Shellfish

This brothy soup feels like coastal Oaxaca in a bowl. It has tons of herbs, buttery shrimp, a light spicy-smoky broth—and chochoyotes, dumplings made from fresh masa or masa harina.

Smoked oysters are succulent and salty with a creamy texture that pairs beautifully with bright, acidic flavors. The egg spread provides another layer of richness. These may seem like disparate components of a menu, but each one brings something to the meal in terms of flavor, texture, aroma, and appearance to create a memorable experience.

The slightly sweet but mostly textural wrapper of the rice roll is the canvas for the sweetness of the shrimp.

In this recipe, freshly baked gorditas get split open and packed with a saucy chile-shrimp filling, onions, avocados, and cilantro. Serve them with a generous squeeze of lime.

Quickly simmer shrimp in a stew of canned tomatoes, bell pepper, chicken broth, and cumin for an excellent and easy dinner.

This fermented-soybean stew is the quintessential representation of Korean jang. The soft tofu, the dashi, and the sweetness of the vegetables work together to mellow the intensity of the doenjang so that your palate can discern the different facets of flavor.

There are many variations of Gobernadores, but they typically include shrimp, mild chiles, and cheese. Here, chef David Castro Hussong adds bacon, which gives the dish a surf-and-turf feeling.

While this recipe features scallions, Korean pancakes can be filled with almost anything: garlic chives, ramps, chrysanthemum leaves. If you want something a little more substantial, add squid or shrimp cut into  bite-sized pieces.

This dish is the embodiment of a chowder-style Southern fish stew, packed with shrimp, scallops, potatoes, corn, and more.

Marinate shrimp in a sweet-spicy mixture of apricot preserves, lime, habanero, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger—then throw them on the grill for dinner in 15 minutes.

The combination of garlic and ramps may seem like overkill, but we promise it’s not. The garlic will mellow as it cooks while the ramps stay pungent.

We strongly endorse eating this dish with your hands, discarding shrimp tails and pepper stems as you go. Soy sauce, lime, and plenty of grated garlic create a marinade that adds tons of flavor in as little as five minutes while helping the shredded coconut adhere to the shrimp.

This dish is so easy to make and yet looks and tastes impressive enough to serve for a dinner party.