Salmon

This is terrific with sautéed green beans, a plate of sliced tomatoes topped with grated hard-boiled egg and olive oil vinaigrette, and a toasted sourdough baguette. Pound cake with strawberry sauce makes a nice dessert.

Some classic Scandinavian flavors show up in this simple-to-make, cross-cultural pizza, made even easier by the use of frozen bread dough.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Dried mixed salad herbs, found in the spice section of the supermarket, can substitute for herbes de Provence, the French seasoning.

Serve the salmon with steamed rice tossed with shelled edamame (fresh green soybeans). Market tip: Choose wild Alaskan salmon, which is abundant and well regulated. Farmed salmon is controversial; salmon farms pollute wild salmon habitats and spread disease to wild salmon stocks.

Union Square Cafe guests are constantly challenging us to serve salmon in new and different guises, and here's one of the most popular ones we've done to date. Salmon is rich and meaty enough to stand up to the assertive chili rub; the trick to this dish is to cook the salmon gently enough to prevent the spices from burning. At the restaurant, we use New Mexico chili powder, which we prize for its fruity, smoky aroma and mild heat level. Buy it if you see it.

South of Goa, the coastline of Karnataka state is scalloped with palm, mango, and jackfruit trees. This recipe comes from the city of Mangalore, where it is usually made with bangade, a small fish resembling smelt. We used salmon for this curry. And, when we can find them, we toss in about 10 fresh curry leaves along with the onion, garlic, and gingerroot.

Make this the centerpiece of an hors d'oeuvre platter that includes crackers, breadsticks, cornichons, and olives.

A terrific way to finish off the cranberry relish. Make full use of your oven — and your time — by roasting small red-skinned potatoes alongside the fish, then tossing the potatoes with butter and parsley to have as a side dish. Boil slim green beans or haricots verts to complement the main course. End the meal with slices of marble pound cake ("toasted" briefly in the oven) topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

The Ginger Fried Rice with Shiitake Mushrooms is a perfect side dish for this salmon.

If you prefer, the eggs can be fried instead of poached. Do-ahead steps make this dish very manageable — even for six. The sauce can be prepared the day before.

"As a kid, I'd accompany my mother to her job at the racetrack, where she would lead the horses out to the starting gate," writes Michael Hunter of Studio City, California. "Eventually I was helping out in the stalls, and when I got older, I became a jockey. My mother was also the person who, in a roundabout way, inspired my other passion: cooking. I'd come home from school, and she would have prepared something from a box or can. I didn't always like what was on the dinner table, so one day I asked her to buy me a cookbook. Pretty soon I was making dinner for us almost every night. Now, after seventeen years of racing horses and cooking for family and friends, I'm making the jump to professional cooking."

When preparing this menu, we suggest grilling the mango first, then the sofrito bread, and finally the salmon. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time. Accompaniment: Grilled Mango and Grilled Sofrito Bread