Related Content

• Dinner in Minutes Recipe: Halibut In Cider
• Dinner in Minutes Recipe: Saffron Rice

Dinner in Minutes Recipe: Halibut In Cider

MAIN DISH

HALIBUT IN CIDER

1/4 cup flour

Added flavors boost this all-in-one dish

When you start with a dish developed for a restricted diet, you can add flavor in different ways. Here, the rice is perfumed with ginger as it cooks. Fish sauce and wine go into the sauce.

The original recipe called for fish stock or bottled clam juice; we liked what happened when we used guava or apricot nectar instead. (Be advised that this might not make it suitable for diabetics.) If you use raw shrimp that is already peeled and deveined, you'll save a few minutes' cooking time.

Use a sauvignon blanc on the grassy side -- from New Zealand, Chile or South America -- to cook with and to serve.

The Spanish classic is all about the rice

At its most basic, paella is a rice dish cooked in a broad shallow pan and includes olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, broth and a few more ingredients.

Its soul, though, depends on perfectly cooked rice.

``Paella transforms rice,'' wrote Penelope Casas in her cookbook, Paella!

Experiment for a tasty dish

Pad Thai is a classic that hits on all taste levels. It's sweet, sour, salty and bitter all in one. Making it at home takes a little effort, but once you do, it will become part of your repertoire. You can experiment, as I did, with different ingredient combinations and learn to adjust the sauce to your own taste.

TYPICAL DISH

A traditional pad Thai dish -- pad is Thai for stir-fry -- consists of rice noodles, tofu, shrimp, crushed peanuts, fish sauce, bean sprouts, eggs, garlic and chiles. But you can substitute chicken or pork for the tofu and shrimp or use a variety.

'The luckiest chef': It's been an unlikely, inspiring journey for Ron Duprat

In the kitchen at the Marriott Hollywood Beach, executive chef Ron Duprat is deftly garnishing plates, coaxing a laugh from his staff and showing off dishes from his new menu.

At home amid room service carts, restaurant patrons, conference goers and a small army of cooks, Duprat is far from his grandmother's kitchen in Mare Rouge in rural northwest Haiti. But his journey to South Florida allowed him to turn those moments with his grandmother into an unexpected career -- and an even more unexpected spot on Bravo's Top Chef .

``I grew up in a poor family in Haiti,'' says Duprat, one of 10 children whose parents grew food crops and raised chickens. ``We stretched everything.''