this is a breeze. (Or if you don't, you should buy a sharpening stone, and you'll never have blunt knives again.) The idea for this recipe came about when we were catering a HUGE job on a TINY budget. They wanted tuna tartare, but I knew it would be expensive, and it's best eaten soon after it's made or it starts to get all gummy. Gravlax, on the other hand, needs at least a couple of days to cure, so I decided to use diced salmon instead of tuna, for economy, and to marinate it with our gravlax spice mix a day before the event, freeing up the chefs for other last-minute things. In my test run, I added orange zest, thinking, isn't orange good with salmon? Normally you would put something like this on a cucumber slice and that would be fine, but the juniper in the marinade suggested potato, so we served it on a slice of crisp potato, and it was ravishing in the extreme. The potatoes can be made ahead of time too, as long as they're cooked until they're completely crisp and stored in an airtight container until you need them. Any potato not cooked all the way through will soften the others; if that happens, pop them all in a 350°F oven for five minutes, or until they've crisped up again. The salmon can be sticky, so use two teaspoons to put it on the potato. I could never remember of which there was more in the gravlax cure, sugar or salt (since in the basic gravlax recipe one is three tablespoons and one is four). So after years of irritably looking up such a short recipe, I decided to THINK for a second and realized salt has four letters so salt is the four tablespoons. Welcome to my world.

Improv: Instead of smoked salmon, try this with a generous dollop of caviar on the eggs, or top them with smoked trout or whitefish.

Round out your breakfast: Add half a small whole-grain bagel, 1 cup plain nonfat yogurt and 1/2 cup orange juice.

It's tough to find a better source of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than salmon. Add greens, grapefruit, and avocado, and you're well on your way to your 5 a Day.

Salmon doesn't have to be a snooze. Plain old salmon becoming a little boring? We thought so. That's why Self asked Dan Silverman, executive chef of one of New York City's most popular restaurants, Union Square Cafe, to give us a new way to cook this super healthy food. The result: a fish dish that's as fun as spaghetti and meatballs — without the meat or pasta — and full of flavor and disease-fighting omega-3 fatty acids.

A delicious recipe from the eat-right doc Sure, this dish is heavy on the fat, but it's the healthy omega-3 kind found in salmon, says leading health researcher Walter Willett, M.D. The recipe comes from his new book, Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical Guide to Healthy Eating (Simon & Schuster Source).

Actress Lauren Graham has fun grating the "prehistoric-looking" horseradish root for this recipe from Scott Uehlein, executive chef at the renowned Canyon Ranch Health Resort in Tucson, Arizona. And she wonders: Am I the only person who thought you battered fish by dipping it in egg first? For any of you similarly misdirected, the order is seasoned flour, then egg.

Ask your fishmonger to skin the salmon fillets for you.

Selma Hurwitz of Potomac, Maryland, writes: "I'm an artist, which helps explain why I think cooking is very creative. You can't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen. I often get ideas from cookbooks and recipes from friends, and I'll add my own touches. The salmon recipe here is based on one a friend gave me. I added more wine, and sometimes I use capers to give the sauce a zesty tang." Broiling caramelizes the sugar and gives the salmon a deeper flavor.