Erez’s Fish

People got confused, because when you see, for example, a Japanese chef, big chef, cutting fish, Something that you will never, never succeed to do if don’t practice for many years doing it. I think that what I bring to the table is exactly the opposite. It doesn’t matter if the slices are the same, you cut the fish like you cut the cucumber. You are not afraid of your ingredients, and you are not afraid of imperfections. (cheerful jazz music continues) Imperfections make the whole thing. (bright violin music) Alberto. How are you, brother? Wow. Wow. [Erez] This is monkfish. Calamaris. This is the local shrimp that we have here. Crystal shrimp. Wow. [Man] We have small season for it, but, man, oh my God. Oh, wow. Wow. (intense drum music) (Erez sighs) So we light up the taboon. Actually, it is smoking taboon, but we transferred it into very warm taboon at the moment. Okay. We are going to take groupers. Beautiful groupers. They live here in the Mediterranean. We’re going to cut them. Grouper. It’s a local fish. Let’s put some tomatoes. We’re going to put some orange tomatoes. We going to do some chili, orange chilies. You know what? You know what? I’m going to use also habanero, but without the seeds. This is a dangerous one. This is a dangerous one. Why, why, why? Some garlic cloves. So I’m just peeling it fresh. Don’t peel it on Wednesday and then cook on a Saturday. And I just add the cloves into the fish dish. We call it a siniya. Siniya is the name in Arabic. And it’s a beautiful thing to just to roast everything in the taboon or in the oven. You can do whatever you want. I bake with it also. Okay. Now what I’m going to do is I’m going to peel two or three garlic cloves more. (upbeat jazz music) Now I’m going to slice it. And I insert the garlic slices into the cuts I made earlier. One, two in each cut. will be enough. On both sides. Lovely. Now you can take the fennel flowers. (bright instrumental music) Put some fennel leaves. And now I can take some mint that we picked, and put it here. Let’s take some luiza. And the most interesting thing in this recipe is that we’re using unripe grapes for sourness. We call it husrum, when we do the juice of it. It’s used in the Middle East to give acidity when the lemons are not ripe, exactly in this season. Let’s do this. Salt on both sides, and inside also. Okay. Now let’s crush some white pepper and coriander seeds. (mortar and pestle rattling) So we put some. Very nice. Now we take some tumeric. Olive oil. Mix it. And now… A little more olive oil. Don’t be shy. Put olive oil. And all of this will go into the oven. So off it goes. It will be in the taboon for 15 minutes. Let’s see. You can listen to the sizzling already. It’s a very fast oven. (sizzling) Let’s clean our hands. And now I’m taking mulberry from the tree. Okay. I’m picking a fennel seeds, tarragon, and mint leaf. And we’re going to do the crudo now. Let’s go and do the crudo. (bright electronic music) (Italian music) This is the beautiful plate we’re going to plate the fish in. And we got some sort of a yellowtail here. What you are doing? So I caught fish like a cucumber, with the same respect. I did not study for seven years how to cut fish. All you need is, by the way, is a nice knife. And now let’s put the fish. Okay. And now I’m going to put some salt. And we have some tarragon from the garden. I’m going to chop it up. Not too much. And this is a tangerine, just dried tangerine. And this is all the berries we took. Some black, some ripe, and some unripe. So this will be very sour, and this will be very sweet, and we combine them. This is in the middle. Look how easy it is. Some of this, and some of this. We’re taking the orange tomatoes, cutting them up, and just squeezing the seeds on the fish. And we are slicing the orange pepper. Let’s see if it’s hot. It’s not hot. It’s not hot. Let’s see if this one is better. (knife clacking) Ooh, this is much better. And now we’ll take some of the olives, not much, and we’ll pit them, and put it somewhere there. We’re using Kalamata olives. So see how many levels of flavors? We have Kalamata, those berries, ripe and unripe, the tangerines, the chilies, the tarragon, and the seeded tomatoes. Every bite will have something else. It will be a surprise, kind of. Now lemon juice. When I pour lemon juice, it means that the dish is going to be served immediately, because once the lemon and the salt are getting together, they start to cook the fish. (Middle Eastern music) And you know already, you know already that I’m going to pour olive oil. So I’m going to pour olive oil. And we’re going to eat it. I will try first. Wow. That’s it! (bright guitar music) Yes. Sweetie. Sweetie, what’s going on? Oh, wow. Wow! Wow. Ready. (orchestral music) So, finally, I’m going to serve the lovely fish. What I’m going to do is I’m going to take some of the meat with the skin on. And then take some of the orange tomato. And some of the sour, very sour grapes, some of the olive oil. And that’s it. And after I’m serving it, I’m going to taste it also, because, also, I’m a human being. Gorgeous. With this sour. Wow. This is the best. Wow. (orchestral music)