Welcome back to another cooking video, I'm
Chef Devaux and I am here to talk to you guys
about Sushi-Grade Fish.
What it is, where to get, how to make it.
Now what is Sushi-Grade Fish?
Well it's actually just a marketing term designed
by advertisers to sell you a fish at a higher
price, because there is no quality standard
that dictates sushi-grade fish has to be a
higher quality than other fish in order to
be called sushi-grade fish.
The only thing that there is, is a guideline
made by the FDA which states that fish has
to be frozen for a certain amount of time
to kill any possible parasites inside the
fish in case it's eaten raw.
It means that all fish across the United States
and Europe that is labeled sushi-grade fish
or sold inside a sushi restaurant should theoretically
have been frozen before hand before it got
to your plate.
Now this is makes it a bit difficult for restaurants
because you ask them is the fish fresh and
they say yes, because no sushi restaurant
is going to say no its been frozen because
that's not what you want to hear, but also
some may not actually know.
So the ones that don't know it could be that
they receive their fish thawed from a sushi
fish provider which it was frozen beforehand
and gives it to them thawed, or they just
don't know and they go to the fish market
every day and buy fish and chop it up and
serve it up.
This poses quite a risk when eating out because
you can't trust what the waiters are telling
you and you don't know what's going on in
the backend.
The FDA recognizes this and has made a table
that lists every single type of fish there
is and basically tells you whether the risk
of parasite infection is high, low or negligible.
An example would be tuna is negligible, flounder
is high, salmon is low but there is an exception
for Scottish farm salmon which is negligible,
so it lists all sorts of information.
There is loads of information in this leaflet.
So check this out on my website, I have created
a link to this, so click on the link on the
top left corner of the page and then you'll
find another link on that page which will
reference this.
It's a great resource, at least if you go
to a sushi restaurant then you know which
fish types are fine to order, and you pose
less risk of getting infected by parasites
which is always a great thing.
Now even though some of the fish on here are
negligible risk, I would still recommend freezing
them because you don't want to find out that
suddenly some parasite has of course lived
inside that fish and you're the first case
to disprove this table of contents.
To make sushi-grade fish you need to buy great
fresh fish and to do this you need to know
how to recognize a good fresh fish when you
see one.
So the first thing you want to look for is
you want to look for the eyes, you want to
see a nice deep black pupil and you want to
have the eyes popping out slightly from the
head of the fish.
If it indents in it's probably a bit old,
so just don't be shy, just feel the eye and
if it feels nice and plump like an eye should
feel then its good.
Now other tell-tale signs to look for is you
don't want a dried out tail.
Now you want to look at the skin, you want
to have a nice shiny glistering, vibrant,
skin.
You want to have it just alive, it's going
to look alive.
Next, when you feel the skin it needs to feel
moist, not slimy that would be bad.
It has to be moist like slightly wet.
Alright so next you want to press it, if the
skin bounces up and retains its shape then
that's a great sign, if it doesn't and leaves
a finger imprint then that means it's probably
been on the shelf for a while.
Now you want to look at the gills you just
lift it up and it needs to be a nice pink
red, if it's brown, dark, dull, then it's
not a good sign, you really want to have vibrant
colors.
If you're still not convinced give it a smell,
a good fish will always smell of the sea breeze,
it won't smell of fishiness.
This is great how to recognize a whole fish
as being fresh or not, most fish are actually
sold in fillets, so how do you tell if a fillet
is good?
Well the first thing you want to look for
like the whole fish is you want to look for
the brightness of the scales, if you can see
them and they are still on the fish.
If not, then you want to go to the next thing
which would be check if it's slimy or moist.
You want it to be nice and moist and just
a light layer of water on the fish.
You don't want it to be slimy or sticky.
Then you want to just press the fish fillet,
if it bounces back up and it's nice and perky
then it's great.
If it leaves a finger imprint just walk away,
you can buy another fish.
Alright now the most important thing about
buying fish is you should never go to the
market with a preset idea of what you want,
you should never go thinking oh I need salmon
for tonight or I want salmon sushi later on.
What you want to do is you want to go and
you want to see what's there and then decide
what you want to make, not the other way around,
because otherwise you'll come there thinking
I need salmon, I need salmon, I need salmon.
You see salmon, it doesn't look that fresh
but hey, I'm here I need it so I'll buy it.
That's not the way to do it.
You want to always get the best quality and
just be flexible.
If it's a different type of fish that you're
used to just try that, make it work, don't
be scared and don't come with a prefixed idea.
Okay, so now after buying the right fish,
you have to chop it up into bits and you want
to have fish blocks which are four fingers
wide by two fingers deep, and then the longer
the better obviously, but at least four fingers
long also.
Then you want to vacuum seal these, and vacuum
sealing is really the best way to do this
because if you don't then you get freezer
burn when you freeze your fish or you have
migration of water out of the fish and into
the outside.
The water actually moves when it's frozen,
it's not a stationary object and it likes
to go out of the food, so when you have less
space around the outside of the food it sort
of stops the water from leaving it.
Lastly where to get your sushi-grade fish?
Now, you can get it in some supermarkets,
thaw it out, but not around Spain so I order
it online and the company I order it from
is www.Kazari.co.uk and they supply me with
sushi-grade fish for free as long as I mention
them in the video.
So that's awesome for me, and you can get
the same fish like it, so that's great.
This is how they send it, they send it of
course in styrene box, it comes with chill
packs, this is just an ice block to keep it
cold during transport and they send it vacuum
sealed like this.
This for example is salmon and it comes with
the skin but detached so you can still see
how fresh the fish was before it was cut and
frozen -- that's great.
And the tuna also comes like that, this is
blue-fin but don't worry if it looks to be
a bit rotten, that's not the case.
When you vacuum seal tuna what happens is
the evaporation oxygen actually turns the
tuna a bit dullish brown but when you take
it out of the package and let it aerate it
turns red again.
Alright so the best way to thaw out sushi-grade
fish is you just leave it inside the vacuum
sealed pouch, put it inside a bucket of water
for 30 minutes at room temperature, then pull
it out, cut it open, put it in the fridge
for three to six hours, just to completely
defrost nice and slowly.
Then use it and make some sushi.
Now if you guys want to get the same sushi-grade
fish as me and you live in Europe, you're
in luck you can get it from Kazari.co.uk by
clicking on the left right now.
Now if you're in America or somewhere else
in the world I don't know what the quality
is, I have never ordered so I can't vouch
for these other companies.
I do know some American companies so if you
guys want to check them out then click on
the top left corner of the screen and you'll
get taken to my web page where I have listed
them on there.
Now if you guys have ordered from these companies
or Kazari.co.uk and you've experienced either
bad or good experiences, please let me know
in the comment section below so I can know
and be more informed about it.
Thank you for watching this video, I hope
you guys enjoyed this, and if you did go ahead
and subscribe to my channel by clicking on
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If you want to see more videos this second
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Thanks for watching, until next week good
bye.
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