Alton Brown Cooks Food | Episode 15: Fish Sticks!

0:01 This guy is responsible for my culinary childhood.

0:07 No, he's not my dad or my granddad.

0:09 This is Clarence freaking Birdseye, who in 1927 invented this.

0:17 The multi-plate freezer.

0:18 See, at the turn

0:20 [music]

0:19 of the 20th century, frozen foods sucked because the technology

0:23 at the time froze the target [music] food slowly,

0:26 creating huge ice crystals that literally stabbed

0:28 the food to death from the inside.

0:31 Birdseye machine squeezed food into a little rectangular box surrounded

0:35 by metal plates that were super chilled by refrigerants, like say ammonia.

0:39 Now, this meant that the the food brick therein froze very, very quickly.

0:44 Therefore, contained tiny little ice crystals,

0:47 which preserved both taste and texture.

0:50 Um the very first foods, although you may be familiar mostly with vegetables,

0:53 but first one was fish fillets.

0:57 He also [music] attempted freezing rabbit.

0:59 No records of how that turned out.

1:01 Now, flash forward to the days following World War II.

1:05 We're having, you know, beaten the snot out of the Axis powers,

1:08 America turned its new technological advancements,

1:11 [snorts] like say the Nordberg 6,000 horsepower um

1:15 marine diesel engine and a little thing called sonar, to wage a brand new war.

1:21 A war on seafood.

1:23 In the '50s, factory ships started working the seas capable of catching,

1:27 processing, and freezing seafood into gigantic blocks.

1:33 Using essentially Birdseye's invention, but on steroids.

1:36 The problem [music] is is that American consumers

1:38 didn't have much of an appetite for seafood bricks.

1:42 No problem.

1:42 Guy named uh Robert Kenney of the uh Groton Pew Fisheries,

1:47 Groton Groton, I've never been able to say that.

1:49 Anyway, his team decided to run these blocks through a band

1:52 [music] saw till they've got pieces about the size of a finger.

1:54 And then, with the help of MIT no less,

1:57 they figured out how to bread, fry, and refreeze them.

2:01 Boom, fish sticks, a food we didn't even know we wanted.

2:05 In 1953, the head of advertisement for Gorton's, one Paul Jacobs,

2:10 talked the editors of the very powerful Parents [music]

2:13 Magazine into giving fish sticks their official seal of approval.

2:18 Advertising, America's obsession with processed foods,

2:21 and the future did the rest.

2:24 And thus, I and my ilk became intimate with the Gorton's fisherman.

2:29 And of course, Captain Birdseye,

2:32 who's clearly Captain Kangaroo's second cousin or something.

2:37 Now, I loved fish sticks with a fiery passion, and a few years ago,

2:40 for kicks, I purchased a box, only to find the product lacking.

2:45 So, I set out to make my own,

2:47 and now I share this rebooted culinary classic with you.

2:51 Ahoy, me hearties, we cook.

2:55 [music] Let us examine the software, beginning with the fish.

3:02 I have here 1 lb of cod fillet.

3:05 Now, if you can't get cod, don't don't panic.

3:08 You can use haddock or pollock.

3:10 Lots of time in the history of fish sticks,

3:12 nobody knew what the heck they were catching.

3:14 We're also going to need a tablespoon of mayonnaise.

3:17 I like Duke's, but that's just me.

3:18 You'll need a tablespoon as well of Dijon mustard.

3:22 This is Grey Poupon.

3:23 Remember, pardon me, would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?

3:27 Do you You remember?

3:30 I'm old.

3:31 Um spices, teaspoon of onion powder,

3:33 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper, 2 tsp of kosher salt.

3:37 We will also require the services of three eggs, 70 g,

3:41 and you are going to weigh it, all-purpose flour,

3:43 a cup and a quarter panko Japanese bread crumbs.

3:46 You don't have to weigh that.

3:47 And finally, a quart of peanut oil is what I use.

3:51 Now, I know some folks might think, "I'm allergic to peanuts.

3:53 I can't have peanut oil." Well, odds are good that you can.

3:56 There are a lot of fast food places that use refined peanut oil like this.

4:01 Refined meaning all of the proteins which

4:03 cause the allergic reaction have been removed.

4:05 It's cold-pressed and unrefined peanut oils

4:08 that are probably giving you the problem.

4:10 However, if you're really worried, check with your doctor or just don't use it.

4:14 Use instead safflower oil, avocado oil,

4:18 vegetable oil, canola oil if you like it.

4:22 I don't really use it that much anymore cuz my wife thinks it's bad for you.

4:26 Anyway.

4:29 Fish like Sorry.

4:30 Fish like haddock, cod,

4:32 and the like are a lot easier to chop if they're nice and firm.

4:37 So, if your fish is frozen, which is fine,

4:40 you probably want to just thaw it for 1

4:42 maybe 2 hours so it's still firm enough to cut.

4:45 If your fish is fresh, well, then you'll want to firm it up in the freezer

4:53 for at least an actually not at least an hour, exactly an hour.

4:57 There we go.

4:58 Woo, tots.

5:00 Oh, I got time for tots.

5:06 All right.

5:07 Uh before we chop up this decidedly raw seafood,

5:11 perhaps we should talk about cutting boards just for a very very brief moment.

5:15 I do 99% of my cutting at home on a hardwood board like this.

5:21 This is in fact my favorite board.

5:22 It is made out of maple.

5:24 Very dense, very friendly to knife edges despite its density.

5:29 And this one's got some scratches on it,

5:31 which means it's going to have a manicure soon.

5:32 Means I'm going to sand it down with a palm sander and re-oil it.

5:36 And I oil them about every about 3 months or so.

5:40 And that means that they're pretty much impervious to bacteria.

5:44 A lot has been written about this recently

5:45 and the truth is is a well-maintained wooden board.

5:48 It's perfectly safe uh for cutting raw meat.

5:51 Um as far as being good to a knife, pretty gosh darn gentle to a knife.

5:55 However, if you want to really be gentle to a knife,

5:58 you would use what's called an end cut board.

6:00 So, instead of the uh grain of the wood going this way,

6:03 it's literally going up and down.

6:05 Very fast.

6:06 Oh, lightning fast.

6:07 Very, very speedy.

6:08 But, I would only use something like this or keep

6:10 this around for uh for doing uh a lot of vegetation.

6:14 Um the problem with these boards is they can often separate and get cracks.

6:17 Ooh, like that right there.

6:19 Um which become very difficult to treat because these are harder boards to sand,

6:22 although it can be done.

6:24 Um my very favorite board [music] walnut.

6:27 I like walnut.

6:29 Um I like it a lot.

6:30 Um but, then I have to photograph food a lot,

6:33 and food looks really nice on these boards.

6:35 Um I I do like this board, and I would have no no hesitation of uh cutting even

6:41 raw chicken on this board because I would wash it right away.

6:45 Um but, there has been a lot of talk lately about

6:47 some other boards uh that I think maybe we should talk about.

6:50 Um this is a composite uh board, and it feels different from plastic.

6:55 Uh these are actually kind of a a resin-impregnated paper.

6:59 Um not terrible to cut on.

7:01 Um they do, however, involve formaldehyde in their processing,

7:05 and people that are uh sensitive

7:06 to formaldehyde might want to [music] uh reconsider.

7:09 I don't I don't like how they feel.

7:12 And in the kitchen, I want to like everything, I feel.

7:14 Oh, talking about something I don't like, check this out.

7:16 This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life uh in my opinion.

7:19 This is a titanium cutting board.

7:22 Titanium.

7:23 People buy these [music] boards because uh they say they're antimicrobial,

7:26 and nothing will live on them.

7:28 Neither will your knife edges.

7:30 Uh now, I have talked to some manufacturers who

7:33 say that actually this metal is softer than this metal.

7:35 I don't care.

7:36 It's metal.

7:37 I'm not going to do it.

7:42 So, if you're going to have a a plastic

7:45 board or a non-wooden board for cutting raw fish, raw,

7:51 you know, beef, raw chicken, whatever,

7:53 I'm going to go with a straight off of a restaurant supply shelf model.

7:59 This is made out of a polyethylene, actually high-density polyethylene, HDPE.

8:05 And you'll notice that you probably can't see this on here very well.

8:08 It says uh We'll get a cut away of that.

8:10 NSF, National Sanitation Foundation.

8:13 I would not buy a plastic board that did not have that.

8:17 Now, the NSF is a an organization that does Oh,

8:20 you notice I've got wet paper towel under there to keep it from sliding around.

8:23 The NSF is a certification process that you

8:26 will see involved in a lot of restaurant equipment.

8:29 The best thing about this board,

8:31 these boards come in a lot of different colors, which is terrific.

8:34 Restaurants often use blue for seafood,

8:36 green for vegetation, and red for for raw meat.

8:39 I just have the blue one because I like blue.

8:44 I do.

8:45 Um the main thing though, and the determination for buying this particular

8:48 board is that it fits in my dishwasher.

8:51 And that is the number one reason that I have this size and shape.

8:54 I would never put a wooden board in the dishwasher.

8:59 Always hand wash those.

9:01 These guys are actually made to go in the dishwasher without any warping.

9:07 So, that is what I will use for the fish I've only

9:10 got one of these and I use it for all raw meat.

9:14 Before we dig in, let's just review the cutlery options.

9:16 Now, you could totally just use your favorite chef's knife, right?

9:20 But for a piece of fish like this, you're probably

9:21 going to have to do a lot of cuts this way,

9:23 some cuts this way, some cuts this way,

9:25 and that thing is going to thaw very quickly and get floppy on you.

9:28 And this is a hard knife to use on floppy things.

9:31 Um we could just dig in with a big old cleaver.

9:33 You wouldn't want to use this one though.

9:34 This is an actual antique bone cleaver.

9:37 This isn't meant for like chopping up entire like donkeys.

9:40 I don't know why I said donkey.

9:42 You know what I mean.

9:42 Um you could use an Asian style cleaver, okay,

9:46 which is very often used for all kinds of of of cutting.

9:49 Very thin blade, but maybe not quite enough heft to move quickly through this.

9:53 Luckily, I do have kind of a hybrid cleaver that's not too heavy,

9:59 not too thick, but very very sharp and very good for this kind of thing.

10:04 So, today I'm going with the cleaver.

10:20 Once the chopping's done, move the fish to a large mixing bowl and add one egg.

10:24 There you go.

10:25 And a quarter cup of panko bread crumbs.

10:27 Not regular bread crumbs or Italian bread crumbs, panko bread crumbs.

10:30 Also, a tablespoon of mayonnaise,

10:32 tablespoon of the Dijon, a quarter teaspoon of cayenne,

10:36 two teaspoons of kosher salt, and a teaspoon of onion powder.

10:40 Now, the best way to mix this is definitely by hand,

10:44 but I don't want to make too much of a mess,

10:45 so I'll use the the black villain gloves for this.

10:49 Just kind of stir loosely.

10:51 Don't crush the fish or squeeze or moisture will come out.

10:54 Now, to portion, going to need a scale.

10:56 Now, if I've done my math correctly, I'm looking for 43 g a piece.

11:00 That should give me 12 fish sticks, but it doesn't.

11:03 I only get 11 because I didn't measure correctly.

11:05 That's okay.

11:06 Now, just roughly shape into thick fingers like that.

11:09 And again, don't crush them.

11:11 This or these will now go into the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

11:16 Just just go.

11:19 Behold, we have our entire frying line ready to go.

11:22 As you [clears throat] see,

11:23 three loaf pans, one containing the all-purpose flour,

11:26 the beaten eggs here, and then the panko bread crumbs here.

11:29 I have moved my fish sticks, fish fingers if you're English,

11:33 uh, to a, uh, a rack, uh, so that, uh, excess, um, you know,

11:38 crustiness will be able to drain away, uh, if it needs to.

11:41 And, uh, here, uh, we've, uh, got, uh, our oil, uh, all ready to go.

11:45 That's standing by.

11:46 And then on the other side of that, we've got yet another pan,

11:50 uh, with another rack over, uh, some paper towel as a landing pad.

11:55 Yes, I know, that means you need to have two sheet pans,

11:59 and you really should, and you should have two racks as well.

12:01 Go to the restaurant supply store,

12:02 they're cheap as dirt, and they'll live forever.

12:05 Um, now, you'll notice that I have, uh,

12:07 positioned this rack upside down over the paper towels.

12:12 Why would I do that?

12:14 Cuz I believe, through considerable experimentation, that if the, uh,

12:18 bottom of the metal of the rack is actually touching the paper towels,

12:21 when fried food goes onto it, it will wick, uh,

12:24 the, uh, the excess fat away in a more efficient manner.

12:26 And you'll notice I have my favorite spider

12:29 standing by to get everything out of the oil.

12:31 We're not going to heat the oil yet, cuz we've got other work to do.

12:34 First, let's, uh, let's get, uh, to the breading.

12:37 This is very, very standard, um,

12:39 but the place where a lot of folks kind of mess up on this is,

12:42 uh, that they don't have black villain gloves

12:45 on, which is incredibly important to the process.

12:48 Um, you don't you don't overdo it.

12:50 And we are going to practice wet hand, dry hand,

12:54 though I haven't decided which one's going to be which yet.

12:57 So, here we go.

12:59 Carefully, bit of flour, two hands dry.

13:07 There we go.

13:09 And I'm just going to kind of roll that in the egg.

13:14 Wet hand, wet hand, and then into the panko.

13:21 Dry hand, mostly, back onto the rack.

13:25 Nice.

13:26 A roll in the flour.

13:27 You don't want any more flour than absolutely necessary.

13:30 That's what makes the breading fall off when there's like a big fat layer

13:34 of flour and then the the the rest of the breading shears away from it.

13:37 So, you really want to take a moment to tap that off.

13:40 The same certainly true for for the egg.

13:42 We don't want too much or the panko will fall off.

13:45 So, always let that drain then into the panko.

13:52 There.

13:53 Last one.

13:54 Now, um I want these to sit uh for a solid half hour

13:59 um because I want that breading uh to really kind of set in place.

14:04 If you were to uh fry them now,

14:06 everything would just fall apart and that just wouldn't be very much fun at all.

14:10 Definitely not good.

14:12 You know what I mean.

14:14 This gives us time to clean up.

14:21 All right, when you're ready to cook, crank your quart of oil up to 350°.

14:26 I'm using an induction uh here, but you can use gas, electric, whatever.

14:30 When hot, lower in three to four fingers at a time.

14:34 And then the one piece of equipment I didn't tell you about, chopsticks.

14:38 Just kind of roll them right off into that hot fat.

14:44 And now just wait until they're golden brown

14:46 and delicious uh somewhere in the 2-minute vicinity.

14:50 Uh do watch your heat.

14:52 You want to keep it at 350 and it's definitely

14:55 going to drop as soon as all that moisture gets in.

14:58 Usually about the time the oil bounces back to 350°, you're ready to go.

15:08 Just drain patiently and then transfer to the prepared resting area.

15:14 Then simply wait a couple of minutes for the oil

15:16 to rebound and repeat with the remaining pieces until they're golden brown,

15:19 delicious, and temping internally around 145° F.

15:28 All right.

15:28 Now that we have our fish sticks, we'll be craving a sauce.

15:32 Now for you fillet-o-fish fans out there,

15:34 tartar sauce may be desired and if that be the case,

15:37 the inner webs is chock full of recipes

15:40 as are several cookbooks, or so I've heard.

15:43 However, if you happen [clears throat] to be a Hoovian

15:46 and if you don't know what that is, then you're not.

15:49 You'll recall that when the 10th Doctor regenerated [music] into the 11th,

15:52 the new Doctor was very hungry and having rejected

15:55 several perfectly good foods offered up by a young

15:58 girl named Amelia whose garden crashed his police box

16:01 into, decided that what he really craved was fish fingers.

16:05 That's what the Brits call them, and custard.

16:07 Now when watching this with my own daughter,

16:10 she thought it was disgusting and that's because she was thinking sweet custard,

16:13 which is disgusting.

16:15 I've tried this.

16:16 My mind went to another direction though.

16:18 So here now is the custard that I serve

16:21 when I serve custard with my fish [music] fingers,

16:24 which is probably a lot more often than you'd think.

16:26 Begin by beating one large chicken egg yolk only in a medium-size mixing bowl.

16:31 Really tear that thing up a bit.

16:34 It's a simple step, but it's important.

16:35 Then get yourself a small saucepan or pot or I'm using a small

16:39 Dutch oven for even heating and add 1 cup of whole milk.

16:42 Don't be bringing that skim stuff to the party.

16:44 1 Tbsp of cornstarch, 1/2 tsp of kosher salt followed by 1 tsp

16:50 of lemon juice and 1 tsp of again the Dijon mustard.

16:55 Now whisk that to thoroughly combine and put

16:58 over medium-low heat for about 3 and 1/2 minutes.

17:04 So unlike a basic tartar sauce, which would of course use a lot of mayonnaise,

17:09 which is in an emulsion,

17:11 we're actually going to skip the mayonnaise and make a custard.

17:14 Now this is going to be a custard by definition

17:15 because it involves egg specifically yolk and of course milk.

17:20 But we are also going to starch stabilize it,

17:23 which is what you would do with a say a lemon meringue pie.

17:26 Only this is savory.

17:28 The starch is also going to thicken and it's going to get

17:31 in between all of the the egg proteins keeping them from curdling.

17:36 So we kind of get the best of both worlds.

17:40 All right, we want to get the uh the starch and milk mixture up to 175°.

17:45 At that point the starch will begin to gelatinize.

17:48 In other words, it's going to thicken and that's

17:50 the perfect time to temper it into the yolk.

17:53 All right, tempering of course as anyone who's

17:55 made an ice cream base knows means that we're

17:58 going to uh briskly whisk that egg yolk while

18:01 drizzling in slowly about half of the hot liquid.

18:04 This is going to prevent it from of course scrambling.

18:07 Then we reverse it and pour that mixture back

18:10 into the original hot pot whisking all the time.

18:13 Standard tempering maneuver.

18:15 Uh whisk thoroughly and then continue to heat gently.

18:20 All right, now that we have the the egg yolk in, we

18:22 want to bring this up to 185° but really no further.

18:26 At that temperature two things will happen.

18:28 One, we will have the maximum thickness that this mixture

18:31 is going to have given its egg content and starch content.

18:34 But it's also going to shut down an enzyme in the egg called amylase.

18:38 And that's important because amylase likes to eat starch which will over time

18:43 reduce our nice creamy custard into kind of a runny little puddle of goo.

18:48 Um and 185 will keep that from happening.

18:50 I know this by the way because I've ruined a lot

18:52 of lemon meringue pies by not cooking the interior to 185.

18:57 There, maximum thickness.

18:59 Time to bring the pickles.

19:00 A quarter cup of chopped cornichon, although any sour pickle would do.

19:04 Also 1 Tbsp of chopped fresh dill and a quarter tsp of ground white pepper.

19:09 Just uh stir that in, remove from the heat, and allow it to uh cool to thicken.

19:18 And there we have my uh Tardis sauce.

19:21 Um [clears throat]

19:22 while we're on that subject, I will close with the words of the doctor,

19:26 the 11th, uh who said in the episode uh Power of Three, I believe.

19:30 If I had a restaurant, this would be all I served.

19:34 See you next time when we'll uh you know cook some food.

19:44 Coming to a stage near you, maybe,

19:46 an evening of Alton Brown presents the legend as you've

19:49 never seen him and probably never will [music] again.

19:51 Even though that's exactly what he said the last time he did this.

19:54 Visit altonbrownlive.com for show dates and ticket information.