This is one way to really
punch up the flavor of fish.
This technique takes a little bit longer,
but to me, it’s like,
you’re gonna get a better result.
Lemongrass, you can just
put this in your bathtub,
take a nice soothing,
relaxing bath out of it.
You can turn into candles, I guess,
but there’s a lot of application for this.
How familiar are you with lemongrass?
I usually buy it in a tube.
Okay. That’s a wrong answer.
(both laughing)
(soft nothing)
Thank you for coming out here,
we’re gonna cook together.
Nikkia has been a part
of our restaurant family
for a number of years now.
You were actually the first graduate
of the Lee initiative mentorship program.
And it’s been just amazing
to see you grow and blossom
and you run your own culinary program now.
So I’m very proud
to see where you are today.
[Nikkia] Thank you, chef.
And also to see where
you’re gonna go from here too.
Today I’m gonna challenge you a bit.
Okay.
And we’re gonna do some steamed fish.
How you ever steamed fish before?
No.
Really?
All right, good, good.
I’m using snapper here
today for this fish.
But really any white
flaky fish will work fine.
You want something that’s gonna
be delicate, cook quickly
and will sort of, you
know, almost fall apart.
So cod works great.
Halibut works great, snappers.
Probably you wanna stay
away from frmer fish,
things like monkfish,
and you probably don’t
wanna do seafood with this,
like shrimp or scallops.
All right, in Asia, steamed fishes
are like super prevalent
everywhere, right,
that’s like, you’ll see steamed fish
way more than you’ll see seared fish.
I think to me what makes
Asian cooking really different
from sort of Western style cooking
is almost everything gets
marinated in some way–
Flavor.
Flavor.
So you’re less reliant
on a sauce at the end
because you’re already kinda putting
the sauce and flavor into the protein.
That’s kinda the one thing.
So let’s start with a nice marinade.
(soft beat nothing)
I’m gonna grab some garlic,
I’m gonna need lemongrass
and a habanero pepper from you.
Just one or you want this whole bowl?
Bring a few, bring a few.
You wanna do a habanero eating contest–
No.
Before we start?
Okay. Smart answer.
Do you wanna start chopping–
Yeah.
I give you my knife?
So, let’s do a pretty
fine cut on everything.
And now the pressure’s
on, I’m watching you.
Don’t cut yourself.
Perfect, let’s go dump that into the bowl.
Cool.
And then I wanna talk
about lemongrass real quick.
(sniffing heavily)
To me, there’s no substitute
for fresh lemongrass.
Won’t you smell that.
So, lemongrass as you know,
like comes in this big
stalk right here, right?
And it sort of grows out
of the ground like that.
Most of this stuff on the top
which is why they call
it grass is leafy grass,
which is really too hard to eat.
So you really just,
you know, unfortunately
you’re really just using
like a couple of inches off the bottom,
and then of course you don’t
want the root end either,
so I’m gonna cut that off.
So that’s it, that’s all you’re using.
Now, I’m gonna even trim
it down even further.
So, you can see almost the layers there
and the outside layers are
gonna be too stringy and woody.
Like you really can’t eat that.
So you wanna peel back that outside layer
and if you touch that, it’s
like nice and tender now.
[Nikkia] Yeah or that’s
like dry and brittle.
So what you’re gonna do here is
cut it in half this way.
Okay.
I always say whenever
you’re cutting something
that is a round shape, right?
You always wanna cut in
half or flatten it out.
So it stays steady, right?
And it doesn’t move.
All right, so why don’t you do that
both of these for me.
Gotcha you.
Super thin.
So is there no way that you can use
the upper part of the stalk?
Like, you know how with carrots,
you can do like something
with the greens on top.
So I wouldn’t use this
for a food application,
but it’s really great to use
for a tea, lemongrass tea.
And you can actually
steep this in simple syrup
and use it as a base for sorbet.
There’s a lot of application for this
and really what I do is
I’ll take all these and,
because you usually only
use a little bit of lemongrass at a time.
So you can put them in a
freezer bag and freeze them.
And just again, just wait until
you have enough collected.
So anything you wanna infuse
flavor, keep all this.
(soft drum nothing)
I’m not gonna touch it at all,
but you’re gonna cut that habanero.
Yeah. Just cut the skin.
If a couple of seeds get in that’s fine.
But I don’t wanna use the seed
’cause that’s where the real spice is.
Look at that? You’ve done this before.
I want the fruitiness of the habanero
and I want a little spice,
But I don’t want it to like
melt-your-lips-off spice.
Yeah. I mean, it’s not that scary,
you know, you can get
habanero sauce, at Pizza Hut.
(chuckles) Okay. Same
thing really fine dice.
Okay
Super fine dice.
All right, so while you’re doing that,
I’m gonna get some of my sauces ready.
All right.
Chef, why are you rolling those rail?
I just want the juice out of them
and you know, just kinda pressing
and pushing them a little
to pre-squeezes some of the juice out,
it breaks up some of the
cell walls of the citrus.
I’m just gonna juice one
lemon and one orange.
Right, here you go.
Here you go, chef.
Thank you.
I got you.
Why don’t you use the zest?
You can, I’m just
choosing not to for this.
And you don’t need a fancy
gadget for this either, right
you just got, you know, clean hands.
That’s it.
Perfect. All right.
So as you can see,
I want this to be a nice chunky marinade.
So we chopped them fine,
but there’s still gonna be
a lot of texture in there
and sesame oil,
about two tablespoons.
I’m gonna do a little bit of soy sauce.
Can you give me a little whisk
while I’m doing that.
(bowl whisking)
Now it smells good.
And then of course my
favorite is fish sauce.
Fish sauce is one of my favorite things.
It’s so intense,
you just need a few drops.
You know, fish generally
is just gonna be a bland,
and I don’t say bland
in like a negative way.
It’s just, it’s a delicate flavor.
So these flavors are gonna
really sort of contrast
and it’s really gonna penetrate
the walls of that fish
and just really punch it up with flavor.
Mhm.
Did a good job?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that’s nice.
You wanted more heat?
‘Cause it just got a little heat,
I think it’s fine.
I mean, I’m not scared of more heat but,
I am.
No, I was kidding.
I am, see?
(both laughing)
All right, let’s put this off to the side,
lets clean up our board,
and we’ll start getting the cabbage ready.
(soft nothing)
Beautiful, look how beautiful that is.
Let’s take out the fish too.
All right.
That’s pretty.
Isn’t that pretty?
Yeah.
Okay, so the dish we’re
making is cabbage wrapped fish.
Now say, I said that to you,
what would you do?
How would you make it?
I think what I would do
is try to put the fish
like in the middle where the stem is,
where it’s most likely to break
and then wrap the tucker leaves around it.
I don’t even have to teach you,
just finish this by yourself.
(both laughing)
Part of what happens when
you steam fish, right,
is that a lot of moisture
will cling onto the fish
and you know, water doesn’t have flavor,
so you’re gonna kinda dilute the flavor.
So one of the things we
do is we kinda insulate
or wrap the fish in a cabbage leaf.
So that any of the fish
juices that sort of leach out
stay inside your package.
And then when you open up the cabbage,
you have all, you’ve
saved all their aromas.
So the first thing we
do is we can’t use this.
So you see it’s really tough right now.
So we’re gonna blanch them.
I only use the outer
layers of the cabbage.
Make sure we have nice big pieces.
The other thing I’m gonna do is
if you notice,
all of this outside stuff is pliable,
but right here,
you’ve got that stem which is really not,
this is much thicker than everything else.
So, but I don’t wanna ruin
the integrity of the cabbage.
So I’m just gonna take my knife
and just kinda slowly,
’cause I don’t wanna put a
hole in the cabbage either.
So you see what I did there?
Yeah.
Now it’s kinda flat
and now you can also bend it easily
and remember just no pressure,
but this is on camera.
So like if you screw up
and like the whole world’s gonna
see it forever and ever
and it’s never gonna go away,
but no pressure at all, okay Nikkia.
Look at that.
No holes.
Look that very nice, add one more.
I felt like a surgeon.
Beautiful, beautiful.
All right, so next thing we’re gonna do is
we’re gonna blanch these.
All right.
I’ve got some boiling
water here on the stove.
I’m just gonna throw a
little bit of salt in it,
not too much.
You know, one more,
a little handful.
So this doesn’t need to
be salty like the ocean,
like when you’re making pasta?
Not really.
We got a lot of flavors
going on with the main–
A lot of flavors going on,
I would do one at a time.
Okay.
And then I’m gonna hold
your bowl of ice water.
As you know, what we
call this is shocking,
Because it’s so hot
it’s still gonna continue
to cook the cabbage leaf.
So that’s why we shock it.
Put it in the ice water.
It’s gonna stop the cooking
and then we’ll be ready to go.
Cool.
Can you blanch, I’ll ice.
Will you grab me
a nice square of paper towel?
Yeah.
And so with each layer,
I’m gonna actually put
paper towel in between each layer.
So it catches more of the water.
(ice rattling)
(soft nothing)
Thank you.
(soft nothing)
Perfect.
All right.
So here we go.
Try and get all that water out.
Look at that color, it’s so emerald green.
It’s beautiful, it’s pliable.
It’s gonna be a perfect
wrapper for our fish.
(soft trumpet nothing)
Grab me a mushroom and scallions.
I’m gonna grab a little zucchini.
Are these shiitake?
Yup, shiitake.
These are my favorites.
So make sure it’s really
important not to wash mushrooms.
Yeah, I like to dry.
Yeah, all I do is pull the stem off
and really, you know,
a lot of mushrooms now are grown indoors,
so they’re pretty clean,
but I just always check for a little soil.
If you want, you can wipe
them down with a paper towel,
Tell me how many of
these you want, chef.
Ah, let’s see.
Let’s do like one per fish.
So do four or five.
I’m slicing these on a bias.
Which really all that means is
I’m slicing it a little bit diagonally.
And that gives me just a little bit longer
threads of scallion.
And I’m only using the green on this one,
not the whites.
Same thing with the zucchini.
Can you do the yellow one
and I’ll do the green one.
So I’m gonna flatten it down
then cut nice long ribbons.
Then when you got nice each flat pieces,
just gonna come around and make them thin.
I did take a cooking class
once when I was young,
and the one thing I learned
was the claw method.
And it’s so funny because
it’s like the only thing
I remember from ever any lesson and–
You still have all your fingers,
it must still worked.
I still have all my fingers.
You kinda use that first knuckle there
and you press your blade
against that first knuckle.
And that way, anytime you cook,
instead of keeping your
fingers out like this,
where you could easily
chop off their fingertips,
you pull your fingertips in
and you let that knuckle
guide the knife, right.
So scallion here,
I’m gonna put all these in a big pile.
I’m gonna bring the marinade back in.
[Nikkia] All right.
Here’s the moment of truth.
We’re gonna build these leaves.
Do you notice
that there’s like a top
and a bottom, right?
Yeah, you can tell–
Or an outside or an inside?
So we want the nice outside
little bit flatter
and versus this,
which is that inner side of the leaf.
So, because we want this
to be on the outside,
we’re gonna always make sure
that’s facing the cutting board.
We have to think about this
backwards a little bit,
because when I wrap my leaf,
I’m gonna want that to be the top.
So if that’s gonna be the top,
we’re kinda building it
the other way around.
Normally when you build something,
you put whatever’s on the bottom, you put,
but whatever we want on
top has to go in first.
Does that make sense?
Mm-hm.
Yeah. Okay. So we can’t
start with the fish.
So what we’re gonna start
with is the scallion,
a little bit of scallion,
and a little bit of mushroom,
then a little bit of zucchini, all right.
Now, will you throw some
marinade on top of that,
nice big spoonful of marinade.
Now,
we’re gonna add the fish
and I’m gonna salt the fish
just slightly.
I’m gonna leave the skin
on because I love skin.
It’s got flavor,
it’s got little fatty
layer under the skin.
So let’s start with that.
I’m gonna do, and again,
for presentation wise,
I’m gonna do the skin
side facing up, okay?
So just like that
little bit more salt on the bottom
and a little more marinade, please.
So, let’s wrap this baby up.
I generally do two sides,
the two opposing sides first,
and then kinda make a,
tuck this guy in like so,
and then tuck it in this way as well.
And then you flip it over
and that way,
the seam kinda rests on the bottom
and then the weight of the actual fish
and then pack it we’ll
keep it closed, right.
Got you.
If you actually did it the opposite way,
it will all of a sudden, you know,
while you’re cooking unfold, okay.
So, I’m gonna put that
right into my steamer.
Now we’re gonna try
and fit the other fish in here.
So, it kinda fills the basket
and the more you can fill the basket
and make it snug,
it won’t unravel on each other.
‘Cause there’s nowhere to move, right.
Well, it’s usually
in cooking you’re like,
don’t crowd the pan.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And this, we actually wanna crowd it.
Awesome.
Okay.
So, let’s go ahead and build another one.
Scallion,
mushroom,
zucchini,
nice spoonful of marinade
and skin side down,
a little more salt,
a little more marinade.
Okay, and ready for the tuck and fold.
And let it snug,
one,
two,
wanna come here,
fold.
[Nikkia] Chef, do you wrap
your Christmas presents?
(chuckles) I do not, I’m
actually terrible at that, okay.
And then we’re gonna
flip the whole thing over
and shape it
and then they go into my steamer.
A nice piece of fish,
a little bit of salt there,
a little marinate.
Flip back over.
My lid goes on.
We say a little prayer
and then we’re gonna steam them.
Go ahead and put some water into this pan.
Good. And then, remember the
leftover lemongrass pieces?
So what I’m gonna do is
I’m actually gonna throw
this on the bottom.
So when it steams,
I’m actually gonna steam
this with lemongrass water.
So it’s actually gonna make
it a little bit more fragrant.
Don’t put your steamer basket on here
until it comes up to to boil.
When I say 25 minutes to cook the fish,
I mean 25 minutes once
it starts to simmer.
I’m telling you right now,
I’m gonna wait for this to boil first
and then put the fish on.
All right.
All right, now this water is boiling,
can you smell a little bit of
that lemongrass right now,
already coming up.
It’s gonna be really nice.
And then you do wanna check just in case
you sort of lift it up
and you wanna check that
you are getting steam.
It’s already smelling beautiful, okay.
And it’s funny, you know,
I mean you can buy these
steamer baskets online
for like $10 and it’s cheap
and it’s such a handy tool.
I love stemming in this thing.
So while that’s steaming,
we’re gonna go make our egg yolk sauce.
All right, let’s do it.
Nice, although you’re
really supposed to high five
when it’s done.
So for the sauce for this,
I want something
kinda rich and creamy.
We’ve got a lot of sharp, bright flavors.
So I want something rich
and creamy to pair with it.
So I have an egg yolk sauce
that I’m gonna make.
So do you wanna grab me three eggs
and a little miso,
Okay.
But I need three egg yolks.
Okay.
So go ahead and separate my eggs,
the whites from the yolks.
If I’m separating a lot of eggs,
what I’d like to do is
crack them all into the bowl
and then I actually use clean hands.
It’s a lot more gentle.
My hands are less likely
to pierce the yolk
and then I drop it in.
So you could also do the method
where you crack it
and then you just kinda move
your yolk back and forth.
See, I never do that
because I always just broke it
against the edge of the eggshell.
So I like to use clean hands.
Broke an egg shell,
broke an egg shell
I like to crack my eggs on the board
because I feel like if you crack
it on the side of the bowl,
the side of your countertop,
I see that happened a lot,
then the shell’s more likely
to pierce into the egg.
Also, if you’re cracking
on the countertop,
it’s gonna fall on the floor.
Egg yolk sauce is like a mayonnaise.
But it’s gonna use less oil
than a mayonnaise.
So it’s not gonna be as thick
and we’re not gonna whisk it as hard.
So it’s still gonna make
kinda a runny sauce.
It’s gonna be really delicious.
And this is a perfect sauce for
whenever you want something really creamy
and unctuous on something
it’s super fast,
but it is a sauce that can’t stay
at room temperature for a long time.
You are using raw egg yolks.
As soon as you make it,
you kinda wanna use it pretty soon after.
All right, so I’ve got that.
You can start whisking.
I’m gonna add about a tablespoon of miso.
And you can find miso pretty
much everywhere now, right?
Miso it was like,
you know, used to be things
like Miso would be hard to find.
I mean, you can find it
pretty much everywhere now.
Teaspoon of lemon juice.
[Nikkia] The first time I ever had miso,
was in caramel at Milk wood.
First time I’d ever tried it,
worked with it.
And then just like a mayonnaise now,
we’re gonna just slow drizzle
and you’re gonna do all the hard work.
I see how you set this up–
While I just sit here
and slowly drizzle.
So this is a great suitor.
So you really, you could
use an olive oil on this,
but I’m using a neutral oil
because the miso is so strong
that it’s gonna overpower
any delicacy in the olive oil.
I’m just eyeballing about a cup
and then you see how
it’s starting to get nice and creamy,
the color gets a little lighter.
I’m gonna taste this now.
This is something else
you always taught me,
was to have tasting spoons
in my pocket and be prepared.
Look at you, I just use my finger.
It’s nice.
I’m gonna do a little bit of salt
and I’m actually gonna do
a good amount of pepper.
I really like the Miso in that
I can tell that it’s gonna
go really well with the fish.
Really liked that you have
your salt and your pepper
in the bowls, dip your hand–
Yeah, you gotta feel it.
Yeah, feel it, yeah.
Okay. And then I’m going to,
just a little orange zest
and that oil and
aroma is just gonna give it
a little bit of a lift at the end.
And there’s orange
juice in the marinade.
So all these things
start to connect, right?
Mm-hmm.
(soft beat nothing)
Let’s do that.
All right, and then let’s go ahead
and pour it into here.
It’s beautiful, so again,
it’s the principle of mayonnaise,
but as you can see,
it’s a lot runnier
’cause we want it to be a sauce,
not necessarily a
condiment that you spread,
you don’t really wanna keep this
at room temperature for too long,
but you don’t wanna chill it either
’cause then, it’s gonna seize up.
So, you know, this is
something in the restaurant
that we would call an à
la minute sauce, right?
Cooking is also about feel and touch,
so kinda…
Yeah, the one thing about this recipe is,
you’re not really gonna
know when it’s done.
‘Cause you can’t unroll the cabbage leaf.
Once you hit that 22
to the 25 minute mark,
you’re gonna be pretty good.
So steam is actually the hottest
kinda of heat that comes off.
So be careful,
it may look beautiful and innocent,
but you can actually burn
yourself pretty badly on steam.
So we’re gonna lift that up carefully.
Bring it to our cutting board.
Oh, it’s beautiful.
All right, so we’re gonna
gently lift that up,
right on our plate, beautiful.
So there it is perfectly cooked,
the cabbage’s still got its texture,
It’s still got a little crunch to it.
Hopefully everything inside is steamed
and the fish is cooked through, okay.
I see what you meant
about like doing that side.
Yeah, isn’t it pretty that way?
All right, so would you
like to do the honors?
Yeah, it’s like opening a present.
Cut right down in middle.
Right down the middle.
Don’t be shy about it.
Fishes looks good.
That’s so pretty,
and automatically you just smell
all the beautiful aromatics–
Now watch what we’re gonna do.
(cheerful nothing)
That’s it, steamed fish, egg yolk sauce.
Now we can high five.
All right, let’s dig in.
You eat from over there and
I’ll eat from over here.
Can I get some of this cabbage?
Yeah, get some of that cabbage.
Yeah, perfect.
Perfectly cooked fish.
And what I love about it is,
the fish is gonna stay real tender, right?
Because it hasn’t been
exposed to all that dry heat.
Oh, so good.
I really think it’s
really moist, ton of flavor.
I can actually smell a little bit
of that lemongrass coming
off the cabbage leaf.
Put more of the sauce, right.
I’m not mad about it, put it all.
Perfectly cooked.
Will you make this at home?
Yeah, it’s easy, it’s healthy.
It has got so much flavor.
I know my family would love this.
And it’s a fun way to present food.
Yeah.
(cheerful nothing)