Deep-fry

"On a trip to Longboat Key in Florida, my fiancé and I ate at Pattigeorge's," writes Wendy J. Harbart of Forest Hills, New York. "The five-spice calamari was out of this world."

One diner's instructions on how to find Mrs. Wilkes': "Walk along West Jones Street until you smell fried chicken."

The classic appetizer incorporates sweet and luscious ingredients for a terrific dessert from ObaChine in Beverly Hills.

Janet and Travis Kuhl of Cranford, New Jersey, writes: "We recently went to chef Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger restaurant in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Our entire meal was top-notch, but the shrimp cocktail was our favorite." Poured carefully side by side into a cocktail glass, tomato puree and avocado puree make a colorful dip for the lightly battered and quickly deep-fried shrimp.

These delicate, crisp capers make a flavorful garnish. Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Japan meets Morocco in this inventive dish. For a light coating, don’t overmix the tempura batter: A few lumps of flour are O.K. Find preserved lemons at a specialty foods store, or use the grated peel of a regular lemon.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This starter gets a double dose of cayenne — in the cornmeal coating for the shrimp and in the garlicky mayonnaise dip.

Sausage and Potato Mini-Turnovers The dough for these little turnovers may be pressed either by hand or with a tortilla press.

Frying tenderloins is like frying chicken: All recipes are fundamentally alike, but each has a twist, ranging from how the flour coating is seasoned to what the cooked meat ought to be drained on (paper towel? brown paper bags?).

These are great for salads and canapés.

To recall the miracle of Hanukkah, dishes fried in oil are prepared during the holiday festivities. The mother of our executive editor used to dazzle her family with these cookies-each one slightly different from the next.

A few years back, I renewed my romance with Galatoire's restaurant. The reacquaintance was arranged by my friend Kerry Moody, who is one of New Orleans's black Creoles. A frequent visitor to the restaurant, he led me through the menu and introduced me to such off-the-menu delights as fried eggplant lightly dusted with confectioners' sugar. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've returned to Galatoire's many times since. Now when I arrive at the restaurant, I feel like a regular when my waiter, Imre, remembers me after any length of absence and brings the eggplant to the table unasked. The combination of eggplant and sugar sounds strange, but the dish is delicious, a perfect beginning to a Creole feast and a subtle reminder of the African traditions of New Orleans cooking. The eggplant on which the dish is based may have originated in Africa, and the frying in deep oil is one of the major African culinary methods brought to this country by slave cooks.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

If you make these as a side dish for the southern fried catfish, you can fry them in the same oil, but cook the hush puppies first because the fish will flavor the oil.

A puree of spinach and basil lends color and flavor to this Thai-style main dish.