Gordon Ramsay's Fish Technique Most Chefs Never Master

0:00 This is the best technique from Chef

0:01 Gordon Ramsay that you've probably never heard of.

0:04 And what I'm going to show you is this incredible

0:05 rainbow effect that every chef is trying to achieve.

0:08 First thing I'm going to do for this cod is I'm going to get the brine on.

0:11 I've got my water here.

0:12 I'm just going to take a little bit of the water.

0:15 Just pop it into a pan.

0:16 Not a lot of it cuz I want to keep the water

0:18 nice and cool so I can put the cod straight in.

0:20 I'm just going to pour my salt into the water just to dissolve.

0:24 Some bay leaf, peppercorn, black, white,

0:26 and also some pink as well as some thyme.

0:29 It really is a very classic sort of recipe that's steeped

0:33 in all the sort of technique that Gordon Ramsay became famous for.

0:36 The first thing I'm going to get the brine on.

0:37 This is a 10% brine.

0:39 So what we're going to do is we're we're going to brine this fish very quickly.

0:41 And what that's going to do is season the outside of the fish

0:44 and help to lock in that moisture in the cod fillet.

0:47 So we're going to take the skin off our cod for this dish.

0:50 So what I'm going to do is just start on one side of the cod,

0:53 go underneath the skin.

0:54 If you confit the fish with the skin on, the skin can go quite flabby.

0:58 Not a very pleasant eating experience.

0:59 So we're going to remove it.

1:00 So as you can see, I've left behind what we

1:02 like to call the bloodline on the base of the skin.

1:04 So if I just going in and just holding the knife above the skin and then

1:08 and then I'm just going to trim round

1:09 the sort of the rib bones of the fish there.

1:12 So once my salt is dissolved,

1:14 then I'm just going to submerge that liquid into the rest

1:17 of the brine and give that a really good mix.

1:20 When you're doing any sort of fish prep,

1:21 you want to make sure you're doing really nice long smooth movements.

1:24 I'm just going to remove that little bit of the brown flesh there.

1:28 Like so.

1:29 I'm just going to square off the end there so it's nice and neat.

1:31 All this sort of trim can be used for things

1:33 like fish stock or even like things like fish cakes.

1:36 You can save it all up,

1:37 chuck it in the freezer and once you've got a large amount,

1:38 you can make a nice batch of something.

1:40 I'm just going to pour some of my fish into three nice portions.

1:43 So what you can do with this brine is you can actually make it the day before.

1:47 The flavor will increase in the brine and all those sort

1:50 of aromatics of the pepper and the thyme will infuse into that water.

1:52 So I'm just going to place that cod into the brine

1:54 and that's going to go in there for 10 minutes.

1:56 I'm going to be really nice and gentle with the fish at this stage.

1:59 The second super key element of this dish is beurre noisette.

2:02 So, what beurre noisette is is effectively brown butter.

2:05 Browning it off, and that what that's going

2:06 to do is the butter is going to caramelize,

2:08 and the milk solids are going to sort of separate from the butter.

2:12 You can do a very gentle sort of brown butter,

2:14 which is like the sort of thing, you know,

2:15 if you're at home and you you put your your butter

2:18 in the pan for your scrambled eggs or whatever,

2:20 and and you just leave it a little bit too long, and it goes a little bit foamy.

2:23 I'd say that is a very mild brown butter.

2:25 And you can go all the way up to sort of 190° C,

2:29 which is quite intense, um quite dark, but still absolutely delicious.

2:35 So, we're going to go around we're going to go pretty far.

2:37 We're going to go about 180 for this recipe.

2:39 So, butter goes in.

2:40 Oh, you really have to let it let it froth up, and you're like, "Oh,

2:42 what's going on going on here?" And then then it cools back down,

2:45 then it caramelizes.

2:46 You just got to be trust your probe with it.

2:49 So, we're at 120 right now.

2:50 Can't wait for the comments, "How much butter?" Yes, it's a lot of butter.

2:54 But you wouldn't have it any other way.

2:55 135-ish.

2:57 It's gone from being like cloudy butter to now starting to separate.

3:00 So, as you can see, that's what I was on about.

3:01 The foams up, and then it cools down.

3:03 And there you have it, 180.

3:05 So, what we're going to do now is just literally take the pan off the heat,

3:09 and then just leave it to the side to cool down slightly.

3:12 Passing it when it's 180° is obviously a little bit dangerous.

3:15 So, next we're going to take out our fish.

3:17 You can see the fish visibly firmed up already.

3:19 And I'm just going to set that aside there.

3:21 So, in the restaurant what we would do here

3:23 is sometimes we would wrap it in cling film,

3:25 and that would just sort of help to set

3:26 the structure and give you a really refined finish.

3:29 What we're going to do here is we're just going

3:31 to lightly wrap it in a bit of tissue paper,

3:32 which is going to help to dry it off, firm it up slightly,

3:36 and it's going to allow the protein

3:38 and the fat structure just to set in the fridge.

3:41 And we're going to leave it for about 30 minutes up

3:44 to about an hour and a half to 2 hours max,

3:46 I'd say, cuz obviously it's got the salt on.

3:48 It's going to continue to cure.

3:50 So, But we can take our butter.

3:51 It's just ever so slightly.

3:53 Pass it through our chinois.

3:55 If you haven't got a cheesecloth, muslin works absolutely fine.

3:58 Like a blue jay cloth from the supermarket, anything like that.

4:01 And what you're left with is these caramelized milk solids in the bottom there.

4:04 When you look at it on a spoon, it's just actually not that dark at all.

4:07 It just looks like sort of sesame oil or something like that.

4:10 So I'm not going to try it now cuz it's radioactive.

4:12 So we're looking to take this to 55°.

4:16 So that's the temperature that Gordon confits his fish at.

4:18 This method for cod we actually found in the Gordon Ramsay recipe book.

4:22 And the photo looks absolutely stunning.

4:24 Where's the sauce, though, Gordon?

4:27 Where's the cod sauce?

4:28 So we've got our cod, we've confit'd it, we've brined it.

4:30 The next thing we're going to do is what he

4:32 serves it with is this amazing potato and kombu crumb,

4:36 which we've analyzed the recipe and we've

4:37 sort of made a a simpler at-home version.

4:39 So this method is a really classic,

4:41 very refined way to get perfectly cooked cod or fish,

4:45 any fish really, you can apply the same technique,

4:48 and then adding a crispy texture, which is going to deliver on flavor,

4:52 and maximize both the the the cuisson

4:54 on the fish and the textural element on the top.

4:57 For the potato crumb,

4:58 we're going to peel the potatoes and then we're going to grate them.

5:01 So we tried a couple of different methods of how to get

5:03 this crumb at a high enough quality that we think it replicates it,

5:06 and this is the best way that we found.

5:08 Two potatoes, the finer side of our box grater.

5:11 You can already see, before I even tell you,

5:14 how much sort of moisture and wet starch is on this potato.

5:19 So this technique this method that we're going to show

5:21 you is a way to get rid of that.

5:22 So what we're going to do is we're going to take this potato,

5:24 we're going to pop it into a small bowl,

5:26 and we're going to rinse it in cold running water until the water runs clear.

5:30 Squeeze it dry with a cloth,

5:32 and then what you've effectively got is you've got potato

5:34 which has had all the starch washed out of it,

5:36 and it means you're going to be able to get it crispier,

5:39 and the natural sugar in the potato isn't going

5:41 to send it too dark before you've got it crispy.

5:43 So I'm going to rinse that in cold running water.

5:45 While the potatoes are rinsing, I'm just going to get the oil on.

5:47 Just a little bit oil.

5:48 And this is what we're going to cook the potato crumb in.

5:50 If you're ever doing sort of shallow frying or deep frying in a pan,

5:53 never go more than half half full.

5:55 Just going to put that on the on a low medium heat just to come up nicely.

5:58 We're looking for about 160 to 180° there for the crumb.

6:02 So, my potatoes are now rinsed.

6:03 You can see the color difference already.

6:05 And now what we're going to do is we've got a little bit of cheesecloth here.

6:08 We're just going to place the potato on top of the cheesecloth.

6:12 And then, I'm almost going to wrap it up like a little ball.

6:16 And squeeze out the water.

6:18 So, the more you can squeeze out of this time,

6:20 the better the crumb you're going to get.

6:21 So, I like to sometimes just about open it

6:23 back up and then just break up the potato,

6:25 lay it down in a different sort of format.

6:28 And then go again.

6:30 Then you can take it out of the cheesecloth onto my board.

6:32 I'm just going to run my knife through this a little a few times.

6:34 Place that into a bowl.

6:35 And then once our oil comes up to temperature, we're ready to fry this off.

6:38 Oil is about ready.

6:39 We're at 182 right now.

6:41 So, I'm just going to cool that down slightly.

6:43 And plop that into our oil.

6:46 Give it a good mix around.

6:47 We're just going to keep cooking that till it goes nice and golden.

6:50 Keep it around 170 to 180.

6:52 The temperature will drop quite considerably once you put the potato in.

6:55 You just keep your heat on medium low.

6:57 Okay, so once you can start to see the middle go golden brown,

7:00 you're then going to pass it off.

7:07 Let's get the camera man.

7:08 Hey.

7:09 And then into a chinois.

7:11 Give it a really good shake and then straight out onto your cloth.

7:14 You just spread it out because obviously this has got 180° oil on it.

7:18 If you leave it in a pile,

7:19 the the stuff at the bottom of the pile will start will carry on cooking.

7:23 So, as you can see, so I've got a bowl of hot oil

7:25 which I want to just put aside and make sure that nobody touches that.

7:29 And then you can just leave your crumb to to cool down.

7:31 So, what I did there is just had a little

7:33 bit of kitchen roll underneath with the J-cloth set on top.

7:36 And I just spread it out straight away.

7:37 And as you can see there, you've got a beautiful golden color.

7:41 Nice fine crumb.

7:42 If you didn't want to use potato and go through that fat,

7:44 you can actually do a similar method,

7:46 which is what we used to do a lot with Heston,

7:48 which is where you do that same process of the oil,

7:50 but you use panko breadcrumbs.

7:52 Drop it into the oil, give it a really good mix,

7:54 and then pass it off and spread it out in a very, very similar way.

7:57 So, now our crumb is ready, we're going to go back to our fish.

7:59 I put my butter in the fridge briefly just to cool down slightly,

8:03 cuz it wasn't coming down quick enough.

8:05 So, we've got my butter there.

8:07 At the moment, it's at 60 about 60°.

8:10 So, then I've got my cod here,

8:11 which has now been in the fridge for about 25 minutes.

8:14 We just basically chilled the very outside, and the inside is still,

8:17 cuz it was such a quick brine, but high intensity.

8:19 We season the outside, but the middle is still going to be perfect and flaky.

8:23 So, I'm going to place that down into my butter and really gently.

8:27 So, now the cod's the cod's gone in stone cold,

8:29 so that's going to cool down the butter slightly.

8:32 I've got an oven set to 55°.

8:35 So, if you're doing this at home, if you can't get it low enough in your oven,

8:38 you can, even if it's slightly higher, 60,

8:40 65, you're still going to get a beautiful result.

8:43 Um the other alternative is to put it in a pan

8:45 and then do it on a very, very small hob.

8:47 It's a lot harder to manage,

8:48 cuz you have to keep going on and off and on and off.

8:50 I'm just going to place the whole thing into the oven,

8:52 and I'm going to check it after the first 5

8:54 minutes to make sure the temperature is actually on 55.

8:57 I've got some shallots, some garlic, double cream,

9:01 white wine, and a little bit of thyme.

9:03 I sort of saute a pan, low heat, just a couple of knobs of butter.

9:06 Finely slice your shallot, good pinch of salt.

9:10 So, the shallot's obviously going to add a really nice sweetness to our sauce.

9:12 We're going to serve some lovely asparagus,

9:14 which is just coming to season now in the UK.

9:16 Just prep it down by removing these little nubbings off the outside.

9:20 Oh, fish is ready.

9:21 So, you can see the butter's cooled down slightly.

9:23 So, the the the butter dropped slightly to 50,

9:26 but the oven's set to 55, so it should be fine.

9:29 Put on the timer for another 10 minutes, then we'll check it again.

9:31 With the asparagus, instead of snapping it,

9:33 what we're going to do is we're actually just

9:34 going to cut it to get a nicer finish.

9:37 Ever so slightly on the angle.

9:39 As soon as you start to see the pink

9:41 turn into light green before it goes into dark green.

9:44 So, once we've got a little bit of color in the slots,

9:46 we're going to go in with some garlic and also [music] some thyme.

9:49 Get it sweating off, get those flavors sort of mingling together.

9:53 Okay, so next we're going to go in with our white wine, reduce that by half.

9:57 I'm just picking some herbs for my my crumb to finish it off.

10:01 So, I've got some dill, some tarragon, [music] and some parsley.

10:04 I'm just going to take the stalks that I

10:06 picked and just put those into our sauce as well.

10:08 And then we're going to finally chop these three herbs.

10:10 We want to get these herbs really fine for the crumb.

10:12 Then pop that into a container, ready to finish the dish later.

10:16 Next, we're going to go in with some fish stock,

10:17 about half a liter, and then we're going to continue to reduce that.

10:21 So, in Gordon's crumb, what he uses is salted kombu,

10:24 which is quite hard to come by.

10:27 So, what we've found, the easiest thing to get in supermarkets is nori sheets.

10:32 So, I'm just going to put it into our blender and hope that this blends.

10:39 Let's give it a go.

10:45 Got our seaweed blended up there.

10:47 Pop that into another little container,

10:49 and that's going to be ready to season our crumb later.

10:51 So, we're at 50 minutes so far.

10:53 Going to put it in for another final 10 and we should be good.

10:56 Once my fish stock has reduced, then I'm going to go in with the double cream.

11:00 Bring my sauce together, reduce that for a few minutes before we're going

11:03 to pass it into a smaller pan, ready for service.

11:12 So, to finish the sauce, we're going to go with a touch of lemon juice.

11:14 Bring that together,

11:15 and we're going to set that aside while we cook our asparagus.

11:18 So, asparagus is always better cooked in oil rather than water.

11:22 Using a little bit of rapeseed oil here.

11:25 About a jet about a tablespoon, give or take.

11:27 Don't want it to be oily, we just want it to conduct the heat slightly.

11:30 And then we're going to place a lid on our asparagus

11:31 and just gently move this around on a low heat.

11:34 As you can see, the the water coming out of the asparagus is going

11:38 to be enough to lightly steam the asparagus on a on a very low heat.

11:43 The fact we're not putting any water in there is going

11:44 to lock in the chlorophyll and keep it really beautiful and green.

11:47 Gently move the asparagus around in the pan.

11:50 Just because if you left it still, it's going to caramelize on one side.

11:53 So, we're looking to roll it around in [music] that heat.

11:56 And every now and then just give it a little check on it and see how it's doing.

11:59 Right.

11:59 So, we're getting ready to plate up now.

12:01 So, our asparagus is just about done.

12:03 Our cod has just come out of the oven.

12:07 So, our next stage is to crumb our cod.

12:09 I'm going to take some of that potato into a container to mix it.

12:12 Then we're basically going to season it with the nori

12:14 and then a touch of the herbs as well.

12:17 And then the green herbs are just going to help to bind it cuz

12:20 they're going to have a little bit of water content in them as well,

12:22 as well as adding that beautiful fresh perfumed aroma.

12:25 Asparagus is coming out.

12:26 Give that a little taste.

12:27 Woo!

12:27 So, I'm just going to put a tiny touch of oil on our on our asparagus.

12:31 A little hint of pepper, touch of Maldon salt.

12:33 And then we're going to remove our cod.

12:34 You want to be as gentle as you can here.

12:36 We're placing ours onto a wire rack.

12:38 You want to make sure once you've removed it from the butter

12:40 that you're almost pretty much ready to go straight away.

12:42 Going to put a touch of pepper over the top.

12:44 The key factor that we've managed to achieve

12:45 here on this cod is called iridescence.

12:48 It's basically where we've cured the fish

12:50 and then confited at a low temperature.

12:52 We've made all of the proteins lie in the same direction,

12:56 giving us that beautiful rainbow finish across the cod,

12:58 [music] which is very, very hard to achieve.

13:01 Okay, so let's plate up.

13:02 So, if we're going to place [music] the fish on top of the asparagus.

13:06 Then we're going to go with our sauce.

13:08 Good quality [music] olive oil.

13:10 Hey, babe.

13:15 Oh, so good.

13:17 I would usually take cod to like [music] 42, 44.

13:21 So, I was thinking it would be over,

13:21 but because it's in the butter, it just sets that protein structure.

13:25 It's so melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

13:29 Oh, sweet connection.

13:30 I love asparagus.

13:32 It makes my penis hurt.

13:33 Does it?

13:33 Doesn't happen to everyone.

13:34 Very intense.