Red Snapper

F&W Best New Chef 2017 Nina Compton, of Compère Lapin in New Orleans, makes the most delicious version of Jamaican escovitch, combining the classic crispy pan-fried fish with a sweet and spicy pepper sauce.

Once you make the pink chile salt that seasons both the fish and the salad here, you'll want to have it on everything from raw and cooked summer vegetables to grilled bread, melons, mangoes and margaritas.

Jamaicans call this dish "roast fish," even though the seafood actually steams in a foil packet with vegetables. Bradford Thompson follows tradition by serving the fish with a side of "fish tea"—a broth similar to bouillabaisse that's eaten as a kind of sauce.

The secret ingredient in the tasty sauce here is rose, which combines perfectly with the classic Chinese flavors in this dish.

For one whole cleaned and scaled 3-pound red snapper.

For this light, healthy dish, Jean-Georges Vongerichten steams snapper fillets in foil packets with a piquant mix of ginger, lemongrass, green Thai chiles, miso, fish sauce, tarragon, scallions and orange zest. The blend can be made ahead of time and used to flavor other meats like chicken and pork.

This dish includes the pickled grapes that helped Top Chef winner Jeremy Ford nab the coveted title. Just make them and you'll see why—they have the perfect balance of heat and sweet, plus they're juicy and very aromatic.

At La Buca restaurant in Cesenatico on the Adriatic coast, Matt Molina and his crew tried slivers of raw orata, a meaty local white fish, embellished simply with agretti pesto. Since orata is harder to find in the U.S., this recipe calls for red snapper.

Charles Phan recalls eating numerous versions of this slightly sweet and pleasantly tangy fish soup while growing up in Vietnam. Some included only chopped tomato while others were made with a colorful mix of vegetables. Here, he adds freshly squeezed lime juice for a hit of sourness instead of the more traditional tamarind pulp. He adds bean sprouts to the soup for a refreshing crunch.

Broil the snapper on a baking sheet, then serve it with a salad that combines all the bright, crisp flavors of the original dish: fennel, radishes, bell pepper, citrus and jalapeño.

Chef Allen Susser prefers to use firm white-fleshed fish like red snapper and grouper, as well as conch and rock shrimp, for ceviches, because they keep their shape well. "Dice the fish into uniform pieces, so they cook evenly in the citrus juice," he advises.

"Brazilians eat rich and heavy," Eric Ripert says. "I wanted something light and healthy." His idea was to poach a local fish and top it with a tropical version of what he calls sauce vierge, replacing the pickles, capers and tomatoes he would typically use with papaya, mango and ginger.

You can make this supersimple Iranian dish from cookbook author Naomi Duguid with any white fish fillets. Turmeric gives the fish a vibrant yellow color, but it's the aromatic fenugreek leaves that give it a distinctive flavor.

Upgrade taco night with perfect fish tacos by salt-baking a whole fish. The salt crust ensures loads of moist, flaky meat to pair with the curtido (crunchy cabbage slaw) and a fresh pico de gallo. We also love slicing up some creamy avocado to top each taco.

Seared snapper and a crisp, fresh salsa may seem an unlikely match for a lush Oregon Pinot Noir, but James Briscione, author of The Flavor Matrix, says their affinity goes to a molecular level: The wine has notes of rose, of which apples are a relative. The lighter strawberry notes in the wine are equally matched with fresh strawberries in the salsa.