- Hey folks, my new cookbook, "Basics with Babish"
is coming out in one week, October 24th.
Almost 500 pages boasting over a hundred recipes,
tips, tricks, step-by-step photography,
and a description of how I've screwed up every single dish.
Pre-order now and get tickets for my book tour
at bingingwithbabish.com/booktour.
(upbeat music)
All right, so apart from fish
the one thing that these three recipes all have in common
is that they're ready in about 20 minutes.
Let's start with the easiest and breeziest,
Flounder en Papillote, or flounder steamed
in a parchment parcel.
To start I'm halving a handful of cherry tomatoes
and Sicilian olives, thinly slicing one lemon
and very thinly slicing one shallot.
And we're grabbing ourselves a large rectangular sheet
of parchment paper, placing our flounder
or other mild white fish filet on one side,
seasoning with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
And then starting to pile stuff on top, few lemon slices,
as many cherry tomatoes and Sicilian olives as will fit,
and some scattered separated rings of sliced shallot.
There are a number of different ways
you can fold up your parchment paper
but I like to just treat it like a calzone.
Starting on one side, pinching, folding,
and curling upward, ceiling shut and preventing any liquids
from leaking out.
Before shutting completely, we're gonna add one tablespoon
of dry white wine just enough to add a splash
of elegance to the situation.
Finish pinching shut and that's all there is to it.
Place in a rim baking sheet
and rinse and repeat with the remaining filets.
Then this guy's headed into a preheated
400 degree Fahrenheit oven
for anywhere from 16 to 22 minutes until the thickest part
of the fish registers 135 degrees Fahrenheit
and it's tender and flaky.
While that's happening
I'm gonna make a quick tarragon butter.
Finally, chopping a handful of tarragon,
adding it to four tablespoons of room temperature butter,
seasoning with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
You could also add a clove of fresh, crushed garlic
and mash into an easy and instant fish enhancer.
Meanwhile, our little parchment packets
are headed outta the oven, and we're gonna let 'em rest
for five minutes before tearing and sharing.
You can serve these right in their packets
so that your diners can feel like they're opening up
a present when they eat dinner
or you can try to gently scoop out their contents
without annihilating the tender fish.
Scoop some compound butter on there,
slide the lemons out of the way,
and you got yourself a ridiculously easy, fast, nutritious
and delicious dinner.
You could do this with fresh or frozen and thawed, flounder,
tilapia, cod, skate or almost any fish that fits your fancy.
But what if you want to impress your diners
with a whole fish preparation?
For that there's few things better than branzino
or European seabass.
Make sure you ask your fishmonger to gut, scale,
and clean your branzino.
Otherwise, this will void your Babish
20 minutes or less guarantee.
Set them on a rim baking sheet.
Pat them dry inside and out
and then we're gonna replace that dryness with oil.
A generous drizzle of something neutral
like vegetable or canola.
This is both gonna help the fish brown and also prevent it
from sticking in the cooking environment
to which its headed, the notoriously sticky outdoor grill.
We're also gonna lightly season inside and out
with kosher salt.
Make sure you're using a dedicated salt bowl
to prevent cross-contamination.
And then we're gonna cut two shallow X's
into both sides of the fish.
Totally optional, but it can help your fish pick up
a little bit more grill flavor.
Then we're stuffing the cavity with three things,
a sprig of fresh rosemary, sprig of fresh thyme,
and lemon slices.
This is mostly just for show
but some flavor definitely translates
into the meat of the fish.
These guys are stuffed, prepped
and ready so it's time to head to the grill,
but first we have to make sure that nothing sticks.
The grill is about the stickiest environment imaginable
for the common fish.
So we're starting by preheating the grill over high heat
for 10 minutes using a stiff grill brush to scrape up
all the detritus from past cooks, lowering the flames
and using an old dish rag or robust paper towel
to wipe down the grill grates with vegetable oil.
Once everybody's suitably coated
we're gonna shut this thing down
and let everybody bake on for about five minutes.
Basically treating the grill grates
like cast iron because that's what they are.
Cast iron grates.
Depending on how well you maintain your grill
this could take one to five coats.
You know you're ready to go when everything looks
evenly black and glossy
and your rag skates back and forth
as though it were a skater skating on skates.
Now we're gonna crank the left burners all the way to high
and turn the right burners down to low.
We're gonna start by searing the fish on each side
one to three minutes on the hot side of the grill.
Stack 'em up, shut 'em down, and be patient
as non-stick as our grill grates may be
the fish will not lift off until it's started to develop
a lovely crispy crust.
Gently and carefully give it a flip
using a fish spat and some tongs and shut it down
for another three minutes.
Then we're gonna lower the heat
on the left side of the grill and crank the heat
on the right side of the grill,
creating an indirect heat cooking environment
where the fish can gently come up to temperature.
Scoot it down toward the front of the grill
as the back of the grill tends to be hotter.
And then on the newly hot side of the grill
we're gonna place two halved lemons
lightly brushed with oil and gettin grilled cut side down.
Give 'em a little half turn after a minute or so,
pull 'em off the heat once they have some nice grill marks
and pull the branzino off the heat
once its thickest point right by the gills
registers 135 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pull 'em off, let 'em rest for five minutes
and then it's time to carve.
First we're gonna place a shallow cut
down the top of the fish along the spine.
Please excuse my hat.
Didn't realize it was in the way
but you can still see what I'm doing.
Then likewise, we're placing shallow cuts
around the gill and at the base of the tail.
And then using a thin metal fish spatula
we're gonna sneak it in between the top filet and the bones,
which should come off with relative ease.
Scoop it right off and directly onto a serving platter.
Removing any stuck herbs or lemon slices
skin side up to keep things crisp.
Then comes easily my favorite part of the day,
grabbing the fish by the tail
and lifting out its spine like a cartoon cat.
Usually all the bones come along in this extraction
but especially if this is your first time
be sure to check the filet for any remaining pin bones.
Yank 'em out and you're good to go.
We're just gonna trim off the charred dorsal fin
and this guy's ready to serve.
Plate up with some more fresh rosemary and thyme
and of course our charred lemon halves.
And there you have it
an easy and elegant platter prepared from whole fish.
But what if you don't wanna cook your fish at all?
Sushi can take a lifetime to master
and sinking your teeth into a still wriggling trout
is very Gollum like behavior,
but ceviche is a nice halfway point between the two.
For this red snapper ceviche
I'm gonna start with a whole ripe mango,
which I'm gonna slice off the pit on each side
and then treat each half kind of like an avocado.
Placing shallow cuts in a grid pattern
and then opening it up like a tropical popup book,
yanking out the pieces that are so kind
as to yield themselves and slicing out the rest.
Chopping those up into slightly more
bite-sized pieces as needed.
Next up half a red bell pepper, chopped fine,
half a small red onion, likewise finely chopped,
and one large jalapenos stem seeds and ribs removed.
You're gonna wanna wear gloves unless you're very vigilant
about washing your hands before you go to the bathroom.
I know you can handle your spicy food
but your genitals cannot.
So now we come to the question of fish.
And in a raw situation, you need to be careful.
You can't just use the stuff in a styrofoam pack
from the grocery store.
Use sushi grade fish
or go to your local fish market
and ask them about raw preparation.
To optionally remove the skin
sometimes you get lucky and it just sort of peels off
requiring some minimal supplemental cuts.
But the official way to remove skin
from a fish is to place it skin side down
starting at the tail of the filet,
place a shallow cut using a filet or boning knife,
hang on tight to the skin and slip the blade between
the skin and the flesh with the blade angled
slightly downward almost scraping against the cutting board.
This technique takes practice to perfect
but luckily if you screw it up, worst case
you're only gonna get half the skin like this,
in which case you'll just have to do a little bit
of extra trimming.
Once our filets are skinless
we're gonna chop them into bite-sized half inch pieces.
I'm using red snapper, but you could use tuna, mahi-mahi,
seabass, salmon, halibut, scallops, cooked shrimp,
whatever you like in this ceviche scenario.
Add the fish stuff to the other stuff.
This might also be the point that you add
some chopped cilantro.
I'm using parsley because of my cilantro disorder
and we're gonna make a super quick and easy dressing.
I'm pressing and rolling this lime on my counter
to make it easier to juice.
And squeezing said juice about four tablespoons worth
into a small lidded container with about half of its volume
in extra virgin olive oil, two tablespoons.
Seasoning generously with kosher salt,
freshly ground black pepper.
I'm also gonna crush one clove of garlic in there,
shut it down, shake it up
and drizzle the entirety over our about to be ceviche.
Mix it up and then we're gonna let it sit
at room temperature for about 15 minutes before serving.
Alternately, you could let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Just let it come back to room temperature
for about 30 minutes before serving,
which we're gonna do on a bed of sliced avocados.
You could add chunks of avocados straight to the ceviche
but then you risk smearing everything in green.
So I like to make a sort of bed
of sliced avocados and serve the ceviche on and around them.
Serve with additional lime slices,
garnish with cilantro or parsley,
squeeze with extra lime, particularly on the avocados.
This is gonna prevent them from browning
and this can be eaten as is or scooped up
with plantain chips.
This is an excellent introductory course
for anybody who's skived out by either eating
or preparing raw seafood,
and it's one of the many, many recipes
to test and expand your skills
in the "Basics with Babish" cookbook.
Available now for pre-order coming out October 24th.
This book is chockfull of recipes, tips, tricks, and humor.
I'm also hitting eight different cities
on my upcoming book tour, October 22nd through November 7th.
You can get tickets now at bingingwithbabish.com/booktour.
I can't wait to meet you guys, sign some books
talk about some food, and have some surprisingly
vulnerable conversations on stage.
Head to the link in the video description
to get your tickets now.
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