Fish cookery
One of the biggest mistakes made by Chefs is in the cookery of Fish. For example when I was working in Dubai the first time I asked the Chefs of my new kitchen “How do you know when fish is cooked?” They simply responded with “when the white stuff starts coming out”!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who knows anything about fish knows that when the white protein starts leaking out it means basically you need to start again as it is overcooked. When eating out I very rarely order fish as I find 9 times out of 10 it is brutally overcooked. But what takes the cake is an opinion I heard just recently…………….. “Don’t you love it when you cook the fish and it twists, it’s amazing”.
With everything in cooking we are only just really starting to understand the differences in temperatures which different types of ingredients need. Gone are the days where a Chef would boil all vegetables just because they are “Vegetables” or cook all fish the same as they are all “Fish”. Basically to get a perfectly cooked piece of fish without breaking any of the cells or loosing excessive amounts of juices, it is best to cook it sous vide until the desired temperature then pan sear it from cold to activate the Maillard reaction and give the correct flavor. What core temperature do you need to achieve and how hot should the water bath be? This will greatly vary depending on the type and even the region the fish has come from as the density of the flesh will change with the temperature of the water it has come from. Pictured above is how I am cooking the fish here in Madrid, obviously I am doing this in my Lab but for the restaurant I am setting a time and a temperature based on an average of all of the testing I have conducted on each type of fish. Even when we talk about the searing of fish, this has to be done with love and careful attention as well. Here there are many variables that have to be taken into consideration; the temperature of the pan (Too hot will scorch the fish and make it dry on the surface, too cold will make it stew and loose too much moisture), which kind of fat to use, how much fat to use (too much will fry the fish whereas too little will give an uneven heat transfer), etc, etc. It is a big topic to cover in 500 words but the moral of the story is: Imagine different items of food are like people, you can’t treat them all the same and expect to get the best out of each one.
Good cooking is about consistancy, I laugh when I hear Chefs say “I will never use Sous Vide or exact recipes, I cook with feeling and instinct and these things take the personality out of cooking”. In actual fact the only persons feelings and instinct people pay to taste is the Chef of the restaurant who has his name on the front door, it is up to him to perfect his recipes to the level that every Chef in the kitchen can replicate it the same every time.
