This Lent, make catfish, salmon, shrimp and scallops

Lent. It’s a time for reflection. A time for humility. And definitely a time for fish.

For this Lenten season, we have four dishes, two with fish and two with shellfish. Each one was so delicious that it may not be entirely in the spirit of somber reflection and self-sacrifice.

But that’s OK. They’re great to eat when it is not Lent, too.

We started with the most typical of all Lenten meals: fried fish. It may be better than anything you could get at most churches, but that is probably because we used a slightly more expensive ingredient than they use.

The ingredient was panko bread crumbs for the breading. Panko makes everything fried taste better. It gives it an extra crispy snap that is simply delightful.

Next up was a dish we hadn’t made in some time but has long been a favorite: shrimp with soy, garlic, ginger and lemon. With the ingredients listed in the name, it is not surprising that it has a certain Chinese flair. It is even stir-fried, though it could be modified slightly and cooked on the grill.

Unlike simpler stir-fries, it requires a three-part procedure. First, you make a marinade with all of the ingredients in the title, and more — sherry, for one. After you marinate the shrimp for an hour, you strain out the marinade and thicken it with a slurry of cornstarch and water to make an amazingly flavorful sauce.

Then stir-fry the shrimp with more garlic and ginger, plus red bell pepper. Your house will smell as great as your dinner will taste.

The third dish was another old favorite: fish prepared en papillote. The phrase means “in paper” or “in parchment,” and refers to a way of wrapping fish or occasionally chicken in a sealed parchment packet along with vegetables and a splash of liquid, often wine.

You bake the packets in the oven, and the fish gently cooks in the steam that is created inside the packet.

This version begins with salmon, which is placed on top of a bed of sautéed carrots and mushrooms. Dill goes on top of that — a natural with salmon — and plenty of shallots to provide a mild, earthy onion flavor. The fish was cooked to perfection, and the whole dish from presentation (everyone oohs and ahs when you cut open the packet) to taste was stunning.

The final dish came from a cookbook by Legal Seafood, the popular East Coast chain of seafood restaurants. The book says it’s one of the restaurants’ most popular pasta dishes, which makes sense when you consider the main ingredients: scallops, heavy cream and mushrooms.

Imagine seared scallops served in an exquisite cream of mushroom soup sauce. Now imagine that the sauce gets its low notes from garlic and scallions, and its high from white wine, and it’s all piled atop bowtie pasta.

Yeah. It’s that good.