In today’s recipe we’re stepping into the seafood section and making a delicious whole Branzino. I’ll teach you how to butterfly cut the Branzino as well as how to properly salt the fish, and how to cook it so you get extra crispy skin. We’ll also be making a white wine pan sauce and in the end we’ll overcome our fear of cooking whole fish. Thank you for watching!!
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Branzino & Pan Sauce Recipe:
– 1 Whole Branzino
– Zest of 1 Lemon
– Half Lemon Juice or 25g
– 20g Shallot, Minced
– 1 tbs or 4g Italian Parsley, Minced
– 2 tbs Unsalted Butter, Cold
– 2 tbs or 14g Capers
– 1.5 cup or 320g Dry White Wine, Pinot Grigio
– 4 tbs Olive Oil
Instructions:
1. Watch video (Sorry I’m a little tired after putting this whole video together)
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Hashtags
#cooking #recipe #fish
Timecodes
0:00 – Intro
0:31 – Branzino
1:08 – Butterfly Cut
4:08 – Salting & Prep Work
6:29 – Cooking Branzino
7:15 – Making Pan Sauce
8:23 – Plating/Tasting
Cooking a whole fish can be intimidating, especially when you see them laying on the ice in the seafood section. I personally have never cooked a whole fish before, but I’ve always been curious to try it, and I was very surprised at how easy, delicious, and cheap it was. In today’s video, I’m going to show you how to make a whole brand. We’re going to first butterfly it, and then we’re going to sear it, followed by making an amazing pan sauce for it. So follow along and let’s get to cooking. Okay, so we’re cooking a whole brand Zeno, which I’ve never done before. I want to butcher it butterfly style, so this is going to be the first time I’ve ever done this. So here we go. We’re first going to grab some kitchen shears or some regular scissors and snip off all the fins. This is my first time doing it, so I’m trying not to over complicate it. Just cut and snip those fins off and you’re good to go. Also, I want to mention that the brandino I got here only costs $14.55, which I thought was a pretty good price and I bought it at Whole Foods, so I’d imagine this is actually more expensive than usual, but it’s not that expensive to begin with. Now, from here, we’re going to attempt to butterfly our fish. Now, you can probably ask your butcher to do it for you, but I wanted to give it a shot cuz I’m curious. First thing we need to do when butterflying the fish is we got to remove its spine. Now, in order to do that, I’m going to first take a look inside the fish and see where the spine is. Then, I’m going to take my knife and cut just to the left of that spine and cut down the whole fish. This took me a while cuz there’s a few bones you need to cut into. But once you cut those bones, it’s all just flesh and it’s kind of easy smooth sailing. You want to make sure your cuts are as close to the spine as possible so that way you’re saving the most amount of meat. Once you make your cut all the way down to the tail of the fish, we’re now going to do the same thing on the other side of the fish. And you can see here what I meant by having to break those bones. It honestly wasn’t that tricky. It just felt a little strange to me cuz it was my first time ever doing it. But now it’s time to remove the spine. I’m going to grab our kitchen shears and then I’m going to go to the tail of our fish and cut in between the joints. It might take a couple attempts, but once you cut in between the joints, you’re then going to cut underneath the spine and cut out all the bones as close to the bottom of the fish as possible. About halfway there, I’m then going to cut the joint at the base of the head. And I will continue cutting the spine out fully until it’s out. Now, for my first time ever, I do feel like this is actually a pretty decent attempt. There is a little bit of meat on that spine, but you know, honestly, pretty proud of it. Now, I am going to remove the head as well, which to do that was actually a lot easier than I thought. You’re just going to cut it off with your shears. And then in the process, I realized I’ve got to cut one other fin. So, I’m going to cut that sucker off as well. From here, we’re going to do a little bit more cutting work and remove the bones near the collar. And I want to remind you guys again that you don’t have to butcher the fish yourself. If you don’t want to, just ask the fish monger at the grocery store to do it for you, and they’ll be more than happy to do it. Now, to remove these bones, I’m going to get my knife just underneath them and begin cutting away as close to the bone as possible. I’m going to keep cutting down the bones until I could pull them off and pull most of the bones out. Now, I am going to remove a bit of the collar because there’s a fin that I just don’t want to worry about the bones there. And there’s this yellowish brown kind of dye to the flesh. I don’t know what that sucker is. It’s just giving me bad vibes. So, I’m just going to cut it out along with the little section of the collar that has the fin usually. Now, the last thing I’m going to do is get some tweezers and then feel for the bones that are still there and pull them out. This is incredibly simple and easy. Just pull out whatever bones you feel. It’s It’s not complicated at all. Now, once you’ve done the same thing on the other side, you have a butterfied fish. It’s got plenty of surface area to crisp up, and there’s still a decent amount of meat on there. I didn’t jack it up too much for my first time butterflying a fish. Now, from here, we’re going to grab a small sheet pan, lay our butterfied fish on top of it, and then sprinkle some salt. This is called a dry brine, which I think is the most convenient way to properly salt your meats at home. You’re going to hit both the flesh and the skin side with some kosher salt, and then you’re going to leave it alone on the counter for 20 minutes. While our fish brines, we’re now going to get to work on prepping the ingredients for our pan sauce. Now, let’s first get to work on our lemon. We’re going to first zest the whole lemon all the way around. And then we’re going to give the zest itself a little bit of a mincing, just a couple times. From there, I’m going to cut the lemon in half and squeeze only half of it, or about 25 g worth of lemon juice. Next, we’re going to grab one shallot. And to prep it, we’re going to cut just the tip. and then split it in half, peeling off the outside layer. Now, I’m going to give this a fine mince. So, I’m going to first cut vertically along the whole shallot. And then I’m just going to mince it from there down the shallot as well. I’m also going to run my knife through the mint a couple more times just to get any of those big pieces. This is by no means perfectly minced shallots, but for home use, it’s good enough. I’m next going to grab some Italian parsley, grabbing about a handful, and then running my knife through it a few times. You can roughly chop it or you could finely mince it. I’m personally going somewhere a little bit in between, maybe a little closer to mincing. I’m also going to grab 14 g or 2 tablespoons worth of capers and 1 and 1/2 cups or 320 g worth of a dry white wine. I’m using pog grigio. And please use the cheapest stuff possible. Do not use expensive wine here. I grabbed the cheapest thing they had and it’s going to taste just as good. And if you’re worried about alcohol, don’t worry, it’s going to cook off. Or you could just use non-alcohol like white wine. And lastly, we’re going to cut 2 tablespoon of unsalted butter. And make sure to leave it in the fridge. We want to be cold when we use it later. Now, our prep work for our pan sauce is done. And our fish has been dry brining for about 20 minutes. If you take a look at it, there’s a lot of moisture now that has come up to the surface. With a paper towel, I’m going to brush off all that excess moisture and salt on both the flesh side and the skin side. I’m also going to preheat a pan to mediumigh heat. And we’re going to get started on cooking this sucker. Now, I’m going to throw down about 2 tablespoons worth of olive oil. And once we get to mediumigh heat, I’m going to then gently lay down our butterfly branzino, skin side down. I’m going to put a couple weights on it, which is optional, and I’m going to leave it alone for 2 and 1/2 minutes so it can properly sear the skin. About 2 and 1/2 minutes later, I’m going to give it a flip. And as you can see, a nice little crust has started to form. I’m now going to sear the flesh side for only about 30 seconds. 30 seconds later, I’m going to pull it off the pan and then carefully place it to the side so it could cool on a cooling rack. Now it’s time to get to work on our pan sauce. I accidentally left my pan on high heat, so it just burned while I was doing my voice over. But in the pan, we’re going to throw in two more tablespoons of olive oil. From there, we’re going to toss in our capers so they could fry up for about 30 seconds. After that, we’re going to toss in our shallots to sauté them for another 30 seconds. From there, we’re going to throw in our lemon zest, as well as our lemon juice and our 1 and 1/2 cups of white wine. Set your pan to high heat and begin to reduce it until you get to your desired thickness. I personally reduce it to a point where if you swipe down the sauce, it won’t close itself in very quickly. It’s kind of slow. Once you get to your desired consistency, I’m going to cut the heat and toss in our 2 tablespoon of butter, mixing it in thoroughly until it’s fully emulsified into our sauce. And then I’ll toss in one tablespoon of our Italian parsley, giving it one final mixing to bring it all together. Now, our pan sauce is done, and if you haven’t already, now would be a great time to please hit the like and subscribe button if you’re enjoying this video. We’re almost at 500 subscribers, so any help you guys can provide, I would greatly appreciate it. Now, to plate this brand Zeno, all we’re going to do is lay it skin side up on a pan and then drizzle some of our pan sauce all over it. Now, I’ll admit this isn’t my best plating work ever, but I think it still looks good. What matters most is the taste. Oh my god, that’s insanely good. Holy cow. I ain’t going to lie, this is phenomenal. This is an easy 10 out of 10. I would highly recommend you guys give this a shot. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, please hit the like and subscribe button. If you enjoyed this video, I’m linking a video right here that I think you’ll like as well. Thank you so much for your time and have a wonderful rest of your day. Deuces.
2 Comments
Do you peeps like fish or no not really?
I usually go for lemon supremes in the sauce too in brown butter!