Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today we're going to talk about fish. So what's
the deal about fish, Phil?
I love cooking with fish. Fish is one of those like noble ingredients, no? There's something
about it where it's like, I think it's really easy to fuck it up. But like, if you get it
right, it's like, I feel like it's one of those things that like very few places get
it right. It's like, some people they get it to a state where it's like, it's all right,
it's okay, it's not completely cooked to shit. But there's really few places that really
nail fish cooking.
No, and this is the reason I've noticed that like in high end restaurants, always fish
is like a big deal, you know, that there is like a specific supplier. And sometimes everything
comes at the same time and people goes crazy like cleaning fish and packing it and whatever
processing it just at the moment when it arrives because the cold chain is so critical and
that there are so many aspects that people have to take care of. And if you do everything
right but the product is not good, you wasted your time anyway. So there are like many,
many indicators to get a right fish on a plate.
Yeah, absolutely. Totally. It's like sourcing is super, super important. I mean, even more
so than with meat, you know, and then also like the attention to detail in the execution,
you know, and also kind of just a general understanding, you know, like of what's happening
because it's not like you can just press on it and feel like oh, this is medium, this
is medium. Well, it doesn't work with fish. So, you know, like Fergus Henderson from St.
John restaurant, you know, at one point he said, good chefs have to use their Jedi senses,
you know, as in sort of like feeling what is happening. And I think that's really true
with fish that you kind of have to, you just have to cook it a lot and handle it a lot
and just have a feeling for what's going on when you're preparing it.
Right, like they're developing an intuition to know when it's right, when it's done, what's
the point because you kind of have to guess like, okay, I know this is okay, because I've
done this many times, but I can prove it, you know, like I won't like stick a thermometer
into the center of the fish or something like that.
Yeah. And it's like, I feel like either people go, people either overcook it, or they really
focus on this idea of it has to be glazy in the center, you know, like a little bit raw.
And then they overdo that. So then you end up with a fish that has this like raw gelatinous
center in the middle. And then you cut it open, you see that it's like a little bit
shiny and glazy in the center. And people think like, oh yeah, look at me, I cooked
this really, really well. But actually it's like, no, you didn't cook it enough. Like
it's about cooking it just enough, you know, like oxing out this, this moment where it's
just cooked enough. And then anything after that is overcooked.
I love this Basque technique of grilled fish where they, they cut it in butterfly and grill
it on one side, just one side. So the, the upper side is usually still raw, but just,
just a little bit, you know, just a little push to get done. So what people do here is
they bring olive oil to a high temperature with slices of garlic and a little bit of
chili and they pour that on top, which is a technique that I have seen in Japanese cuisine
mainly, like doing this with carpaccio, but it's a tradition here. Sometimes they also
add like a splash of vinegar to this. So it's kind of like a super hot dressing that they
pour on top. And this is, you won't see a place where, where they do it wrong because
it's actually a pretty safe technique, you know, to get the, the, the proper cooking
point without having to think too much. It's kind of safe, you know, like to do it this
way. Yeah, definitely. And just like cutting this
like garlicky oil with like this, like white vinegar makes this super, super delicious
dressing, especially often then when the fish often like it's also doused on the fish as
it's grilling, you know, exactly. Yeah. They brush it on top. Yeah. And then depending
on the fish often, you know, the, this dressing will kind of like seep onto the plate and
the gelatin from the fish will kind of like get released with it. And then, you know,
like sometimes in very specific places, you see them kind of mixing up these like gelatinous
juices with that dressing and emulsifying them at the table and then dressing the fish
again next to the table with it. That's so crazy. Yeah. I've seen that. And that's super
unique. And if you haven't experienced it, it's, it's a really crazy thing because it
changes your, like, it really changes the, I hate this word, but it changes the mouth
feel of the fish. You really have to sort of like lip smacking kind of sticky sort of
tasty fish sensation when you're eating the fish. Super nice. Yeah. Like I've been to
Elcano a couple of times and this also happens, like, you know, the maître comes to the table
and explains all the different parts of the fish and how it behaves in the sea and why
the, how the different parts taste together while he's doing exactly what you just said,
like emulsifying the sauce with the collagen of the fish and, and pouring it on top. So
it's like a super amazing experience. Yeah, totally. I mean, the understanding that they
have at Elcano is crazy about also, you know, the flatfish are sort of like, which side
is facing the sun, which side is facing the ground of the ocean with the different colors,
you know, and like what parts of the fish work more kind of like how you would think
of like a cow, you know, sort of like, oh, this muscle moves a lot. So it's a lot tougher
and this muscle doesn't move a lot. So it's got more fat marbling and nobody really thinks
of fish like that. And, but they do, you know, and it makes total sense that different parts
of the fish, especially when you have a big fish, like a turbot, they are different, you
know, they have a different texture, they have a different amount of, you know, like
fiber and gelatin and dust, those sorts of things as super, super interesting approach.
Like a crazy, if we talk about fish, I would say the craziest techniques, the most sophisticated
and complex that you can find are in Japan and you work in Japan. Let's talk about Ikejime
because that's a crazy technique to explain. I'll say the way I understand it and then
you can like talk on that. Like the way I understand it is that you first catch the
fish alive and you hit it in the head so it gets a little bit dumb. And at that point
you put like, kind of like a super fine nail through its, how do you say it, its spine
cord? Spine, yeah. Yeah, exactly. To give it like a proper that so the muscles loosen,
something like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I mean, there's just different ways of
doing it. There's one way where you have this like little book that kind of looks like a
fishing book on like a stick and you kind of like insert that at a spot behind the eye
so that you kind of like go right into the brain. So you instantly kill the fish. It
sounds very brutal, very gruesome, but actually it's very humane because it instantly kills
the fish, right? Instead of in, you know, not so well practiced fishing habits where
the fish just kind of like gets thrown into the deck and suffocates and it's like flopping
around and kind of stressing itself out and also damaging itself, you know, or like, you
know, fish that just kind of get whacked over the head. And so it's like they get hematomes
and also a lot of stress and is released into the muscles of the fish, you know, which is
the fillets. And all of that affects the taste and just, you know, before we go on and talk
about Ikejime, you know, like I think that's like one of the main things is the blood in
the fish, you know, the like blood is the thing that makes fish taste of an irony and
fishy, you know? So basically you don't want any blood. You don't want any hematomes. You
don't want any punctures and you want to get the blood out of the fish as quickly as possible.
Because it's going to be used for sashimi. That's the reason you don't want to see red
dots in your sashimi. Exactly. Because if you eat it raw, all those like off tastes
are really, really apparent. So like you said, you know, the fish gets killed and then two
incisions are made where basically the neck is just behind the gills at the spine and
at the tail. Incisions that cut through the spine, but not all the way through the fish.
And then a very long needle is inserted into the spine that break and so, you know, from
the neck down to the tail. And then it's kind of like move back and forth to make sure to
destroy and cap all of those nerves. And what that does is that the fish is immediately
completely nerve dead and the rigor mortis doesn't set in. So rigor mortis is, as most
people will know, the tensing of the muscles after something has died. It happens in most
animals, you know, in fish, in mammals and everything, you know, when you die, you have
this like stiffness and that doesn't happen because you cap the nerves. So that is one
part that's very important. But then the other part of Ikejima that's really important is
that then after that is done, the fish gets put into an ice bath for a certain amount
of time. Now this has the effect that the blood gets to circulate out of the fish through
the spine. So it kind of bleeds out through the tail and through the neck into the water.
And then afterwards you take the fish out, you dry it and you prepare it as it would,
you know, the result that you get from that is a very clean, firm, like almost sparkling
piece of fish, you know, that has a completely different texture, a super, super clean taste
and visually is also very pure, you know, it's just very, very pure. It just makes,
it gives you like a 10 time better quality of fish if done right.
It also comes to my mind, I would say like an old school French chef would say that you
don't want to eat your fish super fresh, like freshly killed from the day. Like you would
prefer to wait like two days. So the meat dressings, isn't that like a contradiction
with Japanese and French or these are different approaches for different things or what's
your thought on that?
So I mean, the way that I've seen it is that, and the way that I do it myself also is that
it really depends on the fish that you have. Obviously some fish are leaner, some fish
are fattier and I mean, keeping with the example of Japan, when I was in Japan, we would age
different fish for a different amount of time. Some fish we would, you know, kill on the
day and use them and some fish we would deliberately leave to dry for a couple of days. Obviously
just like with dry aging, you know, like when you dry something, the moisture from the flesh
kind of like evaporates and everything else that's there, the fat and you know, everything
else gets more and more concentrated. With things like a turbot, for example, and also
like especially if you want to grill a fish, it's really beneficial if you age it a little
bit because the skin dries out really nicely. There's no residual, because the flesh also
absorbs water. That's also why it's kind of counterintuitive to put this fish in water
to bleed out for five minutes because like the way that I learned in Western cooking
is that you don't want fish to touch water ever. You want it to wash it as quickly as
possible, but you don't want to keep the fish lying in water because it'll just soak it
up, right? But because the fish is still whole, when you do that, it's kind of okay because
the actual fillets of the fish, they don't touch the water and then yeah, drying it out,
that's that. Also for the skin, when you have, for example, your example of butterflying
fish, if you have a sea bream and you butterfly it and you leave it open in the fridge with
the skin, just like the flesh touching, whatever you have it on, the tray, the plate, whatever,
and the skin being open, it dries out and then when you grill it, it gets super, super
crispy, like shattering crispy. And obviously the flavor of the fish gets more intensive.
But also in Japan, what we would do often is that we would take fillets of fish and
to draw out that moisture even quicker, we would really lightly salt it and leave it
for a couple of hours and then really quickly wash it off. So it's like a very quick dry
brine. Really quickly wash it off, pat it dry. Yeah, I wanted to talk about brines and salt
as well because that's something, also something about fish that you do with fish that you
would never do with meat, like pre-salting or making quick brines to have a proper amount
of salt, like completely, how to say, standardized for large batches. Let's say for an event
of 100 people, you want to do something like that, you know? So you're sure that all the
salt is okay for the 150 or whatever pieces that you're going to cook that day, which
is something nobody would ever do with meat, you know? I think that salt is also super
relevant to talk about how to use it and what to do and not to do. Yeah, absolutely. And
I mean, even for the, we were even doing it for things like sashimi, you know? It's like,
it really depends on the size and the fat content and you know, what you really want
from that fish. You know, some fish you want to leave completely untouched and just clean
it nicely. You always want to have it dry. You know, you don't want the fish to be sitting
in its excess liquid. But yeah, some pieces we would salt and then wash again, you know,
and then pat dry. And it would change, really change the texture, make it really meaty and
tender. And I think that like, these are sort of like the aspects that, and also it draws
out, you know, residual blood also, you know? If there is like a little bit of a blood line
left in the fish, you know, you salt it and it draws that out a little bit more. It gives
you really, really clean flavor of fish. And I think these sorts of things, it's like,
it's super easy to fuck that up, you know? It's like you put a little bit too much salt
on it and you leave it for two hours and you have semi-cured fish. Yeah, exactly. And if
you don't clean the fish correctly, you know, you take the guts out the wrong way, you puncture
the gallbladder, you know, your fish is going to taste awful. You can't fix that, you know,
unless you put a ton of lemon on it. That's probably the reason the fish chef in a restaurant,
it's always like a highly skilled chef, like someone who knows to do all of this properly,
like, which is not easy at all. And also, and also because fish is very expensive, you
know? So if you fuck it up, then you've wasted a lot of money. I wanted to tell a story about,
like my favorite fish that I remember was something, nothing pretentious at all. Like
there is a beach in Margarita Island in Venezuela, it's called Playa Parquito, and they would
do this grilled fish inside like of banana plant leaves and ají dulce, they made like
this. It was just ají dulce salt and kind of like a papillote, you know, and grilled.
And the memory I have of this is amazing, you know? And I remember someone, I'm telling
this because you said about that some fishes are leaner, others are fattier, and you have
to understand your product and how to cook it and what to do with it. And you can't say
one is better than the other, they're just different fishes, you know? And I remember
someone telling like really pretentiously, like, no, as you know, Nordic fish is much
better than the fish in the Caribbean. And I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, and this
is scientifically provable because it's fattier and this and that. And I was like, okay, you
can't say that, you know, like, not just like that. But anyways, yeah, like, I think it's
important to understand the quality of the fish and what to do with it independently
of that some are better or worse, you know, as long as you have a fresh product.
Absolutely, yeah. And I think this whole idea of like fattier is better is really, like,
is really superficial. I mean, you know, like, I think sushi is the perfect example for that,
because if you think like, you know, like, let's say Western audience, you know, for
them, what's their favorite sushi? It's the fatty otoro, you know, it's the fatty tuna.
But if you ask a Japanese person or like somebody who's an expert, they find that the leaner
tuna pieces are much more interesting than the and much more enjoyable often than the
fatty tuna pieces. It's very easy to have something super fatty and it'd be tasty, you
know, but that's just like, it's a very, like, it's a very brute way of nice, you know, like,
I like it too, it's delicious. But, you know, if you have a really excellently prepared
piece of, you know, katsu, there's like a lean sort of like smaller tuna, like a bonito,
it's amazing, you know, and so this idea of fatty equals better. It's the same with beef,
you know, it's still sort of like, oh, wagyu this, wagyu that. Yeah, wagyu is very tasty.
But if you have, you know, like, I mean, you and me know, for me, one of the best beefs
that I've eaten is the, is the, the Vagagallega, you know, the dairy cow. Yeah. And, and that's
not particularly super fatty. Yeah. That's not like a particular expensive piece of special
meat. That's just like a particular cut. That's it. Yeah. What about fish stock? What are
your thoughts on that? You know, fish stock is really difficult because you also, you
can't like making a nice fish stock is a bit of an art form, I think making stocks in general
is a big art form, you know, it's not just throwing things into a pot and just bringing
them to a boil. Not, I don't think you can make nice, you know, what we in French cooking
we call a fumet, a nice clean white fish stock. You can't do that out of any sort of old fish,
you know, for example, like odd and those sorts of things and carp and they don't work
as they become too cloudy. But you know, I'm a big fan of making, you know, meat style
sauces as in like, like how you would make a jus where you roast the bones and you make
like a base and then you make like intense sort of glazes, but with fish bones, when
you kind of like have the spines and you roast it really nicely, you have to be very careful
with fish because it'll get really bitter very quickly. And then you make a base and
you cook a sort of like butter, like a beurre blanc sauce, but with this roasted base, it's
very, very, especially nice. That reminds me of the soup at Delcano, you know, the dark
fish soup. Have you had it? I haven't had it now, unfortunately. Yeah. Like next time
you go ask for it because it's like a, you know, a starter. It's just like a small bowl
of super dark brown fish soup. Yeah. Nice. Amazing. You know, if you get that right,
it's a revelation, but yeah, cooking fish soup, because you have all these like elements
that can make it cloudy and smelly and it's like, it's not so easy. I mean, I like very
much the way it's done here, like for salsa verde, you know, that's almost like a fish
parsley infusion, you know, it's like a super light fish stock, you know, like, and quickly
cooked and not letting it boil never, you know, like something really, really delicate.
Being delicate is one of the key things like with preparing fish. You can't be rough. It
has to be, you have to be deliberate, you know. One thing I also found really cool,
what I saw in Japan is that they were keeping the, I think it was the bones of, I might
be lying now, it was either fugu or it was unagi. I think it was unagi. I think it's
the eel bones. And they were keeping the center bones and they were toasting them on the charcoal,
like really lightly until they were like golden brown and then they put them in sake.
I've worked in a place, we would do our own unagi sauce, like on the Yaki Tori grill.
We would get like fresh eels from, from Northern Germany. And yeah, process the whole eel,
roast the bones and making, as you said, like a dark fish sauce, but with eel. And this
was amazing. Like I never had something like that.
Super nice. Yeah. But I also, they put it in sake. It's like a thing that you like have
then this like roasted fish bone sake and you have like a small shot of that. And that's
also, that was super crazy. I was like, wow.
You eat the roasted bones?
No, you don't eat it. You just drink the flavored alcohol.
Ah, okay. Ah, that's super interesting. That's super, super interesting.
Yeah. I never saw that before.
Yeah. That kind of reminds me for me, it was also revealing at the ramen place. The first
time I saw rice tea and I was like, what is it? It was green tea and they would add roasted
rice to the tea to give it right roasted rice flavor. I thought that was pretty cool as
well.
Yeah. That's called Genmaicha. It's really delicious. It's like such a, I remember when
I tried it the first time, I thought it was really weird. Like, cause I couldn't relate
to it, you know, but it's like now it's, it has this really homely feel, you know, just
like roasted rice.
Yeah. It's kind of like popcorns or something like that. Like roasted rice. Yeah.
Super delicious.
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