[English]
Can I make a fried fish sandwich that's
better than the most expensive
restaurant in LA?
In the cheap corner, we got the Catholic
delight, the fileo fish from McDonald's,
the Victor over the hoola burger, and in
the expensive corner, we have the $80
fish sandwich with caviar tartar sauce
from David. This is the most expensive
fish sandwich and the cheapest fish
sandwich in the city, but yet to be
seen. Mine tucked in the middle, the
middle spoon, if you will. Big spoon,
little spoon, overrated. I like to be
held from both sides. Is my homemade
version of a fried fish sandwich? Will I
be able to take down the most expensive
sandwich in a blind taste test? Or will
a person with a very shoddy cheap pallet
ruffle my ruffle my fins? I was trying
to make a fish pun. That didn't make any
sense. I talked too much about spooning.
What's that?
Uh, what? This one? Why? You don't think
there's real filet fish in there? This
is called a fileo fish.
We're going to see if I can win in a
blind taste test against the most
expensive fish sandwich in the city. I
will put forth my best effort. That is
my promise to you, the American people.
And I think roughly 6% of our audience
is Canadian.
Let's get cooking. I know what you're
thinking. You're thinking, Josh, is that
a Kim Dracula shirt underneath your
apron? Yeah. Yeah, it sure is. you got a
great new single out with in this
moment. Uh you're also probably thinking
for making a fish sandwich, you
certainly ain't got any fish out there
on the counter. And you would be
correct. That's because the fish is the
least important part of a fish sandwich.
So, we're going to blind them with a
bunch of very complicated condiments and
a lot of fry batter on the outside. Pull
pull in the room here. Do you know what
kind of fish is in a McDonald's fileto
fish? No. No. God dang it, Lily. Not
you.
Not you.
What did she say? Alaskan.
Oh, Alaskan. What? Lot of fish in Alaska
there.
You think it's salmon? You think they're
Have you had a fle of fish? All right,
Lily, what is it?
Alaskan pollic.
Alaskan pollic. It's a total like drag
catch fish. Uh, when you're frying fish
like that, to me, if you go to like a
fish and chip shop in London, right,
like you get like blue cod is like the
king standard. But for me, I can use
whatever fish. We'll catch that later.
The key is a good fry batter. We're
going to make a proper beer batter. And
then I'm not going tarter sauce. I'm
going remalot. I think it's just like
tartar sauce is kind of Cajun spicier
cousin. So, we're going to start doing
that. We got a bunch of mayonnaise in a
bowl. We're going to hit some wellused
crystal hot sauce. You want a lot of
residue crusted at the top. That's how
you know it's good cuz you've actually
been using it. And we do love crystal
cuz you get a lot of good acid from
that. And then you're getting a lot of
the almost like sweeter kind of acid
from lemon. And also when you squeeze
lemon, this is a fun fact. Lily, don't
chime in. Fun fact. When you squeeze a
lemon, the essence of it, the like per
the perfume, the oils on the outside
actually get into your food, which I
think is really really fun. And then
we're going to drop in some fresh dill.
I'm going to use a spoon. Dill is one of
those things that pairs really well with
fish. Dill. Does dill taste sour to you?
No.
All right, cool. Me neither. I was just
talking to talk.
Dill to me has like it like pairs so
well with citrus and fish. We're going
to drop in a little bit of parsley. Want
a lot of herbs in this. And then chives.
Always a fun welcome addition. Boom.
Going into the party. Capers. Capers are
a fun thing that you can always keep in
your fridge because they last forever
cuz they're just like pickled little
berries or whatever.
They berries. Not like a berry, but like
Well, this is a berry. There's caper
berries. Those are different than cap.
They're good. Get capers. They're fun.
You get home like drunk one night and
you just kind of start eating capers out
the jar, creeping everyone out. That's a
good time. Drop some chopped capers in
there. You can add pickles in there, but
we're actually going to add pickles on
the side as well. This is Creole
mustard. To me, this is like one of the
kings of mustards. You can get the
Zatarans brand. Do you guys remember
Zatarans commercials? They just went
Zadarans.
Zatarans.
And that's it. It's just a guy screaming
Zatarans with a whole lot of pepper on
it. It was great. I'm going to drop them
into smoke paprika.
I might be I might be ripping a lot of
catchphrases today cuz I've had running
through my head. Trust the Gorton
fisherman. You guys remember that
banger, right?
Trust the Gorton fisherman.
What do you mean, Maggie? What? Trust
the Gorton fisherman. Lily, how much you
know about Gordon's fisherman?
I recognize that.
Yeah, it's from
It's from Gloucester.
Oh, Massachusetts.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just some uh New England fishing banter.
You're going to grate a lot of raw
garlic. You add raw garlic to
storebought mayonnaise. basically turns
it into ioli and drop that in there. I'm
going whole garlic clove, man. I'm
ripping it. I would trust the Gordon's
fisherman with my life except the
Gordon's fisherman might also then sell
me to a Japanese seafood conglomerate.
And so that would be the only thing that
I don't know if I I would trust the
Gordon Fisherman to do. No, I love I
love the Gordon. I grew up like to me
the gold standard of Cajun seasoning or
Creole seasoning is Tony Sasher's gold
standard of frozen fish sticks.
Gorton's. When Gordon's went on sale
back when I was a kid, that was like
Christmas, except I'm I'm Jewish, so you
figure it out. But that was a really fun
time for me because Gordon's I think
makes a really incredible product. Also,
they have roots in the fishing business
like literally dating back damn near 300
years at this point in America. So, it's
a lot of stuff to dump in here. Whole
lot of fresh cracked pepper. And I mean
a lot of fresh cracked pepper. Um, a lot
of my Gordon's knowledge is going to be
coming from Mark Kuransky's seminal
book, Cod.
It's about cod. We're not using cod, but
we're using an adjacent fish that was
often passed off for a cheaper version
of cod, but I think it's good. More on
that later. God, this is exciting. We
once tested this on Myth Munchers.
Gordon Ramsay said, "You have to let
your beer batter rest overnight." That
is something I have never done before
because I thought you're going to lose
all the bubbles if you do that. And then
we actually tested it. It was
significantly crispier when we rested
the batter overnight. So, that is one
thing you can do or seems
counterintuitive, but what you can do,
you're going to want to really be
violent with it because you're trying to
get the carbonation out. This is how I
win. I want this to be like a like hard
shattering crunch on the on the coating.
And I don't know, man. We're going to do
it. We're going to do it. We're adding a
little bit of cayenne and salt. My
theory is that by getting the
carbonation out, it helps it stay
crispier. And then we're just going to
start getting some flour in here. I'm
going to whisk this flour in. And then I
can kind of like estimate the amount of
eggs that I need. There we go.
Beer got that little bit of yeast in it.
And then when you let a batter rest,
that is actually going to like hydrate
the flour. Because if you make a batter
and then you estimate its thickness,
right? If you uh did a uh what do they
call? Come on. What do they call it?
What's scientific word for like a
thickness of a liquid? Viscosity. If you
were to do a viscosity test
on a batter and then wait 10 minutes, it
would be infinitely more viscous.
Look at me go, man. God, he's so smart.
How does he do it all?
Big muscles, able to recite many
corporate fish brands
catchphrases, except it's really only
one. This looks pretty good. This is
about You want to go for like looser
than a pancake batter. Again, this is
going to hydrate up. We're going to let
this rest overnight. We have to do a
full like deep fried myth munchers to
see what makes a better fry batter
because this is my best guess right now.
And I think this is going to beat the
expensive sandwich. Do you know that
some languages don't actually have a
word for fresh cod? They simply have to
say the fresh version of salt cod. And
at the restaurant Laristraat,
um the chef once put cababo on the menu,
which is the French word for fresh cod,
and it didn't sell. But then when he
said moru fresh, which is fresh salt
cod, it did sell. Introducing fresh cod
to the Michelin star dining market in
France in the 1970s.
All right, cool. So
I have no one to talk to about these
things. Uh anyway, so we have a nice
fillet of hatock here. Like I mentioned,
hadock is kind of seen as like a cheaper
version of cod. I think it's just as
good. Also, cod to me has these big
white flakes in I think it's fantastic
for fish and chips, but to me, if it's a
sandwich, I think it can almost be a
little bit too chewy and if you overcook
cod, it's so lean that it'll kind of end
up having too much toothness to it. Uh,
so hadock, I think you can really kind
of hammer and try and get super crispy
batter to hold up to all those
condiments. So, I'm going to go ahead.
This has been dried off. I'm just going
to salt the outside. Then, I'm going to
go quickly into some flour. My thought
here, Gorton's fish fillet is greatest
product ever made in the history of man.
Everybody knows that is like the model
tea and then Gorton's fish fillet. Those
are the top two. Everybody agrees. Um
there's like this layer of goo between
the fish and the crispy batter and that
goo is what I want. The flour is going
to become that goo. The salt and the
fish juice from the hatock are going to
melt together to form a paste or goo.
And then that is going to be where your
flavor is coming from. How did people
let me host a cooking show? McDonald's
fileto fish is a delight. I've eaten a
ton of them in my lifetime. If you go to
a good McDonald's that's actually
changing out their fry oil, it can be
great. If you don't, you go to ones
where where you can taste like the
nuggets and the burnt fries that have
stayed in the bottom of that fryer, and
I have been to those. It's not a good
product. So, we'll see what kind of
fileto fish I'm going up against today.
And I've actually never had the fish
sandwich at Daybird, but a lot of that
cost is coming from the caviar. I got a
trick, though. Putting on kind of a
cheaper version of caviar onto our own
sandwich that you can get for like 12
bucks at home. And I think we can beat
it. Here's the technique. Check this
out. Make sure it's all covered. What
I'm going to try and do is pull it up,
give it one shake, go immediately to the
deep fryer and kind of waft it back and
forth with the hips. Waft it with the
hips. Check this out. Does someone zoom
in on this?
One shake, two shake. Uh-oh, he's going
for three and a half. Now we're in. And
now we're wafting.
Wafting with the hips. Let it go like a
nice raft. Now I'm going to run quickly.
Wash my hands. Is the camera still
following me?
Ah, they always do this. And they go
wash Josh wash Josh is washing himself.
Damn it. All right, so we're gonna fry
this fish and then we're actually going
to let it rest and we're going to drop
it in the fryer again before we put in
our sandwich. Other condiment on the
sandwich, we're going pretty simply with
this. We're going to do some nice
shredded iceberg lettuce. We have our
remal and then pickles are the other
thing you can really put over the top.
We've made a lot of vinegar pickles on
the show before, but a proper lacto
fermented pickle is one super easy to do
at home. Two, it's it's pretty safe. So,
if you're not like canning and storing
this stuff for years, you can really
just sort of like trust the science on
your counter for a couple days. Uh, so
that's what we're going to do right now.
We are making a 3% salt brine. So, if
you don't know the difference between a
lacto pickle and a vinegar pickle, uh,
the acid in a vinegar pickle is
obviously coming from vinegar, something
that has been pre-fermented. Uh, and
then in a lacto pickle, you are using
there's bacteria on the skin of every
cucumber known as lactobacillus. It
exists on the outside of most
vegetables. If you ever see a purple
cabbage that has a kind of dust on the
outside of it, that dust is actually the
lactobacillus bacteria that you can see.
And so that is going to ferment uh with
the addition of salt and then that is
going to create the acid itself, which I
think is really cool. And it gets a lot
of umami in, a lot of glutamate. So this
is a 3% salt rind. So if you have 100 g
of water, you need 3 g of salt. If you
have 500 g of water, 15 g of salt. Boom.
Basic math. God, I'm good. So, we're
simply going to add that. Stir it. You
don't really need to stir it. Back sore.
Been carrying this team all week. All
right,
take that. How's this doing? That's
looking nice. Maybe I should add
lemoning agent to it.
We were going back and forth on lemoning
agent. I think I want to fry two. One
with leavenning agent, one without. And
then choose between. I said I'd use
gloves. You don't want to get the
bacteria from your hands. I just wash my
hands. We'll be fine. You don't want to
get the bacteria from your hands on the
pickles. It'll be all right. Also,
always put your spices at the bottom of
the jar.
All right, check this out. We're going
to go in the middle. Going to pop some
dill on there. Dill as in dill pickles.
Boom. Check that out. Ever see that
before? Uh, we're adding some whole
black pepperc corn. The aromatics are
like really where you kind of went on
this. And we're adding some fennel seed.
We're going to add some garlic. Leave
the skin on. Palmill strike. Pomeill
strike. Pomeill strike. Bass rootin. And
pop that in there. Whole coriander seed.
whole mustard seed. Single bay leaf.
Sandwich more cucumbers on it. That fish
is doing good. Again, you don't need
like a perfect medium rare fish fillet.
You probably don't want to do that with
a white fish. Anyways,
give her a flip. See how she's doing.
That's looking nice. Looking crispy.
We're going to let that fry. We take the
salt water. Pour that over the pickles.
Perfect. And then you don't want to put
a lid on it because the lactobacillus is
actually going to create gases that kind
of need to escape. If you have a real
home fermentation setup, they have like
call like a like a jar burper. You know
what I mean? The things that like burp
the jar for you where it'll like let out
pockets of air. You don't need to do all
that. What you can do is just take a
piece of plastic wrap,
stuff it in there, and just make sure
this is pushing the pickles down and
holding them under cuz you don't want
things to be able to float to the top
and not be submerged in that salty brown
because salt is effectively
antimicrobial, right? Salt bacteria does
not like salted things. Awesome. So, now
you're literally just going to leave
this sitting out on a counter for 3 to 5
days. Um, I've talked to food safety
experts who maintain that like a lacto
ferment that's that short of a time,
even if it something else happens to it,
it's not actually going to be dangerous.
And I tend to trust them. Uh, people
have been lacto fermenting things for
literally thousands of years. But if you
want to be extra sure, take some salt
like a margarita, boom, boom, boom,
around it. Add some tequila to that.
Drink it later. Fish
done with the first fry. We're going to
drop it in there for a second fry before
the sandwich. Let's make a sandwich. I
know what you're all thinking. Josh,
isn't hadock technically part of the cod
family? Yes and no. It becomes very
scientifically ambiguous. What is and
isn't a cod? Also, cod is an English
word. Many different nations fish. So,
is that distinction even important?
That wasn't rhetorical. Is that
distinction even important?
No.
It's more complicated than that. Taylor,
I'm going to pull this. And we've dunked
our fish in for a second fry. It's super
super crispy. Wait, do the little Tik
Tocker thing where they go
they they hit their food. They go ah
they slap their meat. They hit their
food. They throw their knives. The tick
tockers are out of control. Um, if
you'll see, we have a lot of batters
right here. Uh, because we couldn't
decide if we should add lemoning agent
to it, if we should add vodka to it, if
that's a myth. So, we're kind of doing a
mini myth munchers right here. I'm going
to fry all this fish in different
batters. We have uh this is the
original, but we want this fresh. So,
there's no vodka, no bang batter in
there. This one we're going to add just
a nice little shot of vodka to.
And then this one we're going to add a
shot of vodka with the baking powder.
The theory behind adding vodka is that
alcohol has a lower evaporation point
than water. And you want all that
moisture to evaporate because that's
what creates crispiness effectively. And
so, I've heard that from so many chefs.
I generally add a shot of liquor to my
batters. But I I've also kind of never
thought that it actually was doing much.
So now we're going to see once and for
all. We could do an actual myth munchers
on this. We still might do an actual
myth munchers on this. Uh stay tuned.
But I just want to do this right now. So
fish hatock cod family. Maybe Taylor
thinks it is. I think it's pretty messed
up. But Taylor's been allowed. Yeah,
it's the last time I asked. My bad. I
forgot to add the baking powder sitting
right there the whole time. There we go.
Baking powder, also known as sodium
bicarbonate plus tartaric acid. Okay.
Fish fryer out. Okay, bye.
We got our little experiment here. Look
at how different these look. Man, this
is crazy. Also, I realized I was
completely wrong with my no leavenning
agent hypothesis. Check this out. I'm
doing the sound reverberation technique.
You can listen to which one's going to
be crispier.
Oh, if I was I will spit on it. Getting
there. But
you hear that? That's the sound of
greatness. That's the winner right
there. Okay, so the baking powder plus
vodka. It does appear to actually work.
I think that is going to be the best
tasting fish fillet right here. I'm
going to take this Remlad. This remod is
just like seasoned to the brim. So damn
good. I'm going to go
remlad on the bottom. Oh, I'm not
putting uh cheese on mine. I Fish and
cheese do go together in a lot of
context. Just like not this one. Like I
want the acid. I want the spice. I want
all of the fat to come from that crispy
batter. I want just a little bit shredd.
Dude, I'm gonna see if this technique
works because that Mitchell Freeder dude
put the greens in his hand and like
twisted it.
Twist this to kind of hold it together a
little bit better.
That didn't really work. That's
whatever. Dude,
it worked with dressed arugula. All
right, now I got to sit here and fiddle
at this for like 10 minutes. Take this
big boy, right? Oh, perfect size. Look
at that. All right. Now, this is my
secret that I'm telling you all my
biggest dirty secret. Everyone's putting
caviar on stuff these days. Rihanna's
putting caviar on chicken nuggets.
People blowing half the rent money on
things of Beluga Caviar. Or if they're
getting cheap stuff, it's just
paddlefish row, baby. Why not spend $12
and get salmon row? Salmon row tastes
absolutely delicious. If you're head
sushi, it's great. This is a lovely way
to make your sandwich feel a little bit
elevated. We're just going to dollop
some salmon row all around this bad boy.
Now more ramalad
to the top. And now our lacto fermented
pickles. These are really the kicker
right here. Is so much better than a
vinegar pickle. And take just like a
nice handful. Dollop these around. Flick
some pickle juice onto the fish. Shout
out to Hannibal Burrus. Anybody know
that bit? You ever want the flavor of
pickles on a sandwich? You know what the
whole thing? So you just flick the
pickle juice at it. Man, my millennial
references, dude. They're getting more
and more arcane by the day. Okay, take
this.
Pow. Crown it on top. There we have it.
The old fileo Josh. Taste the Josh. Now
made with 80% more Josh.
An all white meat Josh.
Trevor Foster Wallace. Welcome to the
kitchen. Thank you for having me.
Anytime. That was reference to your
bandana. Yeah. Before me, you have three
fish sandwiches. One expensive, one
cheap, one homemade. Your job is to sus
them out. Do I have permission to feed
you?
Yes, of course. Do you think I should
cut these in half?
No. Unless you think that's going to
give me a better eating experience.
No, we'll just shove it in your mouth.
Okay, hold on. Let me shuffle these
around. Okay, I'm a little lightheaded
cuz I haven't eaten anything today. So,
if I fall over, do you like fish
sandwiches?
Yeah. What are we talking? Is there
going to be a fileo fish in here?
There's a file fish.
Find out. First one coming in the
hanger.
It's big. It's big.
Yeah. Yeah. You're good. I'm I'm just
holding. I'm not pushing. Okay.
Wow. That ain't no fail.
You enjoy it?
Yeah.
What flavors are you tasting?
I mean, definitely getting there's some
tartar sauce. There going to be tartar
sauce on all these. Some variation.
I can confirm that all three have at
least some sort of variation of tartar
sauce.
Okay. Getting that. I don't know. The
the breading is nice. It's crispy. I
feel like the fish is is soft, flaky. I
mean, it's just a good sandwich.
Yeah. All right, man. You ready for
number two? It's got a little pep and
zing to it. I don't know if there's a
little spice on there. I I ate it
immediately after you. I don't know if
you could hear the wetness in my mouth.
I could. Yeah. Boy, do I know that
wetness anywhere. All right. Number two
coming in the hanger. It's a little
smaller.
[Music]
See
that? Feels like a file fish to me.
Is that a file fish, guys? I can neither
confirm nor deny. I
I don't It's been a long time since I've
had a file fish, actually, but I don't
know why it's just bringing me back
somewhere.
I'm going to keep that. I don't know. It
could be super wrong. I wouldn't be
surprised if I'm very wrong, but
that could be the expensive one. You
don't know.
Could be.
You don't know. Ready for sandwich
number three?
Yeah.
All right. This one I'm giving you. It's
a corner, but I'm I'm kind of going to
have to shove it a little bit. Okay.
Okay.
Yeah. There you go.
There you go.
Wa!
That fish almost just like
disintegrated in my mouth. I felt like
so flaky inside. It's like I bit through
the through the fried crispy outside and
it was just like butter in there. Do you
like that sensation? Yeah, I like that a
lot. I was about to ask if your hands
were also covered in sauce and then I
realized that I've been feeding you.
Yeah, I know.
And if you could see right now, this is
horrifying.
Can I have another bite of that one?
Yeah, of course. Is this out of joy or
out of curiosity? Out of joy and I want
to come in.
That is the bite of an of a legitimately
hungry man.
I wasn't joking. I haven't eaten.
Cuz what had happened was you know Mike.
You know our friend Mike the sue chef?
No. Mike formerly of being employed
here.
Oh, I thought you meant the microwave.
No.
Michael Chris Amana.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I know Mike.
No, cuz what was happening is I was
going to get lunch with him and then
he's like, "Yeah, we're going to get
lunch. to come with us. And then I get
there and everyone had ordered ahead and
just picked up food. Uhoh. And they
didn't tell me. So I just kind of walk
in and everyone's like, "Grabs their
took orders." And I was like, "Well,
what the heck, man?" So I just didn't
get anything.
I'm sorry. We treat you better. Yeah,
there it is. I couldn't see it from my
angle.
I felt it, but I forgot that.
Well, the napkins.
Yeah, the napkin's also dirty. So now I
wiped parsley into your mustache.
There's a little more there.
Is there Is that my napkin? That was a
napkin that was given to me to you.
Trevor, it's now our napkin.
Okay. Are there any sandwiches you want
to revisit? What are your thoughts?
Um, I don't think that there's any that
I that I don't think there Sorry, I'm
freaking out, man. I'm lightheaded.
More fish.
Dude, have doing this with my eyes
closed is so weird. It doesn't feel like
I'm filming a video cuz I can't see the
cameras, you know? I'm like a baby.
Like, I don't see the cameras, so I'm
not being filmed. Um, no. I don't think
there's any that I want to revisit. I'm
pretty confident that the second one you
gave me was a fileto fish.
That's tough to tough to obscure.
Um, should I can I say which one is my
favorite now? Is it
I think the last one is my favorite. It
was I don't know what about it. It's
just the flavors were very tasty, very
scrumptious. That that fish was
genuinely so soft and buttery in my
mouth. Trevor, which one do you think
was the most expensive fish sandwich?
Here's the thing, Josh, and I think that
you made the one that I like the most
because I think you're capable of making
the best fish sandwich here. So, I'm
going to go with the first one was the
most expensive. The second one was the
fileto fish. And the third one was the
homemade that you made. Trevor, open
your eyes, but keep the blindfold on.
That's I did the opposite.
Oh god, it's bright.
You are correct. That was indeed a
fileto fish. What a distinct flavor that
is. And then this right here, this is an
$80 fish sandwich from Daybird. There is
a ton of caviar mixed right into the
tartar sauce.
Okay, that makes sense. It was very I
was getting a lot of that like little
extra fishy like saltiness. So that
makes sense.
Yeah. But then I tried to somewhat
recreate the luxuriousness of that by
adding salmon row to mine. So the main
difference is we did a wet batter on
some hadock. This is like a nice panko
crust on there. I didn't go with cheese.
I just wanted extra acid from Remalad.
No, that's incredible. This is something
special, man.
Thank you.
Do you like it? I've had it.
I actually really really like it.
It's really good. You get what I'm
saying, right? Like it's melting in my
mouth. This is delicious.
And I think it very much tastes like me.
Mhm. M you know, it's incredibly wet.
It's very spicy, overly acidic, and
incredibly fishy. Those are all things
that I love.
No, I love it. You knocked this one out
of the park, man.
Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Thanks
for coming by for lunch. I won't I won't
stiff you and, you know, order food to
go. Mike,
Mike,
take that.
You
You're not invited to my Thanksgiving
next year. Mike came to my Thanksgiving.
It was funny. He was there with my
neighbor Craig.
He didn't come to my Thanksgiving.
Pretty messed up. Well, thank you so
much for stopping by Mythical Kitchen.
We got new episodes out wherever you got
your episodes. Tell us what dish you
want us to see make next against
expensive versions of it.
Dude, is this all Gwenna does?
Yeah.
She just comes in here and eats and now
I get to go home after this.
Actually, yes.
This is the best gig ever.
I know, man. I've been saying that.
Trevor, you got a message for the fans?
Hey, everyone. It's good to be here.
I'll see you later. All right.
Wonderhole season 2 is coming your way
Sundays starting August 24th. You can
get your tickets now for an evening with
Rhett and Link, an exclusive Wonderhole
season 2 premiere event at
wonderhole.com.