Knowledge Base > Barton Seaver - Fat and Flavor

Fat and Flavor

Barton Seaver - Fat and Flavor

This event was on Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 2:00 pm Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Barton Seaver to discuss the wide world of cooking and finishing oils (and butter, of course!). We’ll discuss strategies for making the most of this culinary staple and exp… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

I am interested in your advice regarding oils for cooking with fish. I have always used butter.?

— Teri Blouin

Answer:

So I'm a big fan of olive oil with fish. I mean, let's talk Mediterranean, right? They eat a lot of fish and they eat a lot of olive oil very little butter. There are few fish where? Olive oil just doesn't work. And typically those are fish that well that they already have sort of a grassy vegetal character to them. That I think some farmed fish can tend to do like Darude rata seabream some of those and while they're always served at Italian and Mediterranean restaurants and drizzled with olive oil. I think it's I think have you ever actually tasted that because it's not the best pairing there in one of my books American Seafood. I was writing about parrot fish and parrot fish or a fish that eat algae off of coral reefs. Then they're an essential part of the health of a reef ecosystem sort of eating away old coral and allowing new Coral to grow without the parent fish the whole system collapses, but parrot fish eat algae. And so when you cook parrot fish with olive oil, guess what it tastes like overwhelmingly overwhelmingly it tastes just Mossy that's one of the few fish. That was like whoa. Whoa. Whoa, absolutely. It's got to be a butterfish. Butter is pretty much universally good with fish that Dairy nutty richness really works. But especially with cold water fish. I find that olive oil works almost universally. Is good. I I tend to go for The Buttery or richer styles of olive oil. So looking at maybe Coastal Italian produced olive oil olive oils. That would be the way to go or in Agra motto. I mean a halibut Ceviche with a little bit of blood or injectoramato drizzled over. Whoa. Oh my Lord. Would that be good? So that's Red's Dad. It's a sort of a buttery Rich olive oil with any fish is going to be good. The more grassy you get the more punctuated oleic acid spicy you get I think the the more difficult that pairing becomes.
Barton Seaver

Barton Seaver

Chef, Educator, Author

bartonseaver.com