袁枚的海鮮篇共提到10種菜: 燕窩、海參、魚翅、鰒魚(鮑魚)、淡菜、海蝘、 烏魚蛋、江瑤柱、蠣黃。

我把下列刪除： 燕窩 (不合時宜) 、魚翅(不合時宜), 鮑魚(貴而烹調耗時), 烏魚蛋(不確定食材倒底為何), 蠣黃 (陳述太簡單而無參考價值)

袁枚的海鮮食譜都很簡單，也許海鮮美味天成，不需過多裝飾，除非本身無味，如海參。

(原文)海參三法：

海參，無味之物，沙多氣腥，最難討好。然天性濃重，斷不可以清湯煨也。須檢小刺參，先泡去沙泥，用肉湯滾泡三次，然後以雞、肉兩汁紅煨極爛。輔佐則用香蕈、木耳，以其色黑相似也。大抵明日訪客，則先一日要煨，海參才爛。嘗見錢觀察家，夏日用芥末、雞汁拌冷海參絲，甚佳。或切小碎丁，用筍丁、香蕈丁入雞湯煨作羹。蔣侍郎家用豆腐皮、雞腿、蘑菇煨海參，亦佳。

Sea cucumbers, being tasteless, containing sand and a special smell, is hard to cook well. Boiling it with heavy broth is essential. Light broth can’t perform well.

Method 1: For the small and spiked variety, first soak it in water to clear of mud and sand, then boil it with meat broth three times, and simmer it with chicken and pork broth and soy sauce until the texture becomes supple and soft. For best result, add ingredients such as shitake or woodear mushroom to the dish for a coherent black color. Always prepare the dish one day before, to make sure the sea cucumber is cooked through and through.

Method 2: Mr. Chien’s method of making a cold sea cucumber dish in the summertime is praiseworthy – mixing mustard and chicken broth with cold cubed sea cucumber.

Method 3 : Another option to Method 2 is to make thick soup with cubed sea cucumber, cubed bamboo shoots and cubed mushroom, while using chicken broth as the base.

Method 4: Officer Jiang’s household used tofu sheet, chicken thighs and mushrooms to cook with sea cucumber. It turns out great.

Note: 章目雖寫「海參三法」，袁枚其實共提出四種作法，每一作法都提到雞湯，而且要長時間煨，掌握此兩訣竅，做海參就不難了。此處提到的蔣侍郎，在書中還會再出現。侍郎是官階，類似於今日的副部長，次長。

現代做海參都簡化了，但某些網廚示範做海參時這樣說：「家常版不可能燉隻雞來煨海參」，或「飯店都是先做肉湯來煨海參，我們就不必了」等，如此反而點出袁枚所述的以肉湯來煨才是王道。

海參是動物，一向是亞洲人的美味，現在西方體認到它的營養價值，藥業也廣用海參來提煉其精華，所以野海參就越來越少了。據說有些國家已開始養殖海參，嘴饞的話，不如等 養殖海參普及化後再吃吧！