Cooking with Speed: A Culinary Adventure

When it comes to cooking fish, many people think that it's a chore that requires hours of preparation and attention. However, with some simple techniques and ingredients, you can cook delicious fish quickly and easily. In this article, we'll explore the art of cooking fish with speed, using fresh local produce and expert tips.

Fresh Local Produce

When it comes to cooking fish, there's no substitute for fresh local produce. Our chef had his butcher take out all the bones from a porgy fillet, and then started with the skin side down. The chef drizzled some flavored oil on the fish, which added a burst of flavor to the dish. For sardines, our chef opted for fresh oranges, fennel, and olives, which created a delicious Mediterranean-style salad.

Cooking Fish Quickly

One of the biggest challenges when cooking fish is determining when it's done. Our chef uses a trick where he checks for doneness by looking at the juices that flow out of the fish near the bone. When the juices start flowing, it's a sign that the fish is cooked and ready to be served.

Grouper and Sardines: A Pairing Paradise

When it comes to pairing fish with flavors, there's no better combination than sardines and citrus. Our chef created a salad using fresh oranges, fennel, and olives, which perfectly complemented the oily flavor of the sardines. The grouper, on the other hand, was cooked to perfection and served alongside a delicious tomato and watermelon salad.

Black Bass and Porgies: A Local Delight

Our chef had opted for black bass and porgies as his fish options, both of which are local and sustainably sourced. To add some contrast to the dish, he paired the fillets with peaches and radicchio, creating a beautiful and flavorful combination.

The Secret to Cooking Whole Fish

When it comes to cooking whole fish, there's an art to it that requires patience and attention. Our chef had cooked his grouper perfectly, and then let it rest for a minute or two before serving. The key is to check the fish regularly and use your intuition to determine when it's done.

Family-Style Service

For this culinary adventure, our chef opted for family-style service, where each dish was presented as a whole, rather than individual portions. This allowed everyone to share in the feast and enjoy the beautiful presentation of each dish.

The Finishing Touches

Finally, our chef added a few finishing touches to each dish, including olive oil, fresh oregano, and chili peppers for added flavor. The result was a truly exceptional meal that showcased the beauty of cooking local fresh produce.

In conclusion, cooking fish with speed is all about using fresh ingredients, expert techniques, and a little bit of intuition. With these tips and tricks, you'll be whipping up delicious fish dishes in no time. Whether you're hosting a dinner party or just want to impress your family and friends, this article has provided you with the inspiration and expertise to create truly exceptional meals that showcase the beauty of cooking local fresh produce.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmy name is Michael Gersh kovitch at work they call me chef Mike I'm the chef proprietor of Mike's Bistro in Manhattan I live with my family and angle in New Jersey and it's a beautiful place but sometimes I need to get away I need a change of scenery to relax and be inspired please join me on my fun weekend on the North Shore of Long these are the items that I picked up at the farmers market today I got all different kinds of peaches and donut peaches and look at this one look at this little baby donut p-chan you know what not that soft but sweet as can be what a great addition to any salad that I'm gonna make I'm just gonna start knocking down some of this fruit these are some local peaches I'm not doing anything perfectly cut but I am creating a bit of a slaw with these peaches naturally I guess we're gonna take these smaller peaches as well there are mini donut peaches I've never seen them before but I do love them this is some basil here it was much greener when I bought it but you know how basil is basil doesn't like to stay green for too long because it wants to be eaten fresh gonna throw that into the bowl you know I have a little lime roll it one of them is sour which is the lime another way to contrast sweetness of peach or any sweetness is with heat when I say heat talking about a little jalapeno you know something I'm gonna make sure to use the edge of my board because I don't want to contaminate my entire board with heat picked up some shallots from the market why don't we use one of those into the bowl let's take this travisano we're gonna open that up all the way we're just gonna put a little salt on them we're gonna give them just a little char while we cut other items we're just gonna rough slice that put it in to the bowl our first relish will be finalized later we're gonna re season that let's move on to the next one real quick let's make a quick little tomato dress salad we're gonna slice up some onion red onion has a particularly strong flavor nice color what any onion will be fine and put that into the mix let me add some watermelon everybody says watermelon what's watermelon doing in a relish in a salad I'll tell you a watermelon is nothing but a sweet cucumber Oh that'll be fun that's gonna create a lot of juice and black pepper over what I said about the sweet and spicy so we have a good amount of black pepper in there why don't we go with some cilantro we're not even gonna cut that up we're just gonna put that nice and loose a great relish and a delicious salad here's the fish that I picked up at the local fish market and a lot of it is local fish I have everything from grouper which actually is not local but I love grouper it's so hard to find nice grouper like this we have some porgy we have some black bass fillet some porgy fillet we have beautiful red snapper and then we also have whoops you know I keep all this in paper towels and I'll tell you why in a minute and I have a whole black bass which is pan ready which means you see I asked the butcher to take off all the fins and to take out the guts and everything like that so this is ready to cook I'm just gonna score it a little you'll notice the paper towels the paper towels are very important because they keep the fish nice and dry and that's very important when you're grilling so let's get started on grilling and preparing this fish for grilling oh yes I almost forgot I have these sardines so yet I'm gonna save them till the end this is my trick I take a knife I go straight to the bone I go all the way through I go all the way to the bone I don't worry about the collar all right I go directly to the bone I want the bone to cook I want it to release its flavor right there's no such thing as medium-rare whole fish you know you go right into it now when I season it I season it graciously season it graciously and I season it right before I'm gonna cook it remember it's not easy to penetrate seasoning on on a whole fish oops be careful don't do that at home okay I have a little Pam spray to hit the hit just to hit the metal guess what it's olive oil in spray form let's put that right down now let's take a look at some of our fillets we have some porgy fillets but you're gonna cook real quickly fillets cook really fast I mean how hard is it how long does it take for temperature to enter the center of this piece of meat seconds I had my butcher take out all the bones from this fish I start with the skin side down I hope it doesn't stick here's a cool part see this it's my flavored oil right why don't we drizzle a little bit on the fish let's move on to our sardines our little itty baby sardines what could be better than cooking local fresh fish bought locally caught locally with local produce sardines cook like lightening I'm gonna put that on the top sardines are not for beginners sardines have a huge flavor their oily and some would say stinky in a good way as you can see my filets are starting to change color over here they're almost done how do I know when my whole fish is ready it's so obvious when this is ready but it's very hard to tell when a whole fish is ready let's turn this over and see what's going on you know what that looks pretty good on that side I'm gonna turn that over oh yeah look at that it's not look beautiful but guess what if you can look at this closely you'll see that near the bone it's still pink when it's ready the juices will just start flowing out of it why don't we make one more salad wobbler ready for them for the fish to complete you know I'd say I have about 2 3 minutes before all that fish is done and I wanted to make one more salad using orange I happen to love the combination of fennel and oranges especially with those sardines it's very Mediterranean we're just gonna shave that real fine we want it to be everything if possible few things I'm just gonna put all that fennel in to the bowl I'm gonna take my orange that I peeled knock out everything but the center this is gonna be a wonderful relish for the sardines which I'm sure already and that's why I'm moving so quickly you know cooking with speed is like sport I just love it meanwhile I'll put a little olive oil on there put some fresh oregano that looks good I think we're ready to go get our fish and I'll finish those salads in a moment oh yeah our sardines are absolutely perfect let's take a stab at this grouper and see if we can't get it off the grill oh look at you mr. grouper you just flip perfectly this is fantastic there's a casual event these are delicious Turkish olives just gonna put that right in there a little oregano in there and here I have three beautiful relishes with three different kinds of citrus because the tomatoes have lemon as I just added well one thing I can tell you is that these whole fish are starting to give up water when I see liquid coming from the cuts in the bone I know the fish is done that means the bone is cooked and the bone has to be cooking you're cooking a whole fish that's the secret that's that little thing that tells you when is it ready our grouper is nice and meaty that is really beautiful we're gonna put that in our ready pan let that rest well for one we have our extraordinary Mediterranean sardines we're gonna take our relish that we made we're gonna put it right alongside fennel oranges olives you could put a little chili on that if we want that's our first dish we have our fillets of black bass and our porgies those are very local fish and with those we're gonna put our peaches and our ridiculous to contrast that now remember there's a good amount of acid in all these these are all family style plates some of those peaches that we cut up how interesting that with the jalapenos I put my pan in here and this is going to be our whole fish large fillet presentation and we'll take that and here we have our three fish plates we have our tomato and watermelon salad going with our whole fish and our big grouper people can just pick act we have our filets with our peach relish with radicchio and we have our sardines with our fennel and our orange and our holidays a little bit of chili it's probably what I'm going to put on this is an amazing day cooking local fresh food for friends and family in a beautiful setting on a beautiful summer day on a day off on a day off that we do the exact same thing that we do on our work day or when I say we I mean me and I hope you too and I thank you so much for joining me on this beautiful weekend getaway youmy name is Michael Gersh kovitch at work they call me chef Mike I'm the chef proprietor of Mike's Bistro in Manhattan I live with my family and angle in New Jersey and it's a beautiful place but sometimes I need to get away I need a change of scenery to relax and be inspired please join me on my fun weekend on the North Shore of Long these are the items that I picked up at the farmers market today I got all different kinds of peaches and donut peaches and look at this one look at this little baby donut p-chan you know what not that soft but sweet as can be what a great addition to any salad that I'm gonna make I'm just gonna start knocking down some of this fruit these are some local peaches I'm not doing anything perfectly cut but I am creating a bit of a slaw with these peaches naturally I guess we're gonna take these smaller peaches as well there are mini donut peaches I've never seen them before but I do love them this is some basil here it was much greener when I bought it but you know how basil is basil doesn't like to stay green for too long because it wants to be eaten fresh gonna throw that into the bowl you know I have a little lime roll it one of them is sour which is the lime another way to contrast sweetness of peach or any sweetness is with heat when I say heat talking about a little jalapeno you know something I'm gonna make sure to use the edge of my board because I don't want to contaminate my entire board with heat picked up some shallots from the market why don't we use one of those into the bowl let's take this travisano we're gonna open that up all the way we're just gonna put a little salt on them we're gonna give them just a little char while we cut other items we're just gonna rough slice that put it in to the bowl our first relish will be finalized later we're gonna re season that let's move on to the next one real quick let's make a quick little tomato dress salad we're gonna slice up some onion red onion has a particularly strong flavor nice color what any onion will be fine and put that into the mix let me add some watermelon everybody says watermelon what's watermelon doing in a relish in a salad I'll tell you a watermelon is nothing but a sweet cucumber Oh that'll be fun that's gonna create a lot of juice and black pepper over what I said about the sweet and spicy so we have a good amount of black pepper in there why don't we go with some cilantro we're not even gonna cut that up we're just gonna put that nice and loose a great relish and a delicious salad here's the fish that I picked up at the local fish market and a lot of it is local fish I have everything from grouper which actually is not local but I love grouper it's so hard to find nice grouper like this we have some porgy we have some black bass fillet some porgy fillet we have beautiful red snapper and then we also have whoops you know I keep all this in paper towels and I'll tell you why in a minute and I have a whole black bass which is pan ready which means you see I asked the butcher to take off all the fins and to take out the guts and everything like that so this is ready to cook I'm just gonna score it a little you'll notice the paper towels the paper towels are very important because they keep the fish nice and dry and that's very important when you're grilling so let's get started on grilling and preparing this fish for grilling oh yes I almost forgot I have these sardines so yet I'm gonna save them till the end this is my trick I take a knife I go straight to the bone I go all the way through I go all the way to the bone I don't worry about the collar all right I go directly to the bone I want the bone to cook I want it to release its flavor right there's no such thing as medium-rare whole fish you know you go right into it now when I season it I season it graciously season it graciously and I season it right before I'm gonna cook it remember it's not easy to penetrate seasoning on on a whole fish oops be careful don't do that at home okay I have a little Pam spray to hit the hit just to hit the metal guess what it's olive oil in spray form let's put that right down now let's take a look at some of our fillets we have some porgy fillets but you're gonna cook real quickly fillets cook really fast I mean how hard is it how long does it take for temperature to enter the center of this piece of meat seconds I had my butcher take out all the bones from this fish I start with the skin side down I hope it doesn't stick here's a cool part see this it's my flavored oil right why don't we drizzle a little bit on the fish let's move on to our sardines our little itty baby sardines what could be better than cooking local fresh fish bought locally caught locally with local produce sardines cook like lightening I'm gonna put that on the top sardines are not for beginners sardines have a huge flavor their oily and some would say stinky in a good way as you can see my filets are starting to change color over here they're almost done how do I know when my whole fish is ready it's so obvious when this is ready but it's very hard to tell when a whole fish is ready let's turn this over and see what's going on you know what that looks pretty good on that side I'm gonna turn that over oh yeah look at that it's not look beautiful but guess what if you can look at this closely you'll see that near the bone it's still pink when it's ready the juices will just start flowing out of it why don't we make one more salad wobbler ready for them for the fish to complete you know I'd say I have about 2 3 minutes before all that fish is done and I wanted to make one more salad using orange I happen to love the combination of fennel and oranges especially with those sardines it's very Mediterranean we're just gonna shave that real fine we want it to be everything if possible few things I'm just gonna put all that fennel in to the bowl I'm gonna take my orange that I peeled knock out everything but the center this is gonna be a wonderful relish for the sardines which I'm sure already and that's why I'm moving so quickly you know cooking with speed is like sport I just love it meanwhile I'll put a little olive oil on there put some fresh oregano that looks good I think we're ready to go get our fish and I'll finish those salads in a moment oh yeah our sardines are absolutely perfect let's take a stab at this grouper and see if we can't get it off the grill oh look at you mr. grouper you just flip perfectly this is fantastic there's a casual event these are delicious Turkish olives just gonna put that right in there a little oregano in there and here I have three beautiful relishes with three different kinds of citrus because the tomatoes have lemon as I just added well one thing I can tell you is that these whole fish are starting to give up water when I see liquid coming from the cuts in the bone I know the fish is done that means the bone is cooked and the bone has to be cooking you're cooking a whole fish that's the secret that's that little thing that tells you when is it ready our grouper is nice and meaty that is really beautiful we're gonna put that in our ready pan let that rest well for one we have our extraordinary Mediterranean sardines we're gonna take our relish that we made we're gonna put it right alongside fennel oranges olives you could put a little chili on that if we want that's our first dish we have our fillets of black bass and our porgies those are very local fish and with those we're gonna put our peaches and our ridiculous to contrast that now remember there's a good amount of acid in all these these are all family style plates some of those peaches that we cut up how interesting that with the jalapenos I put my pan in here and this is going to be our whole fish large fillet presentation and we'll take that and here we have our three fish plates we have our tomato and watermelon salad going with our whole fish and our big grouper people can just pick act we have our filets with our peach relish with radicchio and we have our sardines with our fennel and our orange and our holidays a little bit of chili it's probably what I'm going to put on this is an amazing day cooking local fresh food for friends and family in a beautiful setting on a beautiful summer day on a day off on a day off that we do the exact same thing that we do on our work day or when I say we I mean me and I hope you too and I thank you so much for joining me on this beautiful weekend getaway you\n"