noodsletter #.0023
Fish and other sea creatures!
Hello!
You’ve received this email because you’ve signed up for noodsletter. Thank you. Today we’ll be talking fish.
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Book Bit
In an instant, his senses would be rewarded by the in-disputable evidence of the baker's mastery. Drifting in the air would be the gentle aroma of freshly baked pretzels, sweet rolls, and loaves of bread so unparalleled they were delivered daily to the Hermitage by train—while arranged in perfect rows behind the glass of the front case would be cakes topped in frostings as varied in color as the tulips of Amsterdam. Approaching the counter, the Count would ask the young lady with the light blue apron for a mille-feuille (how aptly named) and watch with admiration as she used a teaspoon to gently nudge the delicacy from a silver spade onto a porcelain plate.
His refreshment in hand, the Count would take a seat as close as possible to the little table in the corner where young ladies of fashion met each morning to review the previous evening's intrigues. Mindful of their surroundings, the three damsels would initially speak in the hushed voices of gentility; but swept away by the currents of their own emotions, their voices would inevitably rise, such that by 11:15, even the most discreet enjoyer of a pastry would have no choice but to eavesdrop on the thousand-layered complications of their hearts.
From A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
Thank you to reader Paul for sending this in!
“News”
Imagine writing this sentence: “After one of its products was linked to gastrointestinal issues and gallbladder removals, Daily Harvest will have to overcome serious challenges if it wants to survive as a company.”
Fleisher’s is closing for good. Hard to overstate how large an impact the original Fleisher’s had, not sure about the post-sale version of Fleishers’s.
“Please, m’lord, don’t bang the plates.” Medieval Times workers are voting on unionization.
Give me an opportunity to plug my old colleague Miranda’s piece on Medieval Times, which I like a whole lot.
The Supreme Court will decide in October whether California’s Proposition 12, which regulates poultry and pork production, is unconstitutional.
Round hot dogs? The small step for the grand tradition of American charcuterie, a giant leap for mankind.
Indoor farming may be the future, but do the vegetables taste good is my question.
Multivitamins are a scam! Vitamins are a scam!
“Food, in the world of this film, is the music of love.”
This piece on the ableism of food culture is worth reading. However, I don’t think anyone begrudges people with disabilities using convenience products like jarred garlic (or, if they do, they are clearly trash people), and the author seems to place inordinate value on random people judging their cooking skills.
I am once again embarrassed by the mere mention of my alma mater in the press:
“Speaking truth to that one 2011 Onion headline, Gelber learned to host as a student at Bard College, where the small size limited the nightlife options, and then spent time in London’s vibrant supper club scene.”
Sport hunting for deer grown in captive facilities that are then let loose so people can shoot them seems…like a weak sauce sport? Also, apparently it’s spreading chronic wasting disease to wild deer.
This piece about a dinner party put on by the wife of a “cancelled” Princeton professor struck me as being incredibly smart and vicious, but I saw a few people criticizing it for being too credulous and elevating these peoples’ profiles. I don’t know how you can come to that conclusion if you read the plain text of the piece (and look at the amazing photos!). It’s clearly a send up, and a masterful one at that.
Remember that gun-themed coffee company that was accused in a public letter of being a scam (I linked to the letter a couple newsletters ago)? Well they’ve got a marketing deal with the Dallas Cowboys. One of their coffee blends is called “Murdered Out.”
Recreating ancient Mesopotamian recipes written in cuneiform on clay tablets. Fascinating.
Eater has an article series examining the fantasy Blue Hill serves up to its well-heeled diners. The bit about the compost oven egg is darkly hilarious. One point the article brings up: the controversy surrounding Willow’s Inn is well known to regular consumers of food media, but the rub is that the place is doing better than ever after it came to light that their entire spiel was a fabrication.
Let’s Talk Fish
I had threatened in my last newsletter to write about this online fish selling outfit I’ve been using, called E-Fish. I started buying stuff from them about a year ago, mostly because they sold mackerel and claimed it was insanely fresh, and I found that their claims were, if anything, understated. I’ve since bought all sorts of things from them and have posted about it on Instagram, which, if you follow me, you’ve probably seen. Right after I sent out my last newsletter, E-Fish contacted me and said they wanted to send me free fish, with the understanding I’d post about it on the ‘gram.
Now, I felt a little conflicted about the idea, since I don’t like the idea of sponsored posts in general. However, I have used them for a year and their product has never been anything short of stellar, and I was posting about it anyway, so I figured there was no harm in accepting the free stuff. But I wanted to be upfront about it with you all. Take what I say here with a grain of salt, but there was literally no difference between the quality of the products I paid for over the last year and the stuff they’ve sent me for free.
Part of the reason I like supporting E-Fish is that they seem to me to be a model for supporting domestic seafood harvesters. Everything they send you is traceable to a boat and a specific person who’s gone out and fished for the stuff in the box; the species of fish they sell are both sort of rare to find in fish markets and delicious, like sardines and mackerel; and the stuff they sell isn’t totally abysmal for the planet. While I wouldn’t personally buy the Atlantic bluefin or pink Gulf shrimp they sell due to sustainability concerns (I basically don’t eat shrimp or tuna anymore), the fisheries these fish are harvested from are considered by organizations like NOAA to be well-managed and sustainable. In short, for people who want extremely high quality seafood but also want some assurance they aren’t ruining the planet, E-Fish ticks every box. Of course there’s the whole issue of all the packaging and emissions used to get you the fish in pristine condition, but we live in a fallen, capitalist world, and if you think your local fish market isn’t giving the plastics and jet fuel industries a ton of business then you’d be mistaken.
If you’re interested in trying E-Fish out, they gave me a link to use as a referral, and you can use my name in all caps (not ideal, tbh!) (“SHOSPAETH”) as a discount coupon, which gets you $25 off, which basically amounts to almost free shipping if you choose a single harvester (if you buy stuff from both California and Maine, for example, the shipping will be quite expensive, of course).
Basically, when you make an order, that order is transmitted to the harvester, who then will go out fishing for your order and send it to you when they land. This means the stuff you get is probably fresher than most fish you’ve purchased at the store. Since fish this fresh is something of a rarity if you don’t fish yourself, and since a lot of these species aren’t popular, I thought I’d show you all what I did with the stuff that got sent to me for free, along with some tips for dealing with very fresh fish.
First thing they sent me was scallops, which, yes, everyone loves, and you probably know how to prepare. While scallops truly were meant to be seared hard, you can eat these raw or grilled, which is what I did because I was spending the weekend at a friend’s place and she had a grill I wanted to play around with. I threaded them on skewers (to make them easier to handle), grilled them hard and fast until just cooked, then plunked them in a dish with some kombu dashi (like this, but without the katsuo), seasoned with a little lime juice and soy sauce, along with mint, pea shoots, some lime zest, and green onions. Nice and fresh.
Then I got sent some anchovies. Now, fresh anchovies are one of the best things to eat in the world, and they require very little preparation.
This is how I like to store fish in my fridge. A rimmed baking sheet is handy because the aluminum is very conductive, so I put ice packs on one end, which means the sheet pan gets super cold, which in turn keeps the fish resting on the sheet pan super cold. Cover the top with plastic wrap so the fish don’t dry out completely, line the bottom with a clean paper towel so they don’t sit in their juices.
You don’t really need to clean anchovies, as in you don’t have to gut them or anything (the guts taste good). But I do give them a brief swish in ice water to dislodge and wash away some of their wee scales, then pat them dry before storing.
You can just toss them in a deep fryer as is, salt them when they come out, and hit them with a squeeze of lemon and you have one of the most satisfying snacks in existence.
You can coat them in flour (or a combo of flour and cornstarch) and they fry up a little crispier, but that’s optional. I also fried some after putting together a little spice mix of garam masala, extra ground coriander and chili, as well as a touch of kasuri methi, which I added oil to to form a paste, which I then smeared all over the fish (some of the spice mix was reserved to dust the fried fish along with salt). These were amazing.
I also made some of the little guys into niboshi, which are the boiled and dried anchovies eaten as snacks and used in soup stocks in Japan (as well in other countries). The idea behind the process is that fresh fish that’s brought to about 170 degrees F both cooks the flesh and locks in inosinic acid, so that when the fish are taken out and dried, they are this huge flavor powerhouse. I poached them for about 10-15 minutes at about 170 degrees, then drained them, blotted them dry, then placed them on a rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. I slid the baking sheet into my oven, which was at its lowest temperature (~180 degrees F), and then I cracked the door of the oven open and left them in there for 2-3 hours, rotating the sheet once or twice. The result:
I used these to make a pork/chicken/niboshi stock (a recipe for which will be in the book and is being cross-tested, hopefully, by some people right now), which ultimately ended up in this bowl of ramen:
Finally, I also cured some of the anchovies with salt and vinegar and then covered them in oil. I’ve done a fair amount of research about curing fresh anchovies, but I absolutely cannot recommend that you try it, since I don’t want to be responsible for your or your family’s health. I can only say that these were delicious, and I felt zero ill effects from eating almost all of them by myself (my wife wouldn’t try them). Some other people did, and I have yet to hear that they died.
I’m already way over the email limit, so I’ll save the mackerel for another day, but I did want to talk about the ABALONE they sent me. If you haven’t tried abalone, you have to figure out how to try some. Abalone is a heavily overfished species and has been for generations; they used to ubiquitous on the West Coast but have basically been decimated because they’re so delicious and people were so rapacious. However, the abalone E-Fish sells are farmed under a wharf and fed giant kelp, and the whole operations is a model for sustainability and conservation practices. They’re also petite, relatively easy to prepare.
Abalone must be processed while live, so what you get is four very much alive sea snails. This is what they look like:
All you have to do is take a large spoon and stick it between the meat and shell and scoop. Then you just remove all the stuff that isn’t the big old foot, and chop off the face/mouth (you can see where I did that, the flat side of the round). (I want to note that the liver, which is actually the stomach, is a delicacy in Japan, often eaten raw. I’ve eaten it, and it’s really sweet and nice, since it’s just a bunch of half-digested seaweed. However, I was not brave enough to try eating the liver/stomach from these abalone, which I feel terrible about. Next time!).
Rinse the abalone feet in water and place them in a bowl and stick them in the fridge; in an hour they’ll have exuded a bunch of liquid. At that point, you can pound them with a meat mallet to tenderize them, if you like (it does help), and then you can basically eat them any way you can imagine: raw, fried, braised, etc. The two times I’ve gotten abalone before, I chose to sous vide them at 180 degrees F for three hours; the first time I just added a little salt to their exuded juices and bagged the feet with the juices, the second time I added a little soy sauce and mirin and a smidge of olive oil to the bag, too. Both came out amazing. For these freebies, I went with the second flavor combination, but I did not pound them, which meant they were a little tougher. I just ended up slicing them a little thinner than I had before before serving.
Here they are out of the sous vide bag. They look a lot like mushrooms, and their texture and flavor is sort of reminiscent of a mushroom, if a mushroom also sort of had the flavor and texture of a clam. They really aren’t fishy in any way at all; they’re more like…I don’t know, a clam steak or something. Very hard to describe them, but I find the texture (slightly chewy, but soft) and the flavor out of this world. Truly a delicacy.
Here they are sliced thinly, torched, brushed with a bit of good tamari, then garnished with some spring onion whites and a glug of good olive oil.
If you do end up using that referral link and have any questions at all about preparing anything, just shoot me an email or leave a comment. I have some advice for the finfish you can get from E-Fish, which is sometimes so fresh that it’s in rigor, for example. I’ll go over that in some future newsletter, maybe?