Shellfish

Crisp julienned vegetables add crunchy texture to wheat-free pasta. To prep them fast, try the Oxo Julienne Peeler ($10, Oxo.com).

These tacos combine tender grilled octopus with spiced harissa and piquant chorizo potatoes and are finished with the acidic bite of quick-pickled ramps.

Clams are inexpensive, plentiful, easy to cook, and delicious. And you barely need a recipe—once they open, they're done.

Squid is tender when it's either cooked quickly over high heat, or gently for a long time. This is the quick version.

Overcooked lobsters will be tough and rubbery; if yours are less than 1 1/2 pounds each, decrease the cooking time by a few minutes.

Take care with these little shrimp: They'll cook through quickly.

Serving Size: 8

The hardest part of this recipe is getting your hands on the octopus. Give your fishmonger a few days to order it for you.

Okay, so maybe you don't live across the street from a blooming locust tree—you can still make a killer butter sauce.

Almonds are the new breadcrumbs. Their toasty flavor and crunch add just the right contrast to pasta.

In this Filipino dish, achiote oil bathes the shrimp in an amber hue, and citrus lends a bright, tart note.

We like to serve this main with couscous, rice, or grilled bread to sop up all of the shrimp's intensely flavored cooking liquid.

This curry is doubly rich from the coconut milk and the deep red curry, but the pineapple keeps it from being too heavy and gives a beautiful freshness to the dish. I like to cook the lobster in the shell because it makes for a more flavorful sauce, and I like to serve it that way too. You can be as refined as you like or, like me, pick up the shell and make an animal of yourself. If lobster is going to blow the budget, you can still have a delicious curry by substituting shrimp or monkfish.

Wylie Dufresne, chef/owner of Alder and WD~50 in New York City, shared this recipe exclusively with Epicurious. "Modernist cuisine is a mind-set," says Dufresne. "It's a paradigm shift." In this recipe, Dufresne applies his modernist cuisine ideology to shrimp and grits, reimagining the flavors and textures of the classic dish. "I've always been interested in shrimp and grits. When I came across a Shrimp & Grits recipe on Epicurious, from an old issue of Bon Appétit, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we made the shrimp into grits?' Again, the modernist leap here was in the idea, not the technique, which is quite simple." To transform shrimp into grits, Dufresne grinds them in a meat grinder: once when raw, and then two more times after they've been cooked. Corn powder, vegetable stock, and "a healthy knob of butter" help create the creamy, starchy quality of actual grits, while homemade pickled jalapeños lend some heat. "Adding a fried quail egg is optional," says Dufresne, "but makes it much better, of course."

Shrimp absorbs the flavors of a marinade rapidly, making this quick entrée ideal for a busy weeknight. Steaming gently cooks the shrimp and reduces the likelihood of overcooking. Regular coconut milk offers the best flavor for this dish, as the taste of light coconut milk is too subtle. I often serve it over brown rice or whole wheat noodles.

Fiery chipotle gives a kick, and the iron in shrimp keeps you high-energy.

In every good restaurant kitchen, there's a combination of thrift and innovation. We always have a dish like this chowder on the menu because when we portion fish for main courses, there are inevitably some pieces of our excellent, sushi-quality fish too small to serve on their own. And that is another great reason to buy your fish whole: not only can you save the bones and head for fish stock, but you'll be generating two meals from one shopping trip. We call it chowder to give the idea of a hearty, chunky fish soup (sea bass, shrimp, mussels) with a lot of texture from vegetables. Our version shows off kabocha squash and ají dulce peppers. These are specific varieties of squash and pepper that I search for at the Greenmarket for their deep flavor and beautiful aroma. If you can't find these, use another variety of squash and mild pepper.

Make extra grains on Sunday and use them for this lightning-quick weeknight dinner.