The Fish Butcher: Fish Eye Ice Cream, Anyone?

I founded Cooks Magazine back in 1980. In the last, well, 45 years, I've never had the chance to speak openly and frankly about the food world, recipes, travel, and food celebrities. That is until now. My new sub-stack allows me to speak directly to you, to home cooks, including my own personal recipes, cooking, food science, Vermont, as well as what I'm watching and reading. Plus, I will be interviewing culinary stars to find out what they are really like. Paid subscribers get exclusive recipes, some from my travels, others from my own personal repertoire. Founding members get those recipes, plus direct access to me personally, plus a tote bag and a signed copy of the Milk Street cookbook. So go subscribe at ChristopherKimble.Substack.com. One more time, ChristopherKimble.Substack.com. This is Milk Street Radio from PRX. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Josh Nyland is more than a chef. He's an artist. And his preferred medium is fish. Fish has been done the same forever. It's just we haven't reimagined what's possible. And so that's why I want to try to make pasta out of the bones and why I want to make ice cream out of the eyes. It's to say that I can give you something delicious and why should you think it's a problem if it was derived from an eye rather than an egg. Josh Nyland cooks fish like you've never had it before. That's coming up later in the show. But first, producer Sean Cole brings us a story about how elaborate and resourceful prison cooking can really be. There's this guy in state prison that I've been talking to for a while now. Michael Ravenheart. That's one of his names. He also goes by Red Bear. He's half Passamaquoddy, though he aligns himself with the Lakota Nation. I interviewed him back in 2005 when he was a bison farmer in New Hampshire. Then he committed a serious crime and got locked up on a 15- to 20-year sentence. And then got in touch with me again. Mostly, we just talk about the fantasy books he's writing. He originally reached out to ask if I have any publishing contacts. I don't. But on this one call, we somehow got on the topic of all the cooking he does in his cell. It started with him telling me he prefers to eat from the canteen, the prison commissary where you have to pay for food, versus the chow hall. He said it's healthier for one thing. Like, what would you get? Well, I get bacon, ripe Cajun rice, and then they had, like, chili in a packet that you could heat up and make, and they had... That's all healthier than what is in the chow hall? Oh, heck yeah, it's healthier than in the chow hall. In the chow hall, you're getting this pasta. Or mush, he says. or meat that he can't confirm is meat. And the prices in the canteen aren't bad, maybe $5 for 10 or 12 slices of bacon. I pictured him cooking it on like a plug-in induction burner or something, but Red Bear said no. No, just a hot pot, so most of the cooking is done in a hot pot. An electric hot pot like you'd use in a college dorm to heat up water. And how do you make bacon in a hot pot? The bacon, I take a bowl, I put the bacon into the bowl, and I stick it in, you know, on the top of the hot pot, like in the water, so that part of the bowl is submerged in the water and then it heats the bacon up and I have a cover for the bowl. And then when it's done, then there is the grease afterward, the fat, and I save that. And I have a tub of it so that I can make my homemade chili. And this is where we entered a whole realm of cooking that I didn't know existed in prison. Homemade dishes, like chili, MacGyvered together from all these different commissary items and batched, they call it batching, until the sum equals way more than its parts. You kind of learn to adapt in here. Because I really love to cook. I learned really early on during my county days when I was still in county. I had a roommate there that was batching every day. I ate really good. He was teaching me how to cook. So that when I got up into the prison, I would know what to do. And then when I got here, I just took the mantle. And there's this one dish he's known for in the prison. People will bug him about it. Like, when are you going to make those again? I make these things called dragon rolls, which are really awesome. And it's kind of my own little twist on a different recipe that's been around prison for a while. This is much grander. But it's something called mafongo. Mofongo. It's a Puerto Rican dish. Sort of a starchy mound of mashed plantains, garlic, olive oil, maybe some pork belly. Stuff that's not exactly abundant in prison. There's no way anybody's getting plantains in here. But there's a prison version of it, and Red Bear's dragon rolls are yet another take on the prison version. We take rice, soups, chips, crackers, all kinds of stuff like that, and I put just enough hot water in it to kind of soak it up, and then I let it cool and it becomes a dough. And then he flattens the dough out on a tray and puts pork meat or roast beef, usually from a pouch, in the middle there and rolls the dough around it. So it's a cylinder. It sort of looks like a big oversized sushi roll that hasn't been cut into slices. Weighs maybe a pound. And then he slathers the whole affair with the star of the culinary occasion. My cheese sauce. The cheese sauce. And people love my cheese sauce. It's literally, hands down, somebody has offered me already $14 for a bottle of cheese sauce, which is big money in a year, especially for the people that are only making $5 or $6 a week. And I'm like, oh, I'm not really selling the cheese sauce, man. I'm going to use it for the Dragon Rolls. Red Bear says he makes the Dragon Rolls maybe four or five times a year and just happened to be getting ready to make a batch, he said. So I had him walk me through the process, which he did over the course of two more phone calls. The next time we talked, Can you hear this? he was starting in on the cheese sauce. I'm cutting the cheese right now. Cheddar sticks. One of three cheeses he uses. And yes, they're allowed to use plastic knives in the prison. He also carves a block of Velveeta in half, throws that in, and then there's the squeezed cheese, which comes in a bottle. And now I gotta get the cheese out of the cheese bottles. Okay. So. All of that goes into two empty, cleaned-out marshmallow fluff containers, each of which is placed double-boiler style into its own hot pot. Red Bear's cellmate, Kongi, also has a hot pot. I talked to him a little, too. I'm usually the head assistant and gopher. I see. He is the master chef, and I am the soup chef. Would that be it? Anyway, after Kongi and Red Bear fill the fluff containers with cheese... Now I'm going to add ketchup. Uh-oh. Let's open the other bottle of ketchup. Plus barbecue sauce, honey, a bunch of spices, curry, cumin, ginger, lots of stuff. This whole process lasts for more than an hour. And then... Oh, I forgot one more ingredient. What's that? Bacon grease. The bacon grease. That helps. Because we get bacon on canteen and I heat it up in a bowl. And the bowl collects the grease. This happens sometimes with Red Bear on these calls. He'll forget he's already explained something to me. Right. It's a trick of being in prison. The days and hours all kind of meld, like mofongo dough, into one big Groundhog Day mound. So there's little to distinguish what's happening from what's already happened. Finally, all of the ingredients for the cheese sauce are mixed together in the fluff containers. And then you heat it for four to five days. Four or five days? Yeah, because I don't have a crock pot. Oh, I see. If I had a crock pot, it would maybe be a day or two days. So I'll take it off at the end of the night and put it back on in the morning. And then you stir it constantly and keep it going. I don't cook, but the experts on this show tell me that even if he had a crockpot, two days would be extreme. A week goes by. He calls me again. Are you covered in dragon roll detritus and dough and cheese sauce? No. I actually... Red Bear is surprisingly serene. Everything's done. Dough is set. Cheese sauce is all warmed up. He's just waiting for three other guys on the pod to bring the meat they've been heating up in their hot pots. The whole thing is sort of a meal share program. Those guys chip in ingredients, and Red Bear makes them dragon rolls too. So the meat's here. Ow, that's... Oops. Ooh. Oops. Don't worry, that happens every time. I'm overly dramatic about it on purpose. I see. Because I think I kind of like it. Okay, well that's a whole other line of questioning. The verdict is out on that one. And then, one by one, Red Bear composes each guy's dragon roll. One of them says it's a pleasure just to watch him do it. Folding the dough over the meat, drizzling the cheese sauce on it. And this time, he mixed together a separate concoction of everything that goes in the cheese sauce except the cheese, and drizzles that on there too. So these rolls are extra spicy. And then each of them digs a spork in. And as usual, it's amazing. That's a guy they call Perseus. Yeah, it's very delicious. That's Ian, also known as the Tavern Burner. He does that in video games, not in real life. And here's Kongi again, Red Bear's cellmate. Oh, it is good, and I'm already breaking out in a sweat. Really, it's that hot. It is. There's just so much spice in it. And maybe I shouldn't use this word, considering that this is a story about prisoners. But if you ask Kongi, making the dragon rolls is also kind of an escape. It cuts into that Groundhog Day effect. It gives us something to look forward to, and then we can talk about it for the next couple of days, how good it was. And Ian is probably going to be asking tomorrow, what's the next one? And then you do it all over again. You can do it all over again. That's right. It's great. But only so many more times. Red Bear is up for a parole review this year, in which case he'll have to pass on the tradition to somebody else. That story was reported by Sean Cole. He's a radio producer and poet. Now it's time to answer your cooking questions with my co-host, Sarah Moulton. Sarah is, of course, the star of Sarah's Weeknight Meals on public television, also author of Home Cooking 101. So, Chris, before we take any calls, I was wondering, since I've seen you last, have you learned anything new? No. Not a thing. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'd say every day. Tell me something that stood out. Okay, three things we've worked on recently that have completely stood out. Creme brulee. Okay. Now, I don't make creme brulee because I always think it's a restaurant dish and it's a pain and you have to heat the milk and suffuse the vanilla. And you need a torch. And you need a ramekin. Well, a torch is okay. The ramekins and it's a water bath and blah, blah, blah. So I said, let's figure out how to make this simpler. So we came up with a method. It takes four minutes to get it in the oven. There's no water bath and it's delicious. And it's a little livelier than regular crumbly. It's absolutely phenomenal. Risotto was another one. It's like, okay, 25 minutes. You keep adding a hot stock and you're standing. It's like we figured out a way to do it so you finish it in a skillet in five minutes, a little soaking and some other things. But that was really, really interesting. And the last is hummus. I was in Ohio, and I went to a Middle Eastern restaurant. And they, of course, put hummus on the table, and it was super light. I mean, it was just light. I love hummus. But it can be a little spackly sometimes. It can be a little heavy. So this had a fair amount of tahini in it. It was just super light. And so we did a lot of research and tried it. And part of the solution was ice. Huh. Wow. So super light hummus, much faster risotto. And then the creme brulee, which is easier than vanilla pudding. Wow. Well, much excite. So there you go. I had a fabulous week. You've been busy. Okay. I've been busy. Well, now let's take a call. Welcome to Mill Street Who calling This is Adam Burns from Holland Michigan Hello Adam Burns How can we help you Well I discovered that a local specialty grocer carries frozen rabbits I don't really know what to do with them. I've heard of hoss and pfeffer, thanks to Bugs Bunny, a Welsh rabbit, which isn't really a rabbit. Right. And I know that you're a hunter and thought you might have some suggestions for me. I do. I've hunted rabbits for many years, and we usually have a big game dinner when the season's over in mid-March. The only thing you need to know is there's not much meat in the front legs, so it's the back legs and then the tenderloin or backstrap, whatever you want to refer to it as. That part, like a tenderloin, you would cook very quickly. The legs, however, like legs in a turkey or chicken, need to be braised or cooked for a long time. So I would cook them very differently. If I was going to braise them, which is nice with some herbs and wine and other things, and then you could add the backstrap to the last like 10 minutes, or you could just grill it separately. Are there any particular spices that you would use with rabbit? Because I've heard it can be strong. It depends. I think the farm-raised rabbits are probably not as strong as the wild rabbits. That would be my guess. Obviously, rosemary is something you would use. You could use almost anything you want, but I would have a fairly strong herb to go with it. I would keep it simple, like a simple sauce to go with it or braised to go with it with some stock, a little wine, which you've previously reduced, some herbs, shallots, that sort of thing, and braise it. The legs you could probably braise for an hour or so, 45 minutes to an hour. Sarah Moulton has actually cooked rabbits professionally. Right. It's so interesting now because you don't usually see it on a menu, but when I was a chef at a restaurant in Boston called Sibel's, We used to have rabbit every so often, but ours was domesticated, which is what I think you've got access to. I never found it very gamey at all. I mean, it is very nice braised. Also, it's good fried. You know, you soak it overnight in buttermilk and salt and then dip it into flour the next day and shallow fry. It's really yummy. That sounds really good. Yeah, anything you do with chicken, you could do with rabbit. Yeah, sounds good. All right. So, Adam, I hope you do it and let us know how it goes. Yeah, I will. Thank you so much for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Bye. This is Milk Street Radio. We're here to fix your recipes. Give us a ring anytime, 855-426-9843. That's 855-426-9843. Or email us at questions at MilkStreetRadio.com. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Hi, this is Dave from Tempe, Arizona. Okay. Well, how can we help you today? Well, my question has to do with a recipe for a bolognese or ragu, like a meat sauce for pasta. Yes. And I learned a recipe from my favorite German uncle when I lived in Munich over 20 years ago. I've made it many times since returning home to the States, and it's always good, but never quite like Uncle Gottfried's was. So I've experimented a lot with leaner, fattier meat, different tomatoes, all kinds of things, and I can't quite replicate it. And then, you know, he's since passed away, but this past summer I was visiting relatives in Munich and I decided to make them Gottfried's ragu as a treat. And to my surprise, it tasted just like I remembered his being. So it was like a smoother, more buttery texture and a sweeter taste than I got in the States. So I had a theory about why this might be, and I thought I'd run it by you and also hear a few other ideas. What is your theory? Well, my theory is that when I bought the meat, which was a mix of beef and pork that I just picked up from the grocery store near their house, the grind of the meat was like noticeably finer than I see in the States. And I suspect that might be the difference. I went to like different butchers and tried to find more finely ground meat or ask them if they'll grind it finer. And the grocery stores don't even have a grinder anymore, I learned. And then I found a mom and pop butcher shop that wanted me to buy 10 pounds of meat to do it. And I tried putting it in a food processor, which kind of turned it to mush. So before I invest in a meat grinder or something, I thought I'd see if that makes sense or if you have any other ideas. The thing to me that seems the most obvious is the quality of the meats you were using. You know, a lot of times, like what the animal was fed will influence the flavor, obviously the fat content. And you've already considered that, it sounds like. I wonder if what you worked with here was much leaner than what you got there. because, you know, most of the beef you find, the ground beef, is extremely lean here. I try to get a fattier one, but yeah. But if you're going to do this more regularly, you can get a meat grinder. Do you have a stand mixer? I do, yeah. I have a KitchenAid. Because they have grinding attachments. Yeah, I saw that. You know, you could actually just pick the meat yourself and grind it yourself. Would you buy a particular cut of meat that's not at all ground, or could you take already ground meat and try a grinding finer? Or how would you approach that? If you're going to bother to get a grinding attachment, I would buy the meat and get flavorful meat. I would get pork shoulder and a fattier cut of beef also. And grind it up yourself. Control it. I'm sure it would be really tasty. Chris, what are your thoughts? I was in Bologna a couple years ago, and I stopped at a restaurant that was famous for its ragu bolognese. and we made it together. Their grind was pretty coarse. So the flavor you're talking about or texture, I don't think has anything to do with the quality of the grind. I think Sarah's absolutely right. It's the meat. Now, there are three kinds of meat they use in making it, right? They have beef, they have pork, and they also will have some pancetta. So the pancetta, which is very fatty, is going to deliver that silky mouthfeel. I don't like that term very much, but you get that smooth, silky feel in it, and that's where it's coming from. So I don't know if your recipe uses pancetta, but that'll solve that problem. As far as grinding meat, I agree with Sarah. Get the best possible cuts you can and grind them yourself. That'll be much better than whatever you buy pre-ground in the supermarket. And you also don't use a lot of tomato. They used onion, celery, a little tomato. It's mostly the meat. You just cook it for three or four hours over a low flame. it doesn't matter about the grind because you're going to cook it down. But the point of grinding it yourself is that way you can pick what meat you grind. Yes, absolutely true. And you can do it in a food processor. If you cut the meat into strips, freeze it for 15 or 20 minutes, and then pulse it, you can actually grind meat in your food processor. It won't be quite as even as in a grinder. No, it won't be as even, but if you're going to cook it for three hours, it doesn't really matter because the meat will break down anyway. But anyway, it's the pancetta. I would try that. Okay, I'll try that. Those are all great suggestions. But, you know, you're getting better meat in Germany. I was afraid that was the answer, actually. It was. Because it's going to be hard to replicate that. You just have to go to Germany to make your batch of bolognese. That's all. Just bring it back to a suitcase and freeze it. Yeah. Stop you there, Barbara. No, not at all. No, no, no. No problem. That doesn't happen. But anyway, Dave, try these things and let us know. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Okay. My pleasure. Bye. Bye-bye. You're listening to Milk Street Radio. Coming up, how to make ice cream and chips, how to fish. Hey there, my name is Jody Avergan. Have you noticed the present day? It feels pretty rocky. Well, I think history can help. What's more, this little country of ours, the United States, it's turning 250 soon. So how did we get here? On this day, historians Nicole Hammer and Kelly Carter Jackson and I sit down to look at stories from the past, silly, surprising, deeply relevant, that feel like they have something to teach us about today. This day, three times a week, you can find it wherever you're listening right now. This is Milk Street Radio. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Now it's time for my conversation with Chef Josh Nyland. Josh is a pioneer of whole fish cooking from fin to gill. He Let's Nothing Go to Waste. He's the author of The Whole Fish Cookbook and runs the restaurants St. Peter and Fish Butchery, both in Sydney, Australia. Josh, welcome to Milk Street. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. So first off, I love your book and your work. And I've come to the conclusion that there is some level of madness or maybe genius at the core of it. And I think you're a genius. That's sort where I come down. But I look at like, here's the thing that really struck me. You have a photograph of a grouper and then you have it cut up into 31 distinct parts. Like I've been fly fishing all my life. In a million years, if you had said to me, you know, you can make chips out of the eyeballs and some other things with 31 parts, I would have gone, okay, we were born on different planets. So I love the idea you take meat butchery and apply that concept to fish. So let's just start there. What drives this obsessiveness with really thinking about the components of fish and how to cook each of them? Well, thank you. That's very kind. Yeah, a bit mad in general. But for me, I worked in a really good restaurant at age 18 and got shown the right way how to do fine dining and be on a fish section and I think I found it incredibly fascinating that you needed a calculator and really sharp knives and a whole lot of tools that the rest of the kitchen didn't really have and then you start to think oh well I actually enjoy doing fish more than everything else and with all of that then Julie my wife and I decided to open our own restaurant when I was 26 and independently owning and operating a restaurant now for the last nine years. I believe the only way that that can happen is because we've got an incredibly distinct point of view. Rather than try to be a jack of all, I try to be a master of one. And as much as you get that kind of thing where people say to you, oh, you're the fish guy, you know, I'm okay with that. It's good. It gives me parameters to work within. And I think what really was the catalyst behind all of the creativity and all of the innovation was that I had a problem to solve and it was an economical one. So the solution was put some trays on top of the garbage bins so that none of the cooks could throw anything away after they were cutting a fish. And that opened the door for a whole lot of creativity, like making sausages and prosciuttos and ice cream out of eyeballs and, you know, all these things, where it was to try not to make the guest uneasy or squeamish. It was to bring comfort in the form of texture and aesthetic to an otherwise very compromised part of a fish. I mean, there's so many parts of the world that will consume the entirety of a fish, but rarely does that textually correlate or aesthetically correlate with a Western audience. And so that's why I looked more into meat butchery and what that could do in the world of fish. So the first day you had fish eye chips. Yeah. Was there a long explanation process required? Or did you just do it and people just, you know, went for it? Well, I went home one night in that time where everything was quite tense and the accountants calling me most days and my wife's in my ear most days. And I woke up one morning and just thought, well, it'd be kind of fun to make a prawn chip, like a prawn cracker that you get in a Chinese restaurant out of fish eyes. So instead of doing the chefy thing where we go round and round in circles, wondering how we might potentially do it, I just made a prawn cracker, but I used fish eyes instead. And then I got something that worked. And then rather than doing the long-winded conversation at the table or putting it on the menu and gimmically kind of putting it in inverted commas and calling it fisheye chips. We just put them on the table when they sat down and we just gave them away. Smart. Very smart. We didn't tell people what it was. They were just crunchy, deep fried and had salt on them. And at the end of the meal, we went over to the table and we said, how was your meal? How was everything? Yeah, yeah, we loved it. It was great. And then you said, how was the chip that you got at the beginning? And then they said, oh, yeah, that was yummy. what was that? And then, you know, then you unpack it and you say, well, that's a, that's a fish eye. And they do what you are doing now They they had a giggle They looked at each other They were shocked and that was then what gave us the word of mouth Everybody started to have a chat about this little restaurant that was giving away these iChips and doing a lot more with a fish than most. You talk about cost, so I think you say that half of a whole fish ends up as waste. Reading your how-do-you-make-fishbone cake, two and a half hours of pressure cooking them is a lot of work. So does the additional work cancel out the savings you get from fish? And so it's really not economic. It's more your artistic intent here. It's interesting. How is it that laboring over a number of different fish to extract a thumbnail-sized fish heart to then thread it onto a bone that you've taken out of that fish and then grill it over the barbecue, how does that make any sense? and I think there's a lot, like you said, of artistic expression. There's the intent to be provocative so that we can affect change. Oftentimes the onus of the issue around sustainability and the economics of fish gets put back on the consumer and what I'm trying to say is that the issue that we have with the overcatching and the absorbent amount of food waste that happens within the world of fish lies with the industry squarely And so the work that I do and the work that our team does is to show that there's so much more that you can achieve with one single fish and to, you know, be the first at doing some of these things, you know, is always going to be a little more painful than once everybody starts doing it. But nearly 10 years in now, we're able to execute, you know, a beautiful menu that's 10 to 11 courses. And you've got this enrolled client base that's super excited to consume everything but the fillet, which is kind of fun. You talk a lot about the culinary need for preservation, you know, like bread and butter pudding. You're using sort of stale bread and leftovers, obviously all the cured hams, et cetera. And obviously there's salt cod. Are there other traditions in cultures around the world where they were preserving fish in interesting ways that you read about and wanted to imitate or use as a starting point? I mean, aging fish, I think you can look to Japan over the last few centuries and they've been aging their tuna in a way that's, I suppose, a little bit different to the way that I age the fish that I have. My whole thing is that once a fish comes out of water, it never goes back in water. And so... So let me stop you just a second. So what you're saying is, I also found this interesting, that fish should not be washed in water. Keeping a fish dry during processing is the most incredibly important variable of all. But usually what you find is that a fish gets scaled, it gets washed, it gets gutted, it gets washed, it gets filleted, it gets washed. and what's happening in that time is there's an organic compound in a fish called trimethylamine oxide and upon the use of fresh water during processing, trimethylamine oxide converts into ammonia and ammonia is then what we all refer to as fishy fish and the only way to mitigate ammonia is through the use of acidity which is then why we've got a culinary repertoire, specifically French repertoire that states the use of acidity with fish, you know, hollandaise and tartare sauce. And, you know, fish has been done the same forever. It's just, for me, fascinating to learn more about meat butchery rather than look to the world of fish. And I think we're continually running into the same problems where as we get more and more privileged in our consumption of foods. We take exactly what we want. We hone in on the primary cut right out of the middle. And then there's very little consideration left for the rest. And so that's why I want to try to make pasta out of the bones and why I want to make ice cream out of the eyes. So let's go through some other things here. You do smoked kingfish melt. Okay. The one that really surprised me was It's fascinating. The dry-aged yellowfin tuna rack. Yeah. Talk about that. That's a really cool photo, and it's kind of a cool idea. Well, the funniest story that came of that, when we started to break down a tuna more with the lens that we were breaking down a cow, we were able to generate a ribeye of tuna. We were able to take a sirloin. We were able to take a tenderloin, able to take a skirt steak in the form of the belly, ossobuko cut from the tail, and almost like an oxtail from the very end of the tail. And so all these meat-based practices that we were taking out, you know, this glorious last loin that was left on the bone with the French rack, we interpreted it as a rib of tuna. And we grilled it over charcoal and it was delicious. And we served it with usual suspects of sauce bernese or a chimichurri or, you know, serve it with fries. And we had a gentleman get dragged in by his two daughters to St. Peter. And these two girls came over to me and said, oh, I was so excited to be here. and dad kind of piped up and said, yeah, the girls dragged me. I don't eat fish, so I'll just have to sit here and endure it. And at the end of the meal, they came over and, you know, the girls were really excited and, oh, thank you so much. It was great. And then dad pipes up and goes, mate, you know, if cooking fish doesn't ever work out for you, make sure that you keep cooking steak. And I said to him, you know, that was tuna, right? And then he was just like, what? And then his daughters started laughing that they'd played along the whole time and told him that it was a rib of beef as well. So I often go to a, I buy most of my fish from a local fishmonger. Which is great, yeah. But I've also buy from the supermarket occasionally. So I'm standing there, there's glass over the case. I can't touch the fish easily or it's pre-packaged. You talk about the eyes or the gills, but what are the visual signs to help me decide whether it's fresh or not. Yeah, I mean, this is always the hardest question to answer and, you know, to identify people within your own community that handle fish really well. That's the best place to start. You know, if you're able to go have a conversation with the person that's at that fishmonger and kind of say, well, what came today or what is the freshest product that you've got? What you are looking for is convexize rather than concave. but if you're talking about fillets you don't want to see freezer burn you don't want to see fish sitting in a puddle of water you know have a chat with the people there and say can i get you to scale and fillet this fish for me but don't wash it for me and you can leave all the sediment on the outside and i'll just wipe it when i get home and so if you take that fillet home and then put it on that cake rack and leave it for a full day overnight in the fridge with the fan you're going to have something extraordinary. Like I promise you it'll blow your mind in terms of how different it is to what you've been consuming to this point. That was the most useful piece of fish buying preparation I've ever heard. The other question I have is this, you know, Japan obviously, you know, loves raw fish in sushi and sashimi, et cetera. But when they cook fish, I found, much to my surprise, that they cook the heck out of it. I mean, that's the salmon filet that they often serve for breakfast. They just broil it to death. They love raw fish or they want fully cooked fish, but there's not that in between. So what is your thinking about getting a center cut of filet of salmon? To what degree of done-ness do you think we should cook that fish? Yeah, I mean, it's medium rare all the time. I mean, that's a cultural interpretation. But with most of the fish that we, well, yeah, pretty much 95% of the fish that we serve at St. Peter, it's always medium rare. And if we're serving a whole filet where we haven't actually sliced it, then we always instruct the guests to start at the thinner side of the fish and work their way across to the thick side. If you start on the thinner side, eventually by the time you make your way across, that fish will be perfectly cooked. And it's really to make sure that people, when eating a fish, can understand the taste and perhaps even the water that it was swimming in, because a lot of the nuances of fish is found when it is slightly underdone. So, okay, so how are we going to cook fish? You talk about the low oven, like a 250 oven, then finish it in a skillet or grill. I love that. I do that with steak. I never thought about doing that with tuna. A couple other ideas for people who are trepidatious about cooking fish? Well, I mean, I love cooking on a grill with some charcoal. I think it's arguably one of the best ways to cook a fish because you impart so much flavor in a short period of time. Putting it on a cake rack that's sitting on your barbecue. Because I think a lot of times people don't barbecue fish for fear of how do I get it off the grill once I put it on? And if you put a wire rack or trivet cake rack on top of that hot barbecue and then put the fish on that, then if you find that the fish is getting too hot or not hot enough or whatever it might be, then you're able to take the rack off rather than trying to take the fish off. That's a great idea. And once my skin's crispy, usually people will turn the fish over to the flesh side, which results in this kind of overcooked, dry chicken breast-like texture that's really miserable. So my suggestion is to, when you put the fish on the rack, cook it with either a large saucepan filled with a bit of water sitting on top of the fish while it cooks. And what that does is it's a stainless steel disc basically that's weighted. And as heat rises, the heat collects on the stainless steel and slowly starts to cook the flesh of the fish without damaging it to the point of changing the texture to something that's quite dry. And that means then you don't need to flip the fish over to finish the cooking. So did you have a moment in this transformation to become a, you know, fish butchery expert and chef? Was there a moment, for example, was there a moment you had any doubt you were doing this and going like, oh yeah, you know, this is, I'm kind of way over my head in the deep end with this. Yeah. I mean, there was the moment when we opened fish butchery, which you know some people called like the apple store meets fish shop which was this long marble bench at the end of it had this refrigerated glass cube where there was one single fish of each species that we were carrying dressed up in as most glamorous way that i could possibly think of and people would come in and kind of laugh and take the photos of the kind of weird fish shop and then they'd leave and so we had all this foot traffic go through fish butchery yet weren't really able to capture any revenue. So what did you change to make it work? Well, we had to be less outlandish, I suppose. And the effort really went into the communication side of things. So yeah, it eventually got to a point where we had guests coming in with notebooks, writing down what we told them to do last week with the species that they got, and now writing down new notes for how to do this week's fish. And it was really lovely to have this group of people that really appreciated what we were doing. I was hoping you were going to say, you put a sign out front saying fish and chips daily. Yeah, fish and chips. Or something really basic. Well, we were definitely doing that as well. And at the same time, we were doing our tuna cheeseburger. So, you know, the scallop hot dog, the tuna cheeseburger, and the fish and chips may have been the catalyst behind the busyness. It's not the romance of the story. It was the hot dog. Yeah. Josh, this is fascinating. I've decided you really are a genius. And thanks so much for being with us here on Milk Street. Thank you so much. It's very kind. Thank you. That was Josh Nyland, author of The Whole Fish Cookbook. He also runs two restaurants in Sydney, St. Peter, and Fish Butchery. Nose to tail, or in Josh Nyland's case, from Finder Gill, is a case of remaking a concept as old as time itself. which is letting nothing go to waste. Many folks are happy to pay for the pricey bits, like center-cut salmon, and leave the rest uneaten. During a recent trip to Japan, this culinary conundrum came into focus Raw shrimp guts was for me beyond the pale but milt that fish sperm in a custard terrine was surprisingly tasty So sure cook from fin to gill Some things will be shockingly delicious and others not But at the same time, I applaud the chefs who are giving me a choice. As they say, chacun a son goût, or each to their own taste. You're listening to Milk Street Radio. Coming up, the world's best restaurants you've never heard of. I'm Christopher Kimball. You're listening to Milk Street Radio. I'm now joined by Matt Goulding. He's the co-founder of Roads and Kingdoms, which publishes articles online as well as books. And now they just launched the first issue of their print magazine. Matt, welcome back to Milk Street. Great to be here, Chris. Thanks for having me. So this is an important time. Roads and Kingdoms, which was all digital all the time, has now actually produced a print issue. And if you ever want to call me up late at night and talk to me about that, I'd be happy to discuss it over a bourbon. But you've also, featuring a restaurant list, the top 50 restaurants, Roads and Kingdoms, compiled by many of the people you've worked with over the years. The selection of these restaurants, though, I think is slightly different than, let's say, the Michelin Guide, right? Slightly would be an understatement. I think the entire purpose of this was to provide an alternative to the increasing quantity of lists and guides out there that tend to focus on a certain style of restaurant. White tablecloth, serious tasting menu, very expensive. We love these restaurants from time to time. but the preponderance of these lists can be a little overwhelming and a little bit repetitive let's say in terms of the kinds of cuisine they celebrate we wanted to come up with a list that ultimately sort of addressed the question of where would your last meal be you know the place you want to go back to time and time again so there are k50 is 50 of those kinds of restaurants across the world pulled together by contributors and writers and world-class chefs who are lucky enough to call our friends. This list, and we're going to talk about five of them, but before we get to the list, I think I have exactly the same point of view you have, which is I'm done with all of the pizzazz and the multi-courses, and I don't need that anymore. You know, I want the place that has fabulous Southern Indian food and it doesn't even have menus. You know, that's kind of what I want. I mean, you are basically the person that I was personally imagining when we were creating this list. So what is the first restaurant on your list? The first one, I'll selfishly start in my own hometown here in Barcelona. It's called Ultramarino's Marin, run by a Basque chef named Borja Ordogno, two blocks from my house. And what Borja did, he kind of fused the great culture of the Basque country, which is called the Asador culture, kind of a grill or hearth-based restaurant where everything passes over the flame. And he brought that to the middle of Barcelona. I mean, really, who Borja is, he's a chef's chef. You know, he goes to the fish auctions every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at dawn. He's that guy who reads tomes on ancient Roman cookery on his days off. And that kind of deep love of food and what it can be really ultimately shows on the plate. everything that you eat there is in contention with the best of that version you've ever had, the best red shrimp I've ever had, the best smashed potato cooked in rendered pig fat until it's crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle. And there's not a chef who's come into Barcelona that I haven't taken directly to Old Tamarino's over the years. Okay, the second, now I have a question because the second one is from Jose Andres. And this is also a restaurant near his house. So this is becoming a theme. So Bethesda Crab House. This one shocked me of all the ones in here. So this is Jose's favorite restaurant? I mean, this is among Jose's three or four places that he has sent to us. And essentially, it's exactly like it sounds. It's a very simple, no frills, family-owned crab house in Bethesda. They cook crabs very simply, but very well. You can get them sort of naked and get them with Old Bay, and they bring them out on butcher paper stacked high, and you just kind of methodically work through these incredible crabs with cold beer, usually a bucket of cold beer. I can't complain about that, the way you tell the story anyway. I mean, look, the man knows a thing or two about crustaceans and crab being his favorite food on the planet. This is probably his favorite place to eat it. Third place is near and dear to my heart. It's in Kyoto, Japan. And I was there in May, and I found a lot of places like this, like eight to ten seats, two employees, usually married or friends, and just amazing food. But it's almost not a restaurant. It's like going to someone's house. So why don't you describe that? Because I think that makes Japan such an interesting place from a restaurant point of view. That's it. I mean, the place is called Lake Katorza. It's right in the middle of Kyoto. And the truth is, there's a hundred places like this around Japan in the sense that, as you said, it's small. It's family owned. It's focused on just a small handful of things, but they're done incredibly well. In this case, house-made charcuterie, house-made terrines, a really simple but really delicious wagyu steak, cooked really hard on a flat top until it's got this crispy crust and kind of yielding center, and serve with like a really simple but beautifully dressed salad on the side. You know, the owners got this incredible jazz record collection as so many of these Japanese chefs do. You have that and a glass of natural wine and you're like, this is where I want to be. You know, I remember early on being in Japan and meeting a chef and I asked him, what is your future ambition for this restaurant? And he says, well, right now I have eight seats. In the future, I'd like to have six. that said that said it all to me yeah that's really a great quote okay india so this is a place in amadabad but serves a sort of a tali style mixed plate of the classic everyday cuisine of india it's called the gopi dining hall and this is from a friend of rose and kingdoms viswesh Bhatt, who is based down in Mississippi, but is also from India originally, and knows his stuff on both sides of the world. And ultimately, this is a place that workers go to to fill up on the best possible food. And that means the best imaginable dal, incredible fresh seasonal vegetable dishes, beautiful griddle-cooked rotis basted with ghee, and literally like a $4 lunch that everybody up and down the social stratum is going to be coming to line up for. It says a lot about what's really great about Indian cuisine. Finally, we're in Angola. Why is Angola one of your favorite destinations? Well, I should say we run a trip to Angola now with a really great local writer named Claudio Silva. And Claudio came to us a few years ago and said, look, Angola's ready. Yeah, we've been through civil war. We've been through a lot of terrible moments in this country, but we've come out the other side of this. And the combination of cultures here is always made for good eating. And this place, which is called Baraka da Tiavivi, is a classic plastic stool kind of place, the kind of place that Bourdain would rap about in the gushiest of terms back in the sort of No Reservations or Parts Unknown days. You know, they bring a platter of fish up to you and they say, you know, these are the three or four fish we have today. We have a freshwater tilapia. We've got a mackerel. They marinate it in fresh seawater cut with ginger and other spices. And then they cook it over a live fire. So the idea of marinating in fresh seawater, is that something you've encountered many places before? Not a lot. That's interesting. It's a built-in brine, though, right? I mean, when you take a bite out of this freshly grilled mackerel, you're like, this absolutely makes sense. Where do I sign up? So that dish, which is kind of one of the national dishes of Angola, is called mufete. It's that combination of grilled fish and beans with plantains and sweet potatoes. You can imagine going to a place like this, hungry from your travels, being shocked by the quality of food, and then wanting to come back time and time again. You know, you mentioned Tony Burden. There seems to be a through line here, right? Because his anti-four-star point of view, is this connected back to him in some way? Because he's obviously, this would be a list he would love. And is this something that you think it's time has come? Or do you think that most people still aren't, you know, this is not a list most people are going to get serious about? look I mean to the first question is 1000% connected back to Tony you know he was for me a hero you know and an idol and through some turn of fate I ended up getting a chance to spend a lot of years working with him and so the magazine actually opens up with a letter to Tony and it kind of is a state of the union what has happened in the seven years since Tony died and why do we believe in food more than ever as a way to make sense of the world during times that feel totally nonsensical. I think what I find so interesting is you can tell a lot about people by the way they think about food. It's not so much the recipe or the restaurant. There's a philosophy or way of seeing food and cooking and how they approach it and what it means to them. You really understand someone much better when you sit there and cook with them. I mean, for me personally, I think that was Tony's great gift to the world, which was what he always wanted was to engender more empathy. And what better way to do that than through food? The one thing that all of us to some level understand. And so I think when you look at this list, it really does come back to that. Behind every one of these meals, behind every one of these restaurants, are a group of people who really feel strongly about hospitality, who feel strongly about the power of food to bring people together, and who know how to make things that keep you wanting more. Matt, a fabulous list. Next time, give me a call. I'll give you the 51st best restaurant in the world. I would love to, Chris. Thanks for having me on. Take care. That was Matt Goulding. He's the co-founder of Roads and Kingdoms Magazine. You can find all of our episodes at MilkStreetRadio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. To explore Milk Street and everything we have to offer, please go to 177 MilkStreet.com. There you can become a member, get full access to every recipe, free standard shipping for the Milk Street store, and more. You can also find us on Facebook at Christopher Kimmels Milk Street, on Instagram at 177 Milk Street. We'll be back next week with more food stories and kitchen questions. And thanks, as always, for listening. Producer, Caroline Davis. Assistant Producer, Mari Orozco. Additional editing by Sydney Lewis. Audio mixing by Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Theme music by 2Bob Crew. Additional music by George Brendel-Egloth. Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio is distributed by PRX. From PRX.