♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, cooking a fish at home is always problematic.

People worry about getting fresh fish.

The skin doesn't come out crispy, the texture isn't great, and, of course, you get that odor of fish in your kitchen.

So today on Milk Street, we want to solve those problems and bring you three recipes I think you're going to like.

The first is how to cook salmon.

And this comes out of Japan where they salt the salmon and let it sit in the fridge for a while.

Crispy skin, great texture, and no fishy odor.

Then an Italian season seafood stew.

Obviously we're going to use some shellfish here and some white fish.

We'll show you how to steam fish, one of my favorite methods.

And then we'll make a sauteed cod with zhoug, which is a spicy green sauce.

So please stay tuned as we take a fresh look at how to cook fresh fish.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, I just got back from Japan, where they cook a lot of fish.

Of course, they also eat it raw.

And I had breakfast in one gentleman's house where we had a broiled salmon.

Now, the problem with cooking salmon in this country is we do it very differently.

We end up with a skin that's not crispy.

The Japanese are insanely addicted to crispy skin.

And you get this albumin, this protein sort of leeches out and the whole thing, the texture gets a little bit soft, especially if it's farmed salmon.

So this is not ideal.

So there is a technique in Japan called shiozake.

They clean salmon with some sake.

They might let it sit for a few minutes in the sake, and then they salt it.

Now, this is dry brining, essentially, which you might do with a turkey or a chicken.

Now, what that is going to do is to, well, denature the protein.

That just means the protein's gonna relax a little bit.

It also creates a little bit of a gel-like structure, which means those proteins are not gonna wring together like this and press out all that liquid.

And finally, the salting's gonna help a little bit with the skin.

Now we're gonna use about a half a teaspoon of salt total for both sides.

One question is, how long do you let it sit?

Just like how long would you brine a turkey?

We tested one hour, four hours, eight hours overnight.

Ideally, four hours is probably the best amount of time, but it's no problem if you want to let it sit overnight, like 24 hours, that's fine as well.

We salted it.

It's skin-side down.

Put it in the fridge for four hours, and we'll end up with much better broiled salmon at the end.

So to serve with our broiled salmon, we'll do a little Korean-style cucumber salad.

So, first of all, we'll just peel off strips of the cucumber, like this.

Sliced cucumber.

You want to use an English cucumber, by the way.

Half an onion-- try to get this fairly thin.

Take a little salt, and we'll just massage this for a minute or so.

And we'll let that sit.

This is a Korean-style salad, so it has a little gochujang.

Most dressings around the world, a lot of them will use a little bit of sugar.

Toasted sesame oil, sesame seeds, and vinegar-- rice wine vinegar.

We'll let those vegetables sit for just a few minutes, bring back the salmon, and we're going to broil it.

You really want these all to cook at the same rate, so you want to make sure that all the pieces are pretty much the same depth.

The salting will draw out water, and then will mix with the salt and go back in, but it'll still leave some water on the top.

You can't cook something much until the water's gone on the surface because that water has to evaporate.

So a little bit of oil.

So if you don't score the skin, what's going to happen is it's going to shrink and shrivel and you're also not going to get really crispy skin.

So you want to take little inserts here.

As I said, in Japan, they're crazy about fish skin.

This goes into a hot oven, obviously-- it's a broiler about ten inches below the element, which is farther away than normal, which is usually about six inches.

And we're gonna cook this and watch it carefully for 15 minutes or so.

So while the salmon broils, we're gonna finish up the salad.

So we've rinsed the salt off after letting it sit and get in there with paper towels.

And it's an easy way to pat things dry.

♪ ♪ Now, that looks pretty good because the skin is nice and crispy.

It's not like that piece of fish we had at the beginning.

You don't see any of that white albumin spilling out, which is nice.

Now, another thing I just have to tell you, there's no fishy smell.

Like when I cook salmon at home, the kitchen definitely smells like fish.

And that salting really gets rid of that.

So, how do you know when salmon's done?

Well, I actually use an instant-read thermometer.

I figure 125 to 130, in that range.

The problem with that is it goes much faster in the last little bit.

So you can be at 120 and 30 seconds later, you can be at 140.

When you're broiling or when you're grilling, just remember that last 20% of the time is much faster than that first 80%.

The skin you can see, you can hear, I can hear it.

(crispy skin crinkling) Makes... is nice and crispy.

And then we, of course, have the cucumber salad.

So this is how to cook salmon so you have the perfect texture of the skin and you have salmon that is cooked, but it's also very moist and has nice firm flesh.

It doesn't get soft.

Mmm.

By pre-salting for about four hours or overnight, you firm it up, you get rid of the smell, you have crispy skin and you have a nice firm texture.

So very simple method, little advanced planning, and you can turn salmon-- even farm-raised salmon-- into a great meal with just a little bit of forethought.

♪ ♪ As a cooking teacher, one of my main goals is to get you cooking fish fearlessly.

Today I'm gonna show you one method for cooking shrimp so it's sweet and it's succulent, but still gets that golden crust we're often looking for.

What we're gonna do is sear our shrimp hard on one side.

This is a template.

So I'm using neutral oil because I'm going to show you how to finish this with a Mexican flavor profile.

But if you were doing a Mediterranean fish, you could certainly use olive oil.

You could use coconut oil if you were doing something from Southeast Asia.

Really this is just a method for you to cook shrimp fearlessly.

And it works perfectly every time.

For this, you do want to have the shell off, but I like to leave the tails on.

'Cause often I'm serving shrimp so you can just bite them.

No matter how many shrimp you have, you want to put them in a single layer.

If this means you have to cook in batches, that's fine.

You'd rather cook in batches than have them crowded so that they steam.

This first step is all about developing a really beautiful golden crust.

And then you don't want to touch them.

Besides a single layer, that's the second most important thing.

Look at that.

That's gorgeous.

That's exactly what we're looking for.

So now that we've developed this gorgeous flavor on one side, we're gonna put them in a bowl.

These are going to continue cooking in their residual heat.

So it's like the second side gets steamed, and steamed shrimp have that sweet, succulent flavor.

So we're getting the best of both worlds.

We're getting that crispy, brown, delicious nuttiness on one side and then that sweet steamed flavor on the other side.

And they're not going to overcook.

So when you cook shrimp, the other thing you want to look for is shape.

So you're looking for this loose C. You don't want this tight C. You want something with looseness.

It may get a little tighter.

That's fine.

You just don't want it to get super tight.

All right, so my second batch is pretty much done, and so I'm gonna add them to the bowl.

So that's the shrimp.

That's how you cook them, no matter what.

Now I'm gonna show you one of my favorite sauces for them.

It has garlic, chili, lime, butter, and cilantro.

So you cook the garlic and the chili and then you add the lime to deglaze the pan, some butter in the cilantro, add the shrimp and you're done.

They're all coated in that beautiful butter, lime, garlic, cilantro sauce.

I mean, that sounds delicious.

I wanna show you... one second.

I overcooked some shrimp earlier.

I wanna show you the difference so you have a visual cue.

So this one's got the two-sided sear, but also that tight, rubbery texture.

This has a one-side sear and then a residual heat steam.

It will have the perfect sweet flavor on one side, golden flavor on the other, and the right texture.

Let's go back to basics.

The template for making these shrimp-- high heat on one side, get a golden crust.

Put them into a bowl and let them just sit and steam amongst themselves to finish.

When they have a loose C and they're pink all the way through, they're done.

♪ ♪ - In Ancona, the capital of the Marche region of Italy's Adriatic coast, we learned about two seafood stews-- guazzetto and brodetto.

Both are tomato-based, and they each have four or more kinds of seafood in them.

So we took the attributes of each that we liked the best, and we made our own seafood stew inspired by both of these.

So for the base of the stew, we're gonna start with some carrot, some celery, and some parsley.

And we're gonna sauté this until they start to soften a little bit.

And that's gonna take about four or five minutes.

So these look pretty good.

They're starting to soften.

I'm gonna add some tomato paste and some garlic.

And for a little bit of spice, some crushed red pepper flake.

I'm just gonna stir this around for about a minute and get everything combined.

And now I'm gonna add some white wine.

I'm gonna cook this down till it gets a little syrupy, and that shouldn't take very long at all.

Now I'm gonna add my tomatoes.

These are whole peeled tomatoes that we've crushed by hand.

Gonna add a little bit of water.

And some salt.

So I'm gonna bring this to a simmer and let it cook down for about 15 minutes, partially covered, until it starts to thicken.

And then we can talk about our seafood.

So we're gonna use four kinds of seafood in our seafood stew.

First, we're gonna start with a white fish.

You wanna use a fish that is really firm, not something that's gonna flake apart.

Swordfish is what we're using today, or monkfish are really good fish for that.

So this is a pound of swordfish cut in some good-size chunks.

I'm gonna mix that into the sauce, cover it and let it cook for about ten or 15 minutes until it meets no resistance.

So I wanna talk a little bit about the shellfish.

So mussels, when you get them, sometimes they'll have like, um, some dirt on the outside or a little bit of a beard.

To get that off, you can just scrub them with a little brush or a little pad like this.

Also, the other thing you want to check with mussels is when they're open, if you tap them and they close, they're alive.

But if they don't close, you want to throw them away.

It means they're no good.

So when you're catching clams, usually they're stressed, so they'll clam up and capture any sand that they have inside of them.

So you want to get rid of that sand, because when they open up inside of your stew, you're going to have grit and sand in there, and you don't want that.

So you want to put them in really cold, salty water.

So it's about one cup of salt to a gallon of water.

When they're in this water, they're gonna relax and let go of all the grit and sand, and you'll be able to see that in your bowl.

So these are clean, these are ready to go.

And for scallops, you wanna look for what's called a dry scallop.

There are a lot of scallops that are treated with something called sodium tripolyphosphate.

And what that does is it makes the scallops retain water.

You don't want that.

The best-tasting scallops are ones that have not been treated with that.

So they're a little bit pink and they're sweeter, and they have nicer flavor.

So scallops are attached to the shell with a tendon.

It's kind of a hard white piece.

You wanna just cut that off with a little paring knife to make sure that that doesn't go in your stew.

Okay.

So I think our swordfish is probably done.

It's about... been about ten minutes.

It's not meeting any resistance when I poke it with the skewer so I think it's ready.

So now we're gonna add our scallops and our clams.

So I'm just gonna start with the scallops.

And then we'll add our shellfish.

When these open up, they're going to add so much flavor to this broth.

So I'm going to close this and let this cook for about five minutes.

I'm going to stir it halfway through.

♪ ♪ So once everything is open, you just give them a stir and they're done.

Smells amazing.

You can smell all the seafood.

Most of our clams and mussels are open.

I do see one here that is not open.

So we're gonna get rid of that.

So let's plate this up.

So here's our fish stew.

I'm gonna add a little bit of parsley, and we like a little squeeze of lemon juice.

And you wanna make sure to serve this with some nice crusty bread to soak up all of that delicious broth.

So I'm gonna give this a try.

♪ ♪ Mmm.

So this is a great stew to practice working with different kinds of seafood.

And you can pick the varieties that you like the best.

So I hope you'll enjoy our version of Italian seafood stew.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm back to show you another template for cooking fish fearlessly.

I showed you shrimp before, but now we're going to focus on white fish.

So this is haddock.

This method also works perfectly for cod and also non-white fish like salmon.

So I have a pot with water in it, and then you want to get your steamer basket.

So you might have this type of steamer basket, which is collapsible, or you might have these stackable bamboo ones.

To make sure you have enough water, what you do with your steamer basket is you put it in and you want to make sure that it's about half an inch from the bottom of your steamer basket.

So while this is coming up to a boil, let's talk about flavor.

You need to line your steamer basket so that your fish don't stick.

So you might as well line them with something that has flavor and that you wanna eat.

I often use cabbage leaves, which I'm gonna use today.

This is napa cabbage.

And you can just put it on and overlap it like this.

Or you can also tear it down.

And then you can put a piece of fish on each individual cabbage leaf.

Don't stop at cabbage.

Here I have a whole platter of options.

You can thinly slice fennel.

You can add chilies.

You can add scallions.

It could just be scallions, which is delicious.

You have a bed of steamed scallions underneath your fish.

So you just choose what you want to eat with your fish.

It's sort of like the magic of the traybake or the one-pot meal or the casserole.

This is your vegetable and your protein in one.

I'm going to use my bamboo steamer, so let me show you how I build them.

I'm just making fish, so I only need one layer, and I'm gonna line it with my napa cabbage.

You don't want to overcrowd it.

You want to make sure there's room for the steam to come up.

We often serve fish with some sort of citrus or citrus sauce, so I'm gonna do a few orange rounds also.

I like pepper, so I'm putting pepper on.

Okay, so the water's nice and hot.

I'm gonna salt the fish.

You don't need to worry about drying it off because we're not trying to develop browning, right?

We're steaming the fish so we're going for really nice, clear flavors.

So you don't have to worry about making sure that the surface of the fish is dry.

So we have our steamer basket.

The water's boiling.

Just go ahead and arrange the fish.

Cover your steaming basket if you're using this type.

If not, remember you have the lid.

And lower it down.

So for filets that are about an inch thick, it takes about eight to ten minutes.

So set a timer for six and start checking.

So why does this template work in terms of cooking fish fearlessly?

Most of my students, the thing they're the most worried about with cooking fish is overcooking it.

Steaming works because it's gentle heat, which means you have margins.

It's very hard to overcook fish this way.

If you want extra safety precautions, choose fish with a little more fat in it.

So if you get salmon, which has more fat than a lean white fish, you have even larger margins.

So I'm gonna let this cook for six to ten minutes.

We'll check it, and then I'm gonna show you two ways that I serve it.

All right, let's see how this looks.

It's absolutely perfect.

Great.

So we're going to turn the heat off.

Let's start with our tacos.

So let me get out a piece of fish.

And this is gonna flake open beautifully.

Oh, look at that.

No resistance, but also no rubberiness.

Not overcooked at all.

So I'm gonna make a little bed of slaw.

Nice piece of fish right down there.

And then I absolutely love this pipian verde that we have a recipe for.

So it's sort of like a green pumpkin-seed-based sauce.

Squeeze of lime, and we've got a gorgeous summer fish taco with that absolutely perfectly cooked fish.

Another way I like to serve it is to use the vegetables I steamed the fish on as part of the presentation and part of the meal.

So I'm gonna go under one of my filets, get the cabbage and the orange slice, and then everyone gets a little bit of the vegetable, they get a beautiful piece of orange that had a little of that black pepper on it.

And for this one, I'm gonna dot it with a compound butter.

So here are two beautiful presentations of our perfectly steamed fish.

The template you wanna remember is a pot of hot water, a steaming basket lined with the vegetable of your choice.

You put the fish on top, sprinkle it with salt, put it in the pot, lid on-- eight minutes later, dinner's done.

So we do love to steam fish, but there are, of course, other ways to prepare it.

And Matt's gonna show you our sautéed cod with zhoug, which is another bright green sauce that pairs perfectly with white fish.

♪ ♪ - Zhoug is a sauce I absolutely love.

I tend to make a lot of extra whenever I'm making this dish and keep some around for sandwiches, for eggs, for making salad dressings.

You can mix it with a little yogurt to make a dip with it.

It's a really all-purpose sauce.

Zhoug always starts with a lot of herbs.

We're gonna use all cilantro today.

Next, I'm gonna add our warm spices, one-and-a-half teaspoons ground coriander, a half teaspoon ground cumin, and one-quarter teaspoon ground cardamom.

We're gonna add half a teaspoon of kosher salt and half a teaspoon of ground pepper.

Zhoug tends to be fairly spicy but, of course, you can tailor to your heat level by the chilies you use and how much of the seeds you use of the chili.

For the zhoug today, we're gonna use two serrano chilies, stemmed, seeded, and the ribs removed.

Two garlic cloves, peeled and smashed.

And let's go ahead and pulse that until it's fairly roughly chopped.

Now, it's pretty coarse now.

It looks a bit like pesto, so we're going to add a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil.

Now we're going to process it until it's smooth, about 30 seconds.

Before I take it out of the food processor, I am going to taste it.

Wow, that's great.

So let's go ahead and transfer a quarter of this sauce, and we're going to save this to serve at the table.

For today's recipe, we're going to be using really flaky local New England cod, which is a great fish, but you may not be able to get it everywhere in the country.

So this recipe really works with a variety of different flaky white fish.

You could use haddock, hake.

I love it with snapper.

So before we start cooking, we're going to pat the fish really dry.

This is really important if you have had frozen fish, which can have extra moisture in it.

If you're defrosting fish for this dish, do it as slowly as possible.

I really recommend defrosting fish in the refrigerator.

So let's go ahead and pat this dry.

Just use paper towels, and you want to push fairly firmly.

You're not smashing it down, but you want to be fairly firm.

And we can put that aside.

And now we're going to season the fish.

Just a good sprinkle of kosher salt on each filet.

A little bit of pepper, not too much 'cause the fish is delicate.

And remember, that zhoug has a fair amount of kick.

We're gonna use that remaining zhoug as a rub on the fish.

So we're just gonna take a pastry brush and just brush it on each filet.

We're just brushing it on the one side right now.

The smell of the zhoug is so aromatic.

You get the spices, you get the herbs.

This is gonna be great.

Now, we've used this as the rub.

Remember, zhoug has oil, so it's got the olive oil, which is gonna help browning.

It's got the garlic and the chilies, and they're gonna brown, so their flavor's gonna be deep and rich and really satisfying.

The spices are gonna hit the pan and really pop their flavor.

So let's go ahead and we're gonna cook the fish now.

We're gonna add two tablespoons more oil to the pan, and we are using a nonstick skillet.

The nonstick pans really are the safest way to cook really delicate fish like this.

Once that olive oil in the pan starts shimmering-- you can see it really quavering in the pan-- the pan is hot enough to add the fish.

A white, flaky fish like this is guaranteed to stick to the pan if you have not heated it hot enough.

So let's go ahead and we're gonna lay that down.

I'm gonna give them plenty of space.

And at this point, we're gonna take the remainder of the zhoug and brush the top so both sides of the fish will be coated with this really flavorful rub.

And what am I not doing?

I am not touching my fish.

I'm not sliding it around.

The more you move it, the less browning you're gonna have.

You wanna leave it alone.

What you do wanna do is listen to what you're cooking.

It's starting to sound drier.

The pan is looking very dry.

I'm gonna tilt the oil a little bit.

Just so we're all evenly covered.

And I'm gonna start checking the fish about three minutes in.

It typically takes about three to five minutes before we're gonna get browning here.

So let's go ahead and check that.

Oh, beautiful.

We'll flip the remainder of our fish.

You can see it's got that really, really beautiful browning.

You can see it's just starting to flake apart.

We're about three minutes now, and I can tell that all this fish is really cooked through.

And I'm going to go ahead and pull it.

I want to be really careful so I don't break apart that filet.

Oh, it's beautiful.

The aroma is fantastic.

Now we have that reserved zhoug, so let's go ahead and dollop that on our fish.

And we can go ahead and add a little to each filet right down the middle.

And this is a dish I love a little fresh oil on.

And a squirt of lemon juice.

Lemon juice makes everything better.

Oh, it's beautiful.

♪ ♪ Mmm.

It's delicious.

The crust adds a little bit of texture and you get the deeper, richer flavors.

The warm spices come through.

The coriander cuts through some of the richness.

That zhoug really ties together beautifully.

So in this episode, we've worked through three different ways to cook fish.

We did a Japanese salted method.

Really concentrates the fish flavor and texture of salmon.

The seafood stew simmers fish so you capture all the flavors and it's very, very simple.

And this really takes the fear out of cooking flaky white fish.

So really encourage everybody to cook more fish.

You can get this recipe and every other recipe from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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