Go Fish: Fresh Ideas for American Seafood

by Laurent Tourondel and Andrew Friedman

"I don't cook or fish. This wonderful cookbook makes me regret both those decisions."
- Alan Richman

"With the publication of Go Fish, we can all learn Laurent Tourondel's] secrets and gain inspiration from his recipes. This book is essential reading."
- Robert Mondavi

From swordfish to littleneck clams, exotic sea urchin to succulent monkfish, America's waters are home to a stunningly diverse array of fish and shellfish that are ideal...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471445940
• ISBN13: 9780471445944
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great recipes from a fabulous chef!

This book has a lot of doable, new ideas for preparing delicious, healthy fish dinners!

Inspiration for Excellent Fish Cuisine

B. Marold has done this book huge favor by summarizing that this will not satisfy those who want a "basic" book on fish prep, but this will serve as excellent second source to take fish cooking up a notch as Emerald is fond of saying. Yet these recipes are not all that difficult, likely what one might call "intermediate" in terms of technical difficulty and ingredient sourcing. Those are aided as well by clear glossary and definitions and source listing. For some who have large cookbook collections with many seafood volumes, this will be great addition with its creative, essential approach. What this reviewer enjoys is the wine suggestion as well as side-dish ideas, and when possible even fish substitutions. The collection is organized around multi-dish meal, with appetizer, entree, soup/salad, dessert the organizing structure. Those which have been most enjoyable in trials so far: Stone Crab with Avocado and Grapefruit Juice;Provencial Matchsticks (made with anchovies and puff pastry); Bay Scallop, Blue Cheese and Fig Salad; Poached Skate with Spicy Lime-Yogurt Vinaigrette; Ricotta Tortellin with Grilled Sardines; Foil-Baked Cod; Crayfish and Chicken Casserole; Mushroom-Crusted Halibut with Truffle Oil Emulsion; Spicy Moraccan Swordfish; Corn And Scallion Pancakes; Steamed Banana Baba with Rum Syrup. Excellent gift consideration for discrimnating gourmet friends.

Great 2nd book on Fish cookery. Buy It!

`go FISH' by Laurent Tourondel and Andrew Friedman is one of those books which exudes promise from its pores, as it were. It has the very promising subtitle, `Fresh Ideas for American Seafood', the talented co-author who has assisted several other major New York chefs with their books, and complementary back cover blurbs from six of the heaviest of heavy culinary hitters. I will be only a little skeptical about the fact that all but Thomas Keller are French chefs with restaurants in New York. This `coincidence' is offset by the fact that one of the French five is Eric Ripert, who is a first rate fish specialist in his own right. So, if Eric is willing to pass some of his cachet off to our man Laurent, then I will take him at his word. The book explains itself as a collection of recipes for only fish found in American markets (not necessarily in American waters) and as a collection of recipes written to be prepared at home rather than at a restaurant. That is, although Monsieur Tourondel is a seafood restaurant chef, these are dishes he prepares at home and not in his restaurants. So far, all of this sounds really great. Tourondel continues to please me when he says that fish is really easy to cook. This coincides with everything I have read and experienced about fish cookery so far. In fact, the main talent you need with fish is to avoid overdoing it with strong flavors so as to avoid loosing the identity of the fish under a blanket of strong flavors. Tourondel pays up on this promise by offering many dishes of raw (sushi, sashimi, tartare, carpaccio) acid-cooked (ceviche) recipes which are practically all about good knife skills and involve virtually no cooking by heat. The authors offer us a great service by providing a chapter of fifty-eight (58) profiles of fish in American markets, almost all of which are also from American waters. Understandably, many will only be available in certain parts of the country. In eastern Pennsylvania, I have never seen stone crab, frog's legs, spiny lobster, rock shrimp, sea urchin, snails, Dungeness crab, or peekytoe crab at my fishmonger or megamart. The only seafood I miss from their list is abalone and terrapin, which are both in `James Beard's New Fish Cookery'. I will certainly not hold that against this book, as I would rather have two good books that do not overlap than two good books which succeed in the same areas. Another introductory section gives expert advice on how to select and care for seafood purchases. This advice covers everything I have heard or read before, but with not much I have not heard or read before. Thus, the authors seem to have succeeded with three important big ideas, all of which add up to a promising book for American home cooks. The next issue is whether their recipes are good and they have a good supply of little ideas to back up their agenda. For starters, I believe their recipes are written in an especially good format. My usual preference is for numbered steps tha