Fresh Fish: Basics and Techniques

These's nothing worse than overripe fish. Here's how to avoid it, and how to estimate how long you should cook what you buy.

Photos from Italian fish markets, to help you decide what might work as a substitute if the Mediterranean fish aren't available where you live.

One of the nicest ways to cook very fresh, top quality fish is in salt: the salt seals it, keeping the juices from escaping as it cooks, while the skin keeps the salt from penetrating the fish. The result is extraordinarily tasty and tender. Also, how to serve a large fish at table.

Little can be more refreshing during the summer months than a fritto misto di mare. The traditional fritto misto includes representatives of most of the watery families, including mollusks and arthropods.

Fried Eel, and Instructions for Frying Fish: Bisato is Dalmatian for eel, and fried eel was one of the standard Christmas Eve dishes among the Italians who lived in the region. Gioia Calussi, author of Sapori de Dalmazia, notes that some cooks preferred to boil their eel before they fried it (it is a fatty fish), and subsequently gives excellent instructions for frying fish in general.

How to Boil Octopus so as to make it Tender, or Lessatura del Polpo per Ridurlo Tenero: Octopus is delightful, but it can be devilish to cook, going from soft and tender to rubbery and back as it sits in the pot; the trick is to either remove it before it goes rubbery or have the patience to wait until it passes through that phase. Here's a...

Pandora Roasted in Salt, or Pagello al Sale: The first time I was ever served fish cooked this way, I was astonished at how tender and tasty it was. Italians also bake sea bass in salt, and indeed, that was what I was served. You could also prepare any other not-too-oily fish this way.

Grilled Fish, or Pesce alla Griglia: A good grill and a fine fish are a marriage made in heaven.

Boiled Fish, or Pesce Lesso: Boiled fish is easy to do and can be tremendously satisfying. Three pounds of boiled fish will serve four to six as a second course or two to four as a main course.

Purchasing tips, cooking tecnhiques, and its role in the Italian diet.

Sea Bass baked in a paper packet and opened at table. The technique works with any fish, and can be extraordinarily tasty (and romantic too).

A procedure more than a recipe, a good baked fish is one of the finest dishes you could want. And simple to do too.

A Fritto Misto di Mare is tremendously refreshing.