Niland - The whole fish cookbook: new ways to cook, eat and think

CONTENTS

Josh Niland is going to change fish for you forever. How you cook it, how (and how often) you eat it. It doesnt matter if you cook for a living or just for your friends and family. Theres inspiration here for every skill level, from the tentative admirer of the firm white fillet to the professional gastronaut looking to set herself a challenge.

In Josh we find a chef not yet even at the height of his powers, driven to understand his subject almost literally at a cellular level, and working hard to answer the questions he uncovers along the way.

Why dont we cook more seafood at home? Does it always need so much acidity paired with it? Can we prep it without getting it wet? What happens when we age it more? Cook it less? And - most crucially for Josh, perhaps - why cant we use more of the fishes in the sea, and why cant we make more of each and every fish we buy? How can we do this better?

Nose-to-tail cooking of animals is readily accepted worldwide. The great British chef Fergus Henderson has made a lifes work of celebrating cuts of meat, innards, and extremities that are more often forgotten or discarded in todays kitchen. It would seem disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast, he is fond of saying. Josh has set his mind to no less lofty a goal than bringing the same understanding and appreciation to the creatures of the deep. Send me whatevers in the best condition, he tells his suppliers, and Ill figure out a way to put in on the plate. Thats what restaurant cooking is all about, isnt it?

Thats the other thing. All the preparation and training in the world only means so much if you dont have inspiration. And Josh has that in spades. He is driven by muses prosaic and poetic the fragrance of native parsley, the richness of the flavour of a kingfish after its fourth day in the coolroom, the neat way a boiled egg fits into the head of a small octopus.

His chief weapons in this mission are the taste and technique needed to make things powerfully appealing to the eye and the palate. He polished these skills at restaurants such as Glass, Est and, most notably, under the great seafood chef Steve Hodges at Fish Face in Sydney, as well as in the development kitchen at Heston Blumenthals Fat Duck, but the things he has put on the plate at Saint Peter, the restaurant he opened in Sydney in 2016, are entirely his own. His Fish Butchery, a gleaming, fish-focused hybrid of an Apple store and a Damien Hirst installation, opened in Sydney in 2018 with the aim of nothing less than changing the very nature of seafood retail, and has been busy ever since.

Blood, guts and bones. You dont have to cook these things, but if you want to, Josh will show you how. (He also has smart ideas about what to do with mullet scales, trout throats and mackerel sperm, should you want them.) Hell also show you how to pick a fresh fish, poach it or crisp its skin. The only thing that excites Josh Niland more than exploring his subject is the chance to equip others with that same knowledge.

Plenty of other cookbooks hand the reader recipes. Josh wants to share with you what he has learned about the art and poetry of cooking itself. Give a person a fish, theyll eat for a day; teach them how to fish, theyll eat for a lifetime.

Pat Nourse

I am endlessly fascinated by the creative opportunities presented by fish. I love to work with fish because of its untapped potential, while its flavour, texture and appearance continue to inspire me to think more broadly about how to make it as desirable as possible.

Though I have been fortunate to work with some of the best chefs in the world (and have also had the pleasure of cooking with some of the globes best produce), there are few better moments for me than when a customer comes up to the counter at Saint Peter, or the register at Fish Butchery, and enthusiastically conveys the positive fish experience theyve just had. In opening these spaces, my wife, Julie, and I wanted somewhere we could celebrate not only the very best of Australian fish cookery but also demonstrate that there is so much more to a fish than the fillet and that there are far more than just a dozen fish in the sea.

This book takes that message to a wider audience. It is not just another seafood recipe book. You wont see any of the typical glamorous images of fish sitting glistening on beds of freshly shaved ice here. Instead, I hope, youll find a sense of dryness and approachability to the idea that fish isnt the smelly, slimy and bony ingredient that strikes fear into all of us, but is rather something that is individual species to species and piece to piece each coming with its own characteristics and a method of cookery that suits it best.

Around the time I started cooking fifteen years ago, there was a real respect growing around secondary cuts of meat. Looking back through notebooks, illustrations and cookbooks from that time, I can remember thinking how cool it was to be able to put half a dozen different parts of a pig, rabbit or cow on one plate and make it look desirable, luxurious and satisfying. On the other side of the coin though, fish has always been perceived as a more feminine, elegant and expensive ingredient that offers little potential beyond the fillet.

The knowledge I acquired working with meat proteins from a young age is now a hugely inspirational part of what I do with fish. To be able to work with the whole fish and put dishes together that feature both offal and fillet on the plate is thrilling for me as less gets thrown away but its also exciting for our customers as they are able to see the luxury that lies within these ingredients.

Our entire way of thinking about how we process fish needs to be overhauled, with far more consideration given to the elements of a fish that would traditionally be considered waste. Is this possible? Well, a lot of the most highly desired and most loved dishes in the world have been born from the utilisation of waste. Whether it is a terrine, sausages or the humble bread and butter pudding, all these dishes were born from that thought, What are we going to do with all this? I dont see why fish should be any different.

Understanding the different parts of a fish and the methods of fish cookery thoroughly will put you in a better place as a cook to harness the potential excellence of every fish. A lot of what I want to offer throughout this book, then, is not so much the idea of why a fish should be paired with a specific garnish, but more about how to understand a fish better. Although cooking fillets may make up 45 per cent of this book, its the other 55 per cent thats the most exhilarating. The latter is an invitation to explore fish more deeply and at the same time, learn to treat food more sustainably.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

My philosophy with fish is to minimise waste and maximise flavour. The two key tools that I use to achieve this are