October 16, 2019 • 33 mins
Host Michael Ruhlman speaks w/ fish market owner Indira Funes & chef Timon Balloo about "Raw Fish."
- Indira Funes and her fish market "Shore to Door" in Miami can be reached at (305) 529-3471
- Timon Balloo's new restaurant "Balloo" is opening in the fall of 2019. Follow their progress on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balloorestaurant/
- Michael Ruhlman's book "From Scratch" is out now: https://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Meals-Recipes-Dozens-Techniques/dp/1419732773
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to From Scratch, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Michael Rohlman. I'm a writer. I've spent the last
twenty years in professional kitchens, writing about and with the
world's best chefs. The great thing about the cooking life
is that you never stop learning. In this show, I
want to go to the edges of what I know
and then go beyond together with you, with all chefs,
(00:27):
home cooks, and everyone who cares about food and cooking.
In each episode, we'll talk with one chef and one
non chef about the same theme. On today's episode, we're
going to be learning about preparing raw fish. Eating fish
raw is my favorite way to eat fish. It's so clean, fresh,
and nourishing. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of cooked fish.
(00:49):
Heat brings out the oils that make fish fishy. Eating
it raw you get only the fish itself and the
seasoning you bring to it, and the quality of fish
available to us now is unparalleled in our culinary history.
It's also probably the easiest way to prepare fish, a
good thing because I'm not a great fish cook. In
(01:10):
this episode, we'll discover a little bit more about preparing
raw fish through the personal stories of two very special
and different sources. We're going to hear from Chef Timone
Blue and tour the construction of his forthcoming restaurant. Blue
is an expert and probably all of the different global
preparations of raw fish. He walked us through how his
(01:31):
twenty year quest to learn countless cuisines was a mirror
of his personal struggles to find his own identity. He
also gives us high level tips about preparing raw fish yourself.
But first, our producer Jonathan met with a valuable member
of Miami's local food community, Indira, and I operate an
(01:54):
owned short door fish market. Sure To Door Fish Market
is a small shotgun style shop in the Cocoanut Grove
neighborhood of Miami. Indira, along with many locals, call it
the Grove. The narrow market opens up from a small
door along a busy street Douglas Road, into a beautifully kept, funky,
colorful shop that feels like it could be any place
(02:17):
between Miami and Columbia. On the entire left half of
the shop are polished stainless steel beds being ice down
for incoming fish deliveries. On the opposite side are shelves
of locally made jams and hot sauces. The walls everywhere
hold pictures of beautiful boats, huge deep sea catches, and
chalkboards which display the ever changing menu of fresh fish
(02:41):
and their prices. And Deira spoke from the shop's backyard.
She wore silver bracelets that occasionally clanged against the beach
chair that she sat in, which was pulled up to
one of her many shaded picnic tables. We wanted to
learn about how to shop for great fish in your
own community, but to be again, she started with her
(03:01):
inspiration for opening the fish market in the first place.
She told us that it comes from her vivid memories
as a child growing up in the beach town of
La Guira on the north coast of Venezuela. She always
loved the conversations she would have with a local fisherman,
quite honestly, talking about the weather, talking about the ties,
talking about the you know how, you know what what
(03:22):
kind of catch they got, how how awesome or how
poor the catch was, things like that, Really what type
of fish you caught? You know, how you're gonna cook it?
Like you know, it just thinks like that. You know.
It was simple, but it was but but it meant something,
you know, and meant something because it was my part
of my our weekend routine to go to the fisherman
and be like, you know, my parents would send us
(03:43):
to go get fish, or you know, we go to
the beach and sit on the beach and the fisherman
will pull up with their dinghies with the oysters and
chucked the oysters or you know, things like that. You know,
it was a lovely time there, for sure. One thing
that Indira expresses through work at Shorter Door is her
passion for presenting natural resources just as they are fresh
(04:04):
and pristine, smelling of the sea. Modern nature to me
is perfect. And you know, if I'm in the cold countries,
you know areas, I'll have like peaches and I have
to because I feel like that's what the vitamin is
that my body requires. Weird, I know, but that's how
I feel about it and and that's how I grew up. Really,
for Indira, the term local is essential to her way
(04:25):
of life, not just to work. I believe that you
should eat whatever is local for your for your health.
You know, like if the magazine season, that's what you
should eat. If the avocado is not in a season
you don't eat. But now there's like this facade about avocado.
So we take all these fruits from taking off the
tree before they're ready, which means to me that they're
(04:47):
not they're not a benefits for you. Early in her life,
she noticed that she wanted to get into the hospitality business.
Living La Wada and on the coast and being able
to go into hotels and you know, just because I
lived around, I go see my friends, like old family
that came to the hotels. And I remember I was like,
I don't know, maybe nine ten years old, and I
(05:07):
asked my mother, what you have to study to be
in this industry with people and food and music and
wine and beer, just always people in a good mood.
Before the beginning Short Door in two thousand and fifteen,
she spent thirty years in the hospitality business of Miami.
She stayed busy, worked hard, saved her money, and traveled
every summer. She became a valued local in the grove,
(05:30):
but she was always thinking of what was still needed
in her community. Every town should have certain things like
a post office, a bank, a bakery, a coffee shop,
a fish market, at meat shop, you know, the church,
at synagogue. It just you should be the Buddhist temple.
You should all be, you know, the surf shop. I
mean it's, you know, silly, but that's the ideal things
(05:51):
for me. You know, most people have a boat and
go fishings, but there's other people, other people that don't
have a boat, that don't get to go fishing, that
don't get too So I've decided to do, say, you
know what for the people that don't have a boat
of fish for them. I thought, well, you know, we
need a fish market. So I started looking and it
so happens that I was driving around and I was like, wow, man,
(06:12):
you know, wait, there's a fish right there. I'm gonna
just knock on the door. And it was a faded
fish on the on the wall. And we knocked on
the door, knocked on the door, and nobody would open.
And I kept going around to the hood and people
asking people, Hey, you know who owns this. She eventually
found the owner of the defunct fish market which preceded her,
made a deal to take over the property, and within
(06:32):
like three months, I quit my job and started doing
short the door and it's as pure as you can get,
and dear a personally sources all of the fish directly
from fisherman that she has built relationships with over her
time in the hospitality industry. She even delivers to your home,
hence the name, and for her weekly routine, I drive
(06:52):
to the keys at least once a week. Yes, they're
just local fisherman from the Keys, you know, and here
in the grove too. Um they go a fishing every day,
rain or shine sometimes, you know. By operating a shop
with such a simple philosophy of serving only local and
fresh fish, she's certainly run into challenges with communicating that
(07:12):
to new customers who simply aren't used to shopping this
way for their food. Some people still want to buy
what they want when they want it, even if it's frozen.
I don't go to fish market thinking I'm gonna buy
a piece of grouper. I go to fish market. That's
what I want people to get from here. When you
come here, come to get the fresh and I mean
the fresh local stuff. It could be grouper, it could
(07:34):
be mahi, could be black pinto, and I could be
able to I mean, whatever it is, that's what that's
what I want people to get from here. So that's
it's challenging, but conversely, she loves the opportunity this presents.
You teach people about new fish, Like it's not just
a yellow toss snapper. You can teach people about triggerfish
and uh, you know, golden talect stuff like just different
(07:56):
types of fish. And people find it like, wow, this
is a great fish, you know. So they'll call me
again and be like, hey, Jed, do you do you
have this fish? You know, and I have to teach him.
Then hey, that was a fresh catch. You know. Some
people will go with the flow and be like, Okay,
what's logo, what's fresh? That's what I want. And then
I'll be like this, this and this, Okay, give me
a couple of pounds of days of that. Yeah, it's
(08:16):
a little process, you know. I've only been here three years,
you know, so it's a little process. We would tell
you shorted doors business hours, but they're based on availability too,
just like the product. The product she sells is wild.
It's one of the few truly wild foods available to us.
Call me anytime. If I'm not in the phone is
because we're I'm out of town. If I'm not at
(08:38):
the shop, it's because we have no fresh local seafood,
and I stick by that if we're not here, it's
because I don't have anything fresh. Later on, Indera and
her chef generously shared with us there are expert tips
on shopping for fresh fish, what's to look for, and
of course, how to make a really killer cevica. Our
(09:13):
next guest is one of Miami's rising star chefs, Timon Blue.
My name is Timon Balu, chef owner of Blue Restaurant
Downtown Miami and partner at Sugarcane Rob Burt Grill, Miami,
Las Vegas in Brooklyn, New York. Blue earned his expertise
on all things raw fish through a long and winding path,
cooking nearly every major global cuisine, but his dreams of
(09:37):
becoming a chef as a youth were nearly abandoned. He
thought he'd get into the finance industry to make his
family proud. Fortunately for us, that didn't last, and we'll
hear about what happened when he embraced his passion for cooking.
When we contacted Timone in August of two thousand nineteen,
he was in the middle of construction for his forthcoming
project called Blue. He found time to chat with our
(09:59):
producer or Jonathan in between equipment deliveries and meetings with designers.
We wanted to learn his convictions on preparing rough fish,
but we also heard his personal journey. Actually, on Saturday mornings,
I used to watch instead of cartoons, a chef by
the name of Martin Yenne and his show called Yan
Can Cook on PBS. Martin Yenne was one of the
early TV chefs that he was crazy, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and
(10:23):
able to convey not only that knowledge but his passion
for cooking. I love the guy. I was just mesmerized
really by the way he would dice and chop using
his cleaver, with the loud sounds, the way he would
cook with the pans and the flame, and also his
charismatic facial expressions, and also his his education of ingredients.
(10:46):
But young Tumo always pictured chefs as someone in TV land,
like Disney characters. He never internalized becoming a chef as
a realistic goal. I want to make my family proud,
and I was like, you know, wearing a suit and
going to Wall Street with the way, so I had
the idea of going into business school and finance and
make my way to Wall Street. He really wanted to
(11:06):
be a good son. He tried, but it didn't laugh.
I wasn't happy with financed by still enrolled in college
and I was actually interning at Smith, Barney and Sheerson
when I realized that I don't know if this is
for me. Then one day fate intervened, well not fate.
Timon's wife, then girlfriend intervened. When she was picking up
take out from their neighborhood sports bar. She insightfully decided
(11:30):
to grab Timon a job application on her way out.
She even lined up a job interview on his behalf.
And then that led to me quitting school and saying, Okay,
I'm gonna, you know, take a hiatus and try to
follow my dream and cook and see what happens. And
he loved it. It was just dropping wings and chopping
rough salads, but he was hooked. However, this restaurant staffed
(11:53):
cooks who were sort of working for beer and just
getting by. He knew he wanted to climb into more
firing environments, and there was a chef from a local
hotel that was right next door that would come in
and sit in the bar off to work in his
Whitesman got a job there first day in the hotel
was doing mats of Bryan omelets for a thousand people,
and that's one way to get thrown the fire, never
(12:14):
really making any omelets, never been shown omelets. I loved it,
and I went from every department in that hotel and
at the hotel is when I was able to be
exposed to a French brigade and that this is a
professional industry. And that was part of my decision making
to enroll in culinary school and get a formal education.
There are pros and cons of going to cooking school,
(12:37):
the con being it's fregging expensive, but what you pay
for his speed and efficiency. If you find a great program,
you learn what you need to know to do the rest,
and you learn it fast. And once you've got the fundamentals,
you can go anywhere in the world because the fundamentals
are the same in every language. To Moan shows Europe,
going to Europe and working with the guys that are
(12:58):
embedded in it's in their bloodline from the culture of
growing up eating cheese and great bread and probably drinking
wine at a young age. It's like they know this
is probably better than anyone. After you're a blue return
to Miami and landed a job with our friend, the
amazing Michelle Bernstein. Just working with her exposed exposed me
to everything that was one of the best kitchens. This
(13:20):
woman was just magical. It was the first time I
ever saw so many ingredients from all over the world
and saw how that she was using them, and it
really blew my mind. You know, God fresh Lngustein's from
from Europe, you know Santa Barbara sea urchin and crazy
(13:42):
crabs out of the West Coast, and all the uses
and and just all these flavors. It was just incredible.
Blue kept his forward momentum for discovering every cuisine that
he could. He next landed a position at the Miami
edition of La Brush Chef Sergey A. Roll was Madrid
location of La Broche earned two Michelin stars and was
(14:04):
part of the school of Spanish chefs that pushed avant
garde cooking forward in new and exciting ways. And it
blew my mind because I only knew French. I did
not know anything that the guys were doing, not just
on the technique of a foam or sphere of pulling
neutral sugar and casing it in full grass. So it pursed,
(14:24):
not just that. The thought process was the biggest thing
I took away and really changed my life. And we
were in the morning, going to the coffee station and
having espresso, and he goes to me, do you like coffee?
While I was putting my sugar out in my espresso,
and I said, uh, yeah, I love I love coffee.
He's like, no, you don't. I'm like why. He's like,
(14:46):
I hate coffee and you do too, so why do
you say that. He's like, you're altering the real taste.
Coffee is bitter. You don't like the coffee, you like sugar.
That fucking baffled me at the time. They've broken down
to the pure is of salt, bitter acid texture on
your tongue. It was my time where it wasn't just
(15:09):
the worker anymore collecting data. It was how to start
thinking about the data you started to collect and then
hopefully eventually let that data be your voice and food.
So now Blue is thinking, he's learning, he's experiencing where
the fundamentals can take you. And one of those directions
was East learning Japanese thinking Japanese preparations. I worked amongst
(15:31):
the sushi steps, learning their philosophy and technique on how
to treat fish. Why do they marinate some sakus or
loins in in combu? What that does to it? You know?
How do you treat the fish with the pristine you know? Why?
It's important your knife is sharp so you can cut
direct and straight through accompaniments to not overpower and realize
(15:55):
fat content. What does changing elements of uh torching something?
You know? So it started to make me think, think,
think the most underrated skill in the kitchen. Blue is
cooked for more than twenty years now, but he still
has a student's mentality, and he repeatedly talks about new
(16:15):
lessons as collecting data. Maybe some of his finance lessons
did prove to be of use. Nonetheless, to my own
has a complex identity to discover about himself, and it
seems that he's been continuously exploring it through his journey
through the flavors of the world and it's many cultures
and the many cultures inside him. Because when I grew up,
(16:37):
my mother used to speak UH manner into me, and
I went to a Chinese preschool. But being a kid,
I wanted to be so americanized, as I said, stop
speaking uh, you know, speaking less and I actually forgot
how to speak. My dad's Indian, my mother's makes I
have black and me. I have all these cultures in me.
I'm a brown dude. People don't know where the funk
(16:58):
I'm from. In the back of my mind, I always
was trying to find myself. Although Timon is working on
a new concept, his existing restaurants called Sugarcane are alive
and thriving, with locations in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and
in Midtown Miami. Of course, as he made his way
inside his new space, he told us about what an
important step Sugarcane has been for his personal discovery. So
(17:22):
when I came to Miami and when that came back
to South Florida doing Sugar Cane and in in in Midtown,
nothing was there at the time, and it was economy
was tanking, and they can buildings everywhere, high rises, you know,
with cranes that were just not working, and kind of
(17:42):
opened up in what at the time was a sketchy neighborhood.
But it was about cooking chef's food and and we
had to like check our egos kind of and the
model change and people couldn't afford to go to find dinning.
So we were just making regular food, really good, the
best kind of food there is. Of course, now that
(18:04):
Timon and his partners have set up three successful locations
of Sugar Can, he was ready for a more comfortable,
small scale expression of the flavors that excite him. He
led us on a walking tour to explain why here
is the right place for his next restaurant. We're here
in downtown Miami, in the corner of you know, East
Flagler and Northeast Second Avenue AH, and Flaggler is just
(18:26):
one of the most historic streets in Miami. The downtown
renaissance that's happening right now is incredible. Like every city,
you have these pockets of neighborhoods that emerge, and for
many years, downtown Miami kind of sat dormant, with a
lot of vacancies, a lot of empty retail shops, but
(18:52):
these old, classic architectured buildings, and no one besides a
financial district South was really doing a lot here. So
it's like it's such an awesome city to be in
and this old feeling area is so raw. It's like
(19:14):
one of the best canvases for young creators. So we
wanted to inject ourselves here. And what we notice is
this feels like downtown l A. This feels like you
could be in a different in Chicago somewhere, you could
be in a different city. So we have all of
(19:34):
that romance coupled with the magic of South Florida. This
is the concrete, This is the vibe. This is the
real Miami. This is the area that whether people say
it's next, this is the area where we should be doing.
This is the street and anything that comes from the
(19:57):
street is real. As for the restaurant itself, it's finally
a line completely with Timon's identity. It's name Blue Blue,
is small and cozy. It'll only have around twenty seats
and somehow they planned to ff three cooks on a
ten ft line. Oh and by the way, it's hidden
from the street. It's down a corridor, almost hidden, like
(20:18):
if you see in Tokyo Gero Dreams of Sushi, or
if you go in New York sometimes you have to
walk down into a basement and you find this magical,
majexiic place and you're like, what the did I just
step into. It's like taking the red or the green
pill and going down in the matrix. We don't have
any signage. We're not any frontage of the street. We're
(20:39):
actually down what they call an alley or arcade of
this this old ingram building. So there's a couple, you know,
uh vendors to the left and right, like if there's
a dental office here, the wine bars in the front.
There's a gym to the left, and I'm just a
little All the way down the alley, you can see
my neon loose sign and you can see an exposed
(21:02):
kitchen where I'll be cooking every day. This will probably
be the first time I am doing some fusion food.
But it took me twenty years to be able to
do fusion, and I was hated the word for so long.
So while gathering the data and cutting your teeth, I
wanted to work for the best friendship or the best
Spanish chef or the best Japanese chef, and I never
(21:23):
wanted to create fusion because that was known as confusion.
And it didn't take until again being forty and being
an adult and not having an ego and realizing being
comfortable in my skin to be able to show what
I actually like and what I believe America is now.
We're a global melting pot and we are all fused
(21:46):
now again my Trinidadian roots and realizing what does that mean?
And my Indian roots, what spices and flavors does that mean?
And and just trying to bring the smells of my
house to the city of Miami, the smells of my
house bringing them They're transportable. I love that American cuisine
(22:09):
is a mixture now. And what I love to know
is that we could be of any different color. But
maybe I go to your house and I'm sure you
probably have a cholulas or a saracha next to the
hinds ketchup and a Helman's mayo, because that is what
America is now, and we all are engulfed and we're
(22:31):
like cross bread in each other, and that's what the
beauty of food is. So this will be me presenting
that to you from away. The chef wants to eat it,
and that's it. It's known more. Let me cook only
worried about the business. Now, I'm cooking only for me,
and I hope you guys enjoyed it. Coming up after
(22:59):
the break, Condira Timone and another special guest give us
their expert tips on how to shop for sashimi quality
fish and how to prepare a really killer simple savica
fish cooked cold in acid. During our conversation in the
(23:33):
yard at short Door, Indira's friend and colleague, chef Carlos
Sandoval joined unexpectedly and what luck Carlos and Nol I'm
a chef and a culinary producer. Carlos is an accomplished chef,
TV producer, kite surfer and helps out at short a
door and for a short ador. He loves taking great
(23:54):
care of the fish that Endeira sources. I'm here helping
cut in the fish, using every part of the fish
and none don't have any waste. It's very important is
that when we receive a fish, we make sure that
we have the freshest, that we cut it on the
right temperature, and we use every part of the fish.
(24:15):
For example, after I get I feel it a snapper,
you know, I also get the chick bones out because
you can use that for sewish. Scrape the bones and
there's always a little bit of meat. Even if you're
a proke cutting the fish, there's always some leftover meat
that get trapped on the on the bones and you
can scrap that out and then the carcass you can
(24:39):
make an excellent soup. So it's very important to acknowledge
that it's an animal that is from our earth. So
we have to we have to use every part of it.
If no, it's just being it's just cheating to yourself,
I believe amen. He explained his tips for buying great
(24:59):
fish for use in raw preparations. Well, first, just get
a really fresh food. Important, very important. If if if
the fish is not fresh, and you know, people are
not handling the right you can get sick by it.
You know, okay, don't make people sick. Good business practice.
(25:20):
But how about practical tips for the home cook? How
do you know when when a fish is not good?
When you smell it. If you feel some spiciness or
something on your throw, that means that that it's just
that's not not a right fish. If it smells like fish,
that means that it's not as fresh, you know. Okay,
So if you feel it's sliminess through the old fish,
(25:42):
that fish is not it's not fresh. Also in size
inside where where it was are his gods, you can
see if the coloration is how do you say oxidize
that just means it's off color. Enzymes and spoilage, bacteria
just color fish. It should look good. Your eyes should
tell you, your nose should tell you that you want
(26:04):
to eat it. And don't be afraid to question your
fishmonger if it's in a case, asked to smell the
fish before you buy it touch it. Even after we
spoke with our three guests, funny thing happened. Even though
they've each been all over the world and lead very
different lives, they had all but identical tips about sevich,
proof of its absolute simplicity and purity. Take it away, guys.
(26:29):
People ask me how to make ceviche, which is very simple,
very light, and people come back and they're like, man,
I'm making that again, you know, like you know, that
was a great recipe and it's super light, and people
don't have that sense of like, oh my god, I'm stuffed.
You know, given that you've already sourced great quality fish.
It's just seem equality. You know, we say she seem
equality because it's a universal language that it means you
(26:50):
can eat it raw, super fresh, great source, and really
you the hardest thing is to try not to mess
it up when it comes to seafood. I happen to
believe strongly the less the better because you're gonna get
this beautiful quality ingredients and you don't want to mask
all the flames season it. You're gonna take away from
its true flavor, you know, which is you know the
(27:14):
ocean right. The first thing I think about when preparing
fish raw comes down to the muscle, texture, composition of
the fish and how that's going the field in your mouth.
I would say the best fish first is the white
fish like snapper, grouper. Pumping. It needs a couple of elements,
three elements, honestly, salinity, sea salt, and you're gonna salt
(27:37):
them first. Salt It draws out water from the fish
and seasons the fish. Very important. You cut them on
the same size, you put on a bowl or whatever
a container. The salt is gonna dehydrate all these juice, okay,
but it's gonna contain they're they're okay, and you live
in there for like five five minutes, five to six minutes.
Make sure that all the dice are the same size
(27:59):
because you're gonna be cooking the fish with the pH acid,
the acidity of the lemon, little lime of any of
these fruits that has the acidity. Acid waivers that tasty
water drawn out and cooks the protein the fish. And
when you add the juice, because the fish was dehydrated
by the south, now the fish is gonna absorb all
(28:21):
those liquids, you know, and it's going to be part
of the fish. And then you choose if you want
better or sweet. It's a choice, so maybe do both.
For example, strawberries and gray fruit has a lot of sweet,
you know, so if you're using a lime or lemon
and then you squeeze it, like if you squeeze it
too much, you start getting some really tangy flavor. You
(28:44):
wanna balance that out. You use a gray fruit, you know,
to balance. And then because the fish is so delicate
and neutral, firm but gentle seasoning, then you add obviously
something you know, a little bit spicy peper, halapp not
too much and uh seela contro red onions. All of
this is adding vibrant colors to the fish which is
(29:05):
becoming opaque from the cold cooking of the acid. The
next thing is I would say it's probably falls under
category of texture because you'll see seviches or you'll see
raw fish either cut dicing cubes like give you that
chunky meaty mouth fuel, either marinated for short or long
periods of time, changing the composition of the meat texture
(29:26):
more than six hours of each it. And that is
in all these lemon lime juices for more than six
hours start losing some tender in qualities. So I would
say like over that time you shouldn't you know, is
it becomes a deference of each But the key first
two ingredients that pair grate with fish is salinity, acid
and finally, because we use lean fish for sevich in
(29:49):
there your work fat, some olive oil, avocado, even sesame
oil depending but some fat and delicately. And that said,
you know, that's the basic recipe for I say each it.
We make food and cooking so complicated in this country.
It's not buy good fresh ingredients and prepare them simply,
(30:10):
and there's nothing simpler than raw fish. Buying and preparing
raw fish should not be intimidating. If it is, you're
in the wrong place. Thanks to men and women like Indira,
Timown and Carlos, you can see the simplicity of savicha
and easily give it a shot today. Why not be
off in a way. Well, just go to to find
(30:32):
places like short to or around you and that in
courcha and that. So we have more and more and more. Okay.
So that's a sustainable business for us to to have.
So we have to help help us out. Now, find
the local fish, you know, go see all these signs
that you're getting a good fish. Talk to a person
(30:53):
who is selling it. Make them responsive for what they're
selling you, you know. So it's a community may uh
see situation, and then that's it, you know. Make sure
you know that which fish our locals and talk to
your fishermen. You know. I'm a meat and potatoes kind
of guy. I'm born and raised in the Midwest. I
(31:13):
don't eat a lot of fish. But taking India's and
Carlos advice, I went and searched out of place near
my New York City apartment in the West Village. So
I have come here to the Chelsea Market at fifteenth
and ninth Avenue, and I know there's a busy seafood place.
You want a busy place, and I'm gonna check it out.
Never bought fisher so I'm gonna check it out. So
(31:33):
I'm looking. I'm looking for some fresh fish to make
some vich with. What do you have here that you recommend? Snapper?
Hell of it? Yeah? All right? Um? When did this
come in every day? All right? Um? It looks good,
it looks clean and pink and and right, I will
(31:57):
take pound of red snapper please. Yeah, that's it. Thank
you so much. I was impressed. I liked it. A
real variety of shellfish and really Christine seafood, all nicely
displayed on ice, big busy place. So you know they
do a lot of volume, and that's good. So they
(32:18):
get their fish in fresh every day, he said, And
you know I was impressed. And now I'm on my
way home to make some SAVICHA bottom line, whether you
live on a coast or if your fish is shipped
in many stories get their fish overnight it so it
really is fresh. Find those places in your city, then
spread the words so that those great places thrive, so
(32:40):
that good food thrives and all will be well. Thanks
again to our guests, endar a Fewness, to Moon Balue
and Carlos Sandival from Scratches, produced by Jonathan Dressler. Our
acutive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins.
(33:06):
All of the music is by Ryan Scott off his
album A Freak Grows in Brooklyn. Also, I've got a
new book out called From Scratch, about ten staple meals
and all they can teach you about cooking. We'll have
a link in the show notes, or go to Amazon
or any independent bookseller. From Scratch is a production of
(33:27):
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to From Scratch, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Michael Rohlman. I'm a writer. I've spent the last
twenty years in professional kitchens, writing about and with the
world's best chefs. The great thing about the cooking life
is that you never stop learning. In this show, I
want to go to the edges of what I know
and then go beyond together with you, with all chefs,
(00:27):
home cooks, and everyone who cares about food and cooking.
In each episode, we'll talk with one chef and one
non chef about the same theme. On today's episode, we're
going to be learning about preparing raw fish. Eating fish
raw is my favorite way to eat fish. It's so clean, fresh,
and nourishing. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of cooked fish.
(00:49):
Heat brings out the oils that make fish fishy. Eating
it raw you get only the fish itself and the
seasoning you bring to it, and the quality of fish
available to us now is unparalleled in our culinary history.
It's also probably the easiest way to prepare fish, a
good thing because I'm not a great fish cook. In
(01:10):
this episode, we'll discover a little bit more about preparing
raw fish through the personal stories of two very special
and different sources. We're going to hear from Chef Timone
Blue and tour the construction of his forthcoming restaurant. Blue
is an expert and probably all of the different global
preparations of raw fish. He walked us through how his
(01:31):
twenty year quest to learn countless cuisines was a mirror
of his personal struggles to find his own identity. He
also gives us high level tips about preparing raw fish yourself.
But first, our producer Jonathan met with a valuable member
of Miami's local food community, Indira, and I operate an
(01:54):
owned short door fish market. Sure To Door Fish Market
is a small shotgun style shop in the Cocoanut Grove
neighborhood of Miami. Indira, along with many locals, call it
the Grove. The narrow market opens up from a small
door along a busy street Douglas Road, into a beautifully kept, funky,
colorful shop that feels like it could be any place
(02:17):
between Miami and Columbia. On the entire left half of
the shop are polished stainless steel beds being ice down
for incoming fish deliveries. On the opposite side are shelves
of locally made jams and hot sauces. The walls everywhere
hold pictures of beautiful boats, huge deep sea catches, and
chalkboards which display the ever changing menu of fresh fish
(02:41):
and their prices. And Deira spoke from the shop's backyard.
She wore silver bracelets that occasionally clanged against the beach
chair that she sat in, which was pulled up to
one of her many shaded picnic tables. We wanted to
learn about how to shop for great fish in your
own community, but to be again, she started with her
(03:01):
inspiration for opening the fish market in the first place.
She told us that it comes from her vivid memories
as a child growing up in the beach town of
La Guira on the north coast of Venezuela. She always
loved the conversations she would have with a local fisherman,
quite honestly, talking about the weather, talking about the ties,
talking about the you know how, you know what what
(03:22):
kind of catch they got, how how awesome or how
poor the catch was, things like that, Really what type
of fish you caught? You know, how you're gonna cook it?
Like you know, it just thinks like that. You know.
It was simple, but it was but but it meant something,
you know, and meant something because it was my part
of my our weekend routine to go to the fisherman
and be like, you know, my parents would send us
(03:43):
to go get fish, or you know, we go to
the beach and sit on the beach and the fisherman
will pull up with their dinghies with the oysters and
chucked the oysters or you know, things like that. You know,
it was a lovely time there, for sure. One thing
that Indira expresses through work at Shorter Door is her
passion for presenting natural resources just as they are fresh
(04:04):
and pristine, smelling of the sea. Modern nature to me
is perfect. And you know, if I'm in the cold countries,
you know areas, I'll have like peaches and I have
to because I feel like that's what the vitamin is
that my body requires. Weird, I know, but that's how
I feel about it and and that's how I grew up. Really,
for Indira, the term local is essential to her way
(04:25):
of life, not just to work. I believe that you
should eat whatever is local for your for your health.
You know, like if the magazine season, that's what you
should eat. If the avocado is not in a season
you don't eat. But now there's like this facade about avocado.
So we take all these fruits from taking off the
tree before they're ready, which means to me that they're
(04:47):
not they're not a benefits for you. Early in her life,
she noticed that she wanted to get into the hospitality business.
Living La Wada and on the coast and being able
to go into hotels and you know, just because I
lived around, I go see my friends, like old family
that came to the hotels. And I remember I was like,
I don't know, maybe nine ten years old, and I
(05:07):
asked my mother, what you have to study to be
in this industry with people and food and music and
wine and beer, just always people in a good mood.
Before the beginning Short Door in two thousand and fifteen,
she spent thirty years in the hospitality business of Miami.
She stayed busy, worked hard, saved her money, and traveled
every summer. She became a valued local in the grove,
(05:30):
but she was always thinking of what was still needed
in her community. Every town should have certain things like
a post office, a bank, a bakery, a coffee shop,
a fish market, at meat shop, you know, the church,
at synagogue. It just you should be the Buddhist temple.
You should all be, you know, the surf shop. I
mean it's, you know, silly, but that's the ideal things
(05:51):
for me. You know, most people have a boat and
go fishings, but there's other people, other people that don't
have a boat, that don't get to go fishing, that
don't get too So I've decided to do, say, you
know what for the people that don't have a boat
of fish for them. I thought, well, you know, we
need a fish market. So I started looking and it
so happens that I was driving around and I was like, wow, man,
(06:12):
you know, wait, there's a fish right there. I'm gonna
just knock on the door. And it was a faded
fish on the on the wall. And we knocked on
the door, knocked on the door, and nobody would open.
And I kept going around to the hood and people
asking people, Hey, you know who owns this. She eventually
found the owner of the defunct fish market which preceded her,
made a deal to take over the property, and within
(06:32):
like three months, I quit my job and started doing
short the door and it's as pure as you can get,
and dear a personally sources all of the fish directly
from fisherman that she has built relationships with over her
time in the hospitality industry. She even delivers to your home,
hence the name, and for her weekly routine, I drive
(06:52):
to the keys at least once a week. Yes, they're
just local fisherman from the Keys, you know, and here
in the grove too. Um they go a fishing every day,
rain or shine sometimes, you know. By operating a shop
with such a simple philosophy of serving only local and
fresh fish, she's certainly run into challenges with communicating that
(07:12):
to new customers who simply aren't used to shopping this
way for their food. Some people still want to buy
what they want when they want it, even if it's frozen.
I don't go to fish market thinking I'm gonna buy
a piece of grouper. I go to fish market. That's
what I want people to get from here. When you
come here, come to get the fresh and I mean
the fresh local stuff. It could be grouper, it could
(07:34):
be mahi, could be black pinto, and I could be
able to I mean, whatever it is, that's what that's
what I want people to get from here. So that's
it's challenging, but conversely, she loves the opportunity this presents.
You teach people about new fish, Like it's not just
a yellow toss snapper. You can teach people about triggerfish
and uh, you know, golden talect stuff like just different
(07:56):
types of fish. And people find it like, wow, this
is a great fish, you know. So they'll call me
again and be like, hey, Jed, do you do you
have this fish? You know, and I have to teach him.
Then hey, that was a fresh catch. You know. Some
people will go with the flow and be like, Okay,
what's logo, what's fresh? That's what I want. And then
I'll be like this, this and this, Okay, give me
a couple of pounds of days of that. Yeah, it's
(08:16):
a little process, you know. I've only been here three years,
you know, so it's a little process. We would tell
you shorted doors business hours, but they're based on availability too,
just like the product. The product she sells is wild.
It's one of the few truly wild foods available to us.
Call me anytime. If I'm not in the phone is
because we're I'm out of town. If I'm not at
(08:38):
the shop, it's because we have no fresh local seafood,
and I stick by that if we're not here, it's
because I don't have anything fresh. Later on, Indera and
her chef generously shared with us there are expert tips
on shopping for fresh fish, what's to look for, and
of course, how to make a really killer cevica. Our
(09:13):
next guest is one of Miami's rising star chefs, Timon Blue.
My name is Timon Balu, chef owner of Blue Restaurant
Downtown Miami and partner at Sugarcane Rob Burt Grill, Miami,
Las Vegas in Brooklyn, New York. Blue earned his expertise
on all things raw fish through a long and winding path,
cooking nearly every major global cuisine, but his dreams of
(09:37):
becoming a chef as a youth were nearly abandoned. He
thought he'd get into the finance industry to make his
family proud. Fortunately for us, that didn't last, and we'll
hear about what happened when he embraced his passion for cooking.
When we contacted Timone in August of two thousand nineteen,
he was in the middle of construction for his forthcoming
project called Blue. He found time to chat with our
(09:59):
producer or Jonathan in between equipment deliveries and meetings with designers.
We wanted to learn his convictions on preparing rough fish,
but we also heard his personal journey. Actually, on Saturday mornings,
I used to watch instead of cartoons, a chef by
the name of Martin Yenne and his show called Yan
Can Cook on PBS. Martin Yenne was one of the
early TV chefs that he was crazy, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and
(10:23):
able to convey not only that knowledge but his passion
for cooking. I love the guy. I was just mesmerized
really by the way he would dice and chop using
his cleaver, with the loud sounds, the way he would
cook with the pans and the flame, and also his
charismatic facial expressions, and also his his education of ingredients.
(10:46):
But young Tumo always pictured chefs as someone in TV land,
like Disney characters. He never internalized becoming a chef as
a realistic goal. I want to make my family proud,
and I was like, you know, wearing a suit and
going to Wall Street with the way, so I had
the idea of going into business school and finance and
make my way to Wall Street. He really wanted to
(11:06):
be a good son. He tried, but it didn't laugh.
I wasn't happy with financed by still enrolled in college
and I was actually interning at Smith, Barney and Sheerson
when I realized that I don't know if this is
for me. Then one day fate intervened, well not fate.
Timon's wife, then girlfriend intervened. When she was picking up
take out from their neighborhood sports bar. She insightfully decided
(11:30):
to grab Timon a job application on her way out.
She even lined up a job interview on his behalf.
And then that led to me quitting school and saying, Okay,
I'm gonna, you know, take a hiatus and try to
follow my dream and cook and see what happens. And
he loved it. It was just dropping wings and chopping
rough salads, but he was hooked. However, this restaurant staffed
(11:53):
cooks who were sort of working for beer and just
getting by. He knew he wanted to climb into more
firing environments, and there was a chef from a local
hotel that was right next door that would come in
and sit in the bar off to work in his
Whitesman got a job there first day in the hotel
was doing mats of Bryan omelets for a thousand people,
and that's one way to get thrown the fire, never
(12:14):
really making any omelets, never been shown omelets. I loved it,
and I went from every department in that hotel and
at the hotel is when I was able to be
exposed to a French brigade and that this is a
professional industry. And that was part of my decision making
to enroll in culinary school and get a formal education.
There are pros and cons of going to cooking school,
(12:37):
the con being it's fregging expensive, but what you pay
for his speed and efficiency. If you find a great program,
you learn what you need to know to do the rest,
and you learn it fast. And once you've got the fundamentals,
you can go anywhere in the world because the fundamentals
are the same in every language. To Moan shows Europe,
going to Europe and working with the guys that are
(12:58):
embedded in it's in their bloodline from the culture of
growing up eating cheese and great bread and probably drinking
wine at a young age. It's like they know this
is probably better than anyone. After you're a blue return
to Miami and landed a job with our friend, the
amazing Michelle Bernstein. Just working with her exposed exposed me
to everything that was one of the best kitchens. This
(13:20):
woman was just magical. It was the first time I
ever saw so many ingredients from all over the world
and saw how that she was using them, and it
really blew my mind. You know, God fresh Lngustein's from
from Europe, you know Santa Barbara sea urchin and crazy
(13:42):
crabs out of the West Coast, and all the uses
and and just all these flavors. It was just incredible.
Blue kept his forward momentum for discovering every cuisine that
he could. He next landed a position at the Miami
edition of La Brush Chef Sergey A. Roll was Madrid
location of La Broche earned two Michelin stars and was
(14:04):
part of the school of Spanish chefs that pushed avant
garde cooking forward in new and exciting ways. And it
blew my mind because I only knew French. I did
not know anything that the guys were doing, not just
on the technique of a foam or sphere of pulling
neutral sugar and casing it in full grass. So it pursed,
(14:24):
not just that. The thought process was the biggest thing
I took away and really changed my life. And we
were in the morning, going to the coffee station and
having espresso, and he goes to me, do you like coffee?
While I was putting my sugar out in my espresso,
and I said, uh, yeah, I love I love coffee.
He's like, no, you don't. I'm like why. He's like,
(14:46):
I hate coffee and you do too, so why do
you say that. He's like, you're altering the real taste.
Coffee is bitter. You don't like the coffee, you like sugar.
That fucking baffled me at the time. They've broken down
to the pure is of salt, bitter acid texture on
your tongue. It was my time where it wasn't just
(15:09):
the worker anymore collecting data. It was how to start
thinking about the data you started to collect and then
hopefully eventually let that data be your voice and food.
So now Blue is thinking, he's learning, he's experiencing where
the fundamentals can take you. And one of those directions
was East learning Japanese thinking Japanese preparations. I worked amongst
(15:31):
the sushi steps, learning their philosophy and technique on how
to treat fish. Why do they marinate some sakus or
loins in in combu? What that does to it? You know?
How do you treat the fish with the pristine you know? Why?
It's important your knife is sharp so you can cut
direct and straight through accompaniments to not overpower and realize
(15:55):
fat content. What does changing elements of uh torching something?
You know? So it started to make me think, think,
think the most underrated skill in the kitchen. Blue is
cooked for more than twenty years now, but he still
has a student's mentality, and he repeatedly talks about new
(16:15):
lessons as collecting data. Maybe some of his finance lessons
did prove to be of use. Nonetheless, to my own
has a complex identity to discover about himself, and it
seems that he's been continuously exploring it through his journey
through the flavors of the world and it's many cultures
and the many cultures inside him. Because when I grew up,
(16:37):
my mother used to speak UH manner into me, and
I went to a Chinese preschool. But being a kid,
I wanted to be so americanized, as I said, stop
speaking uh, you know, speaking less and I actually forgot
how to speak. My dad's Indian, my mother's makes I
have black and me. I have all these cultures in me.
I'm a brown dude. People don't know where the funk
(16:58):
I'm from. In the back of my mind, I always
was trying to find myself. Although Timon is working on
a new concept, his existing restaurants called Sugarcane are alive
and thriving, with locations in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and
in Midtown Miami. Of course, as he made his way
inside his new space, he told us about what an
important step Sugarcane has been for his personal discovery. So
(17:22):
when I came to Miami and when that came back
to South Florida doing Sugar Cane and in in in Midtown,
nothing was there at the time, and it was economy
was tanking, and they can buildings everywhere, high rises, you know,
with cranes that were just not working, and kind of
(17:42):
opened up in what at the time was a sketchy neighborhood.
But it was about cooking chef's food and and we
had to like check our egos kind of and the
model change and people couldn't afford to go to find dinning.
So we were just making regular food, really good, the
best kind of food there is. Of course, now that
(18:04):
Timon and his partners have set up three successful locations
of Sugar Can, he was ready for a more comfortable,
small scale expression of the flavors that excite him. He
led us on a walking tour to explain why here
is the right place for his next restaurant. We're here
in downtown Miami, in the corner of you know, East
Flagler and Northeast Second Avenue AH, and Flaggler is just
(18:26):
one of the most historic streets in Miami. The downtown
renaissance that's happening right now is incredible. Like every city,
you have these pockets of neighborhoods that emerge, and for
many years, downtown Miami kind of sat dormant, with a
lot of vacancies, a lot of empty retail shops, but
(18:52):
these old, classic architectured buildings, and no one besides a
financial district South was really doing a lot here. So
it's like it's such an awesome city to be in
and this old feeling area is so raw. It's like
(19:14):
one of the best canvases for young creators. So we
wanted to inject ourselves here. And what we notice is
this feels like downtown l A. This feels like you
could be in a different in Chicago somewhere, you could
be in a different city. So we have all of
(19:34):
that romance coupled with the magic of South Florida. This
is the concrete, This is the vibe. This is the
real Miami. This is the area that whether people say
it's next, this is the area where we should be doing.
This is the street and anything that comes from the
(19:57):
street is real. As for the restaurant itself, it's finally
a line completely with Timon's identity. It's name Blue Blue,
is small and cozy. It'll only have around twenty seats
and somehow they planned to ff three cooks on a
ten ft line. Oh and by the way, it's hidden
from the street. It's down a corridor, almost hidden, like
(20:18):
if you see in Tokyo Gero Dreams of Sushi, or
if you go in New York sometimes you have to
walk down into a basement and you find this magical,
majexiic place and you're like, what the did I just
step into. It's like taking the red or the green
pill and going down in the matrix. We don't have
any signage. We're not any frontage of the street. We're
(20:39):
actually down what they call an alley or arcade of
this this old ingram building. So there's a couple, you know,
uh vendors to the left and right, like if there's
a dental office here, the wine bars in the front.
There's a gym to the left, and I'm just a
little All the way down the alley, you can see
my neon loose sign and you can see an exposed
(21:02):
kitchen where I'll be cooking every day. This will probably
be the first time I am doing some fusion food.
But it took me twenty years to be able to
do fusion, and I was hated the word for so long.
So while gathering the data and cutting your teeth, I
wanted to work for the best friendship or the best
Spanish chef or the best Japanese chef, and I never
(21:23):
wanted to create fusion because that was known as confusion.
And it didn't take until again being forty and being
an adult and not having an ego and realizing being
comfortable in my skin to be able to show what
I actually like and what I believe America is now.
We're a global melting pot and we are all fused
(21:46):
now again my Trinidadian roots and realizing what does that mean?
And my Indian roots, what spices and flavors does that mean?
And and just trying to bring the smells of my
house to the city of Miami, the smells of my
house bringing them They're transportable. I love that American cuisine
(22:09):
is a mixture now. And what I love to know
is that we could be of any different color. But
maybe I go to your house and I'm sure you
probably have a cholulas or a saracha next to the
hinds ketchup and a Helman's mayo, because that is what
America is now, and we all are engulfed and we're
(22:31):
like cross bread in each other, and that's what the
beauty of food is. So this will be me presenting
that to you from away. The chef wants to eat it,
and that's it. It's known more. Let me cook only
worried about the business. Now, I'm cooking only for me,
and I hope you guys enjoyed it. Coming up after
(22:59):
the break, Condira Timone and another special guest give us
their expert tips on how to shop for sashimi quality
fish and how to prepare a really killer simple savica
fish cooked cold in acid. During our conversation in the
(23:33):
yard at short Door, Indira's friend and colleague, chef Carlos
Sandoval joined unexpectedly and what luck Carlos and Nol I'm
a chef and a culinary producer. Carlos is an accomplished chef,
TV producer, kite surfer and helps out at short a
door and for a short ador. He loves taking great
(23:54):
care of the fish that Endeira sources. I'm here helping
cut in the fish, using every part of the fish
and none don't have any waste. It's very important is
that when we receive a fish, we make sure that
we have the freshest, that we cut it on the
right temperature, and we use every part of the fish.
(24:15):
For example, after I get I feel it a snapper,
you know, I also get the chick bones out because
you can use that for sewish. Scrape the bones and
there's always a little bit of meat. Even if you're
a proke cutting the fish, there's always some leftover meat
that get trapped on the on the bones and you
can scrap that out and then the carcass you can
(24:39):
make an excellent soup. So it's very important to acknowledge
that it's an animal that is from our earth. So
we have to we have to use every part of it.
If no, it's just being it's just cheating to yourself,
I believe amen. He explained his tips for buying great
(24:59):
fish for use in raw preparations. Well, first, just get
a really fresh food. Important, very important. If if if
the fish is not fresh, and you know, people are
not handling the right you can get sick by it.
You know, okay, don't make people sick. Good business practice.
(25:20):
But how about practical tips for the home cook? How
do you know when when a fish is not good?
When you smell it. If you feel some spiciness or
something on your throw, that means that that it's just
that's not not a right fish. If it smells like fish,
that means that it's not as fresh, you know. Okay,
So if you feel it's sliminess through the old fish,
(25:42):
that fish is not it's not fresh. Also in size
inside where where it was are his gods, you can
see if the coloration is how do you say oxidize
that just means it's off color. Enzymes and spoilage, bacteria
just color fish. It should look good. Your eyes should
tell you, your nose should tell you that you want
(26:04):
to eat it. And don't be afraid to question your
fishmonger if it's in a case, asked to smell the
fish before you buy it touch it. Even after we
spoke with our three guests, funny thing happened. Even though
they've each been all over the world and lead very
different lives, they had all but identical tips about sevich,
proof of its absolute simplicity and purity. Take it away, guys.
(26:29):
People ask me how to make ceviche, which is very simple,
very light, and people come back and they're like, man,
I'm making that again, you know, like you know, that
was a great recipe and it's super light, and people
don't have that sense of like, oh my god, I'm stuffed.
You know, given that you've already sourced great quality fish.
It's just seem equality. You know, we say she seem
equality because it's a universal language that it means you
(26:50):
can eat it raw, super fresh, great source, and really
you the hardest thing is to try not to mess
it up when it comes to seafood. I happen to
believe strongly the less the better because you're gonna get
this beautiful quality ingredients and you don't want to mask
all the flames season it. You're gonna take away from
its true flavor, you know, which is you know the
(27:14):
ocean right. The first thing I think about when preparing
fish raw comes down to the muscle, texture, composition of
the fish and how that's going the field in your mouth.
I would say the best fish first is the white
fish like snapper, grouper. Pumping. It needs a couple of elements,
three elements, honestly, salinity, sea salt, and you're gonna salt
(27:37):
them first. Salt It draws out water from the fish
and seasons the fish. Very important. You cut them on
the same size, you put on a bowl or whatever
a container. The salt is gonna dehydrate all these juice, okay,
but it's gonna contain they're they're okay, and you live
in there for like five five minutes, five to six minutes.
Make sure that all the dice are the same size
(27:59):
because you're gonna be cooking the fish with the pH acid,
the acidity of the lemon, little lime of any of
these fruits that has the acidity. Acid waivers that tasty
water drawn out and cooks the protein the fish. And
when you add the juice, because the fish was dehydrated
by the south, now the fish is gonna absorb all
(28:21):
those liquids, you know, and it's going to be part
of the fish. And then you choose if you want
better or sweet. It's a choice, so maybe do both.
For example, strawberries and gray fruit has a lot of sweet,
you know, so if you're using a lime or lemon
and then you squeeze it, like if you squeeze it
too much, you start getting some really tangy flavor. You
(28:44):
wanna balance that out. You use a gray fruit, you know,
to balance. And then because the fish is so delicate
and neutral, firm but gentle seasoning, then you add obviously
something you know, a little bit spicy peper, halapp not
too much and uh seela contro red onions. All of
this is adding vibrant colors to the fish which is
(29:05):
becoming opaque from the cold cooking of the acid. The
next thing is I would say it's probably falls under
category of texture because you'll see seviches or you'll see
raw fish either cut dicing cubes like give you that
chunky meaty mouth fuel, either marinated for short or long
periods of time, changing the composition of the meat texture
(29:26):
more than six hours of each it. And that is
in all these lemon lime juices for more than six
hours start losing some tender in qualities. So I would
say like over that time you shouldn't you know, is
it becomes a deference of each But the key first
two ingredients that pair grate with fish is salinity, acid
and finally, because we use lean fish for sevich in
(29:49):
there your work fat, some olive oil, avocado, even sesame
oil depending but some fat and delicately. And that said,
you know, that's the basic recipe for I say each it.
We make food and cooking so complicated in this country.
It's not buy good fresh ingredients and prepare them simply,
(30:10):
and there's nothing simpler than raw fish. Buying and preparing
raw fish should not be intimidating. If it is, you're
in the wrong place. Thanks to men and women like Indira,
Timown and Carlos, you can see the simplicity of savicha
and easily give it a shot today. Why not be
off in a way. Well, just go to to find
(30:32):
places like short to or around you and that in
courcha and that. So we have more and more and more. Okay.
So that's a sustainable business for us to to have.
So we have to help help us out. Now, find
the local fish, you know, go see all these signs
that you're getting a good fish. Talk to a person
(30:53):
who is selling it. Make them responsive for what they're
selling you, you know. So it's a community may uh
see situation, and then that's it, you know. Make sure
you know that which fish our locals and talk to
your fishermen. You know. I'm a meat and potatoes kind
of guy. I'm born and raised in the Midwest. I
(31:13):
don't eat a lot of fish. But taking India's and
Carlos advice, I went and searched out of place near
my New York City apartment in the West Village. So
I have come here to the Chelsea Market at fifteenth
and ninth Avenue, and I know there's a busy seafood place.
You want a busy place, and I'm gonna check it out.
Never bought fisher so I'm gonna check it out. So
(31:33):
I'm looking. I'm looking for some fresh fish to make
some vich with. What do you have here that you recommend? Snapper?
Hell of it? Yeah? All right? Um? When did this
come in every day? All right? Um? It looks good,
it looks clean and pink and and right, I will
(31:57):
take pound of red snapper please. Yeah, that's it. Thank
you so much. I was impressed. I liked it. A
real variety of shellfish and really Christine seafood, all nicely
displayed on ice, big busy place. So you know they
do a lot of volume, and that's good. So they
(32:18):
get their fish in fresh every day, he said, And
you know I was impressed. And now I'm on my
way home to make some SAVICHA bottom line, whether you
live on a coast or if your fish is shipped
in many stories get their fish overnight it so it
really is fresh. Find those places in your city, then
spread the words so that those great places thrive, so
(32:40):
that good food thrives and all will be well. Thanks
again to our guests, endar a Fewness, to Moon Balue
and Carlos Sandival from Scratches, produced by Jonathan Dressler. Our
acutive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins.
(33:06):
All of the music is by Ryan Scott off his
album A Freak Grows in Brooklyn. Also, I've got a
new book out called From Scratch, about ten staple meals
and all they can teach you about cooking. We'll have
a link in the show notes, or go to Amazon
or any independent bookseller. From Scratch is a production of
(33:27):
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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