- Give it a little flick of the wrist.
- Boom, nice.
We're here at Osakana, with our main man Daniel.
He dry-ages fish, he cures fish.
We're gonna see today whether or not
he can make fish taste like steak.
You dry-age fish.
- Hell yeah, we dry-age fish.
It makes it more tasty.
- I didn't even know that that was a thing.
- It's commonly practiced in Edomae-style sushi.
They control how the fish is killed,
the more amino acids are developed.
Just like what happens when you guys dry-age beef.
The more umami is what kinda gives it that,
quote-unquote "beefy" kind of flavor.
- So you have some dry-aged bonito,
and we have some fresh bonito,
so we can kind of check out what the difference is,
in those flavors and textures today?
- Yes sir, hell yeah, I got some bonitos for you guys.
(jazzy music)
- I've never broken down a fish before,
but I am anxious to embarrass myself, how about you?
- Today's the day.
- [Ben] Let's do it.
- We are going to do a Japanese-style fish breakdown.
I like to cut all these fins off.
Bring it up here, boom, and I follow
the head and the collar on the line,
and meet the other side as well.
Open the fish up. - Guts!
- Give it a little cut, sprinkle a little bit of salt.
- What exactly is the purpose of the salt here?
- Killing some of the harmful parasites.
Wrap it up all nice, ready to be fileted.
I've shown you guys what to do.
- Totally, totally remember everything.
- Seems really easy, yeah.
- [Daniel] Let's do it up. - All right.
- Ewww. It feels like a fish!
(jazzy music)
- When we do the sukibiki, which is what
this technique is called, where we use
the blade of the knife to remove the scale,
we actually want to do smaller motion.
- We teach our butchers, start at the base of the knife,
and do one long cut all the way down,
so you have a nice, even cut, we don't ever
wanna like, go like this, so it's a very unnatural thing.
So now I'm taking the head off.
This is where I was a little bit iffy.
- Follow the head and the collar, other side.
All the way back, and give it a little flick of the wrist.
- Boom, nice!
- [Daniel] Now let's get a little bit of salt in there.
- [Ben] And then brush it?
- [Daniel] Yes.
- All right Daniel, what do you give me, like a B-, a C+?
- B- for a first time.
When we start the filet, I follow by those fins
that you guys cut.
- Pushing up against the bone?
- I can feel it and I can hear it, check it out.
Boom.
- All right, so one motion. - All the way.
And straight back, confidently, you're a confident man.
Turn it to the other side, angle down a little bit more.
- We appear to have, a clean cut.
We have a clean cut.
- [Daniel] Not bad.
- Not good... - Not bad.
- But not bad.
- So I'm going to shame you on how much meat
you missed out on, wow!
- You don't have to be that shocked.
- You gotta now do the sakudori.
You wanna follow the pin bone right down the blood line.
This is not too good, this was good.
- I'll wait outside.
- I got a B- on my test, what did Brent get here?
- B- as well.
- Wow, you are very kind.
- That seemed a little forgiving.
- Very kind.
- So I'm gonna bang out this dry-aged fish,
doing definitely a better filet than Brent.
- This does have a similarity to dry-aged beef,
where just by seeing the muscle structure,
and how firm it is, you can kind of get
a visual cue of what the texture's gonna be like.
- So this, I'm going to keep the bone in for the experiment.
Let's give it some taste to the fish now.
You guys want to try the fresh one first?
Holy shit, that's good!
- The texture's really, really light,
it breaks apart really nicely.
- Buttery almost. - Yeah.
- All right, let's try the dry-aged one.
- There's a lot more going on there,
I mean, the bite is like, exponentially better.
- Just a little umami bump at the end there.
- How can we elevate it, to make it taste more beefy?
- I think we might want to incorporate
a little bit of beef fat.
And so let's do one with adding
a little bit of beef fat to it.
What else can we do?
- [Daniel] Soy sauce, mushroom and black pepper.
- Brent, what's your, what's your idea?
- I'm gonna reference an Omakase episode,
from the restaurant Sasabune, they actually cure
their fish in olive oil, fresh herbs,
thyme, rosemary, garlic.
See what that turns out like.
- For me, like steaks are just like,
my dad doing Worcestershire and a ton of garlic,
so how about we do one that's just something like
backyard barbecue spice?
- Can't go wrong. - Can't go wrong.
We got our four cures, and we have our fish here,
our boneless freshy, and that's the seven-day cured bonito.
- I'm gonna put the dry-aged guy in the bottom,
and I'll probably put my fresh guy on top.
(jazzy music)
- We just need to cure these for ten minutes.
Now let's pull some fish out of some baths.
(jazzy music)
- [Daniel] This style of grill is called konro.
(jazzy music)
Let's taste the fish now.
- Garlic, thyme, rosemary and olive oil.
Well I'm shocked at how much that took,
with only ten minutes. - Ten minutes.
- Not very beefy, just tastes like really good fish.
- We'll try the dry aged one, even little bit more beefy.
- Everything just pops a little bit more.
Really nice, but I wouldn't say quite steaky.
Rendered beef fat.
- All right, here we go, this is my guy.
- Definitely more beefy.
- Actually, like complements the fish, though.
It's not overbearing at all, really nice.
What are your hopes and dreams
for this dry-aged one here Daniel?
- I have a feeling this one's gonna be nice.
We're going to start seeing
a lot more of that umami note.
- Now we're getting somewhere.
I think the dry-aged texture, with the bump of beef fat,
that is really freaking good, and I'd say steaky.
- The barbecue.
The rub overpowers the fish.
- Yeah, let's try the dry-aged for that one.
- So much better with the dry-aged one than the fresh one.
- That's the first note where I was like,
huh, that's a little like, actually beef-fatty.
- [Daniel] The smoky soy with the mushrooms.
- That's definitely the best flavor profile overall.
Everything works really well together.
- Before we try the dry-aged, do you think
it's gonna be better?
- I believe that it's just going to intensify.
- Even feels like a winner.
I'm thinking I like the fresh one more, just on it's own.
The dry-aged one might actually taste more like beef though.
- Mmm-hmm.
- I surprisingly think the Worcestershire
took the best to the dry-aged.
I thought the soy sauce was gonna make all of it better,
but I feel like we actually lost some of the,
like really nice notes of that marinade.
- But do any of them taste like steak?
- Not really.
- Fish tastes like fish, and beef tastes like beef.
- Yep, land and ocean.
- Boom, heard it here first.
- Only took us five hours to figure it out.
- You're welcome.