Divya Gugnani: Call me romantic, but I definitely feel like the way to someone’s heart is through their stomach, I’m Lydia – in New York City with top shop finalist is gonna show me how to make just a perfect date meal, so let’s go behind the burner and meet the chef.
I’m here with Chef Dave Martin. Dave, tonight is all about date night, so what are we going to make?
Chef Dave Martin: So what are we going to make? We’re going to do two quick courses. These are the carrot mash, for the sake of time, time we’ve kind of started them up. But let’s just talk about them real quick. On mashed potatoes, you can do so things with them and back to my restaurant in LA, every week I actually do different flavored mash.
Divya Gugnani: A very good tip, mix all sorts of different ingredients that inspire you inside your potatoes, make your average potatoes be extraordinary.
Chef Dave Martin: Exactly, so have a ratio of half-potato, half-carrot. We’ve only cooked up both ingredients but you want to cook them in separate, you want to soak them both in cold water, but it’s very important that you have a ton of salt.
Divya Gugnani: You need that because you’ve got to bring up those flavors?
Chef Dave Martin: Well, you know you’ve just to bring up the flavors. You’re actually seasoning them and then you’re also breaking down the starch in both potato and carrots. So, there is a dual purpose for that so that when you get to the final phase, you don’t have to add a bunch of salt.
About your steak, it actually lies below the regular tenderloin or where you will get the fillet. So, the flavor and texture, it just has more all of the above.
Divya Gugnani: It’s a little bit greenier, it’s little less expensive.
Chef Dave Martin: So we’re going to literally make it like a meat martini, so guys will like it as long at they’re not Vegan. Let’s just blend those, so we 50/50 blend, if you don’t like pepper then, you don’t have to worry about it. If you want the whole surface area covered, you know, the same thing is gonna apply when you do the fish, we’re going to season both sides. If you season one side, you still have season, so it doesn’t work.
You’ve got a super hot pan, we’ll just put some extra virgin olive oil in there and then she’s going to drop the meat in, we want to keep everything kind of separate and too much in the pan, don’t over burn, you want sear than actually boil. And the trick to searing too—when something is actually seared, it’s going to let you know because it’s going to say, “Oh well, you can turn me.”
We’re going to cook this to a medium rare. So, you can kind of mix it all up. It’s all good because there’s such a little amount and little pieces that we want to just kind of brown all the sides and they’re so small. It’s going to cook super fast. So, you can let it hang out o the hot pan and it’s going to continue to cook. Then all the liquid redistributes, so that’s very important and then it’s done. So there’s the meat.
The carrot mash, I’m telling you, it’s like—
Divya Gugnani: It’s the way to go.
Chef Dave Martin: So we’ve got that in. Then we’re going to top it off with our perfectly seared hangar that’s seasoned as well.
Divya Gugnani: It looks so shiny.
Chef Dave Martin: This is the Asian ginger pan sauce which is it’s a little bit a soy, with some cherry, it’s actually light soy, so we don’t get over sodium. A little cherry, there’s a little ginger, there’s a little black pepper and we’ve just gonna reduce that and sugar—done. Can we taste it now?
Divya Gugnani: Yes we can.
Chef Dave Martin: Okay good.
Divya Gugnani: I get the carrot flavor, but the meat is just seasoned perfectly and looks perfectly—I might add.
Chef Dave Martin: Well, it’s just fun and it’s a nice way to start the meals.
Divya Gugnani: So it’s time for a vegetables in our main course?
Chef Dave Martin: Yes, so we’re doing this stripe bass with the veggie medley underneath. So, we going to do some extra virgin olive oil on the pan and then we’re going to put a brussel sprouts. We’re going to roast all the vegetables here in second. We need to season them—season, toss, season. And then let’s drop them in the oven. I’d say three fifty to four hundred is a great temperature, I’d say we’ll check it at about five to six minutes and see where we’re at. We need to take some of that, we needed the brussel sprouts a little bit longer, just want to roast them, to really get some great caramelization there which brings us more flavor.
Divya Gugnani: It has amazing flavor with brussel sprouts, it’s very important to cook them a little bit longer than you think.
Chef Dave Martin: Okay so, we’re going to save time. We’re going to save time we‘re going save energy and we’re going to just pan roast the garlic real quick. They’re done maybe eight to ten minutes, don’t cook it too high medium heat and just keep an eyes on it. We’ve got a little oil on it, we’ll just kind of let it roll and well, we’re going to get it real and this is going to be our roasted garlic butter, that will finish the bass.
It’s mushroom time, again were doing a lot of different techniques today, we’re still going to do a hot pan with a little bit of oil. Again don’t overcrowd your pan because you will get more of the steam to boil effect versus a saute.
Divya Gugnani: So that’s a great tip, that make sure your food has enough room in the pan to move around, otherwise it’s not going to cook properly or evenly.
Chef Dave Martin: Yeah, we’ve got to get our salt pepper in our course.
Divya Gugnani: And you know the thing about mushrooms is you need to salt them be because the mushrooms will release their own liquid.
Chef Dave Martin: And make sure you don’t wash them in water. You can get a mushroom brush which is really full if you got time unless you’re doing 10,000 mushrooms and you can just kind of brush up the dirt if you need to. So sautéing, just let it hang a little bit. Let’s give them a little bit of a stir. Just to kind of get them move around a little bit.
Divya Gugnani: You want them to get that dark brown color.
Chef Dave Martin: Yeah and I’m going to—I'm not putting my tablespoons of oil, I'm putting just a little splash on it, if see that there are areas that are sticking or that there’s no moisture. We’re checking on our vege, we’re going to give things a little mixed up. Again, we don‘t want things overcooked because they are going to get cooked a little bit more. We’re going to take everything but the brussel sprouts out right now. Garlic is just about done, I’m going to turn it down so it finishes, but we’ve already got some good color and caramelization.
The fish, sear it 50/50. We took the skin off, some people do the skin off and skin on—but I don’t need the skin. So, we’re just going to sear it and get the fish started at this phase. The long you leave it on one side, it’s just going to—it’s going to cook through, it’s not going to overcook. So then you may just have to drop in on the other for a couple of seconds and you’re good to go.
Divya Gugnani: How do you take fresh fish picked?
Chef Dave Martin: You want it to spring back and you don’t want it to ever smell fishy, that means it’s not good. You’re going to a fish counter, so talk to your fish guy and asked him, “When did the fish come in?” “They came in today.” I checked it out. They don’t let you touch it, you know, he’ll give you the scoot, you know, a good fish is very worthwhile and don’t buy fish that top off.
Divya Gugnani: So we’re going to start by making the garlic butter and I’m just going mash up the roasted garlic.
Chef Dave Martin: I’ve got the butter tamper and so it sat out, so it’s nice and good to go.
Divya Gugnani: And it’s easy to mix. It’s easy to mix.
Chef Dave Martin: PS, unsalted butter. So we’re going to get all the garlic in. We’re doing a little bit a nutmeg and then salt and pepper. So you always want to taste everything. We’re going to start putting things together and just have this nice big kind of rondo pan and get a little bit of oiling here. Then, we’re going to drop all of our roasted ingredients. This is the bacon that you didn’t see me do because I didn’t think you needed to learn how to slice bacon and cut up little strips. Then we’ve got our little tomatoes but as you know, they haven’t been seasoned. So we give it a little seasoning on those.
Divya Gugnani: Get this one nicely together.
Chef Dave Martin: Then I’ll drop a little bit of our roasted garlic butter in here with our vege, we’re going to finish the fish, just put a little bit butter on it.
Divya Gugnani: So I’ve got some nice Shiraz from Australia for us, enjoy.
Chef Dave Martin: We’re jut kind of stacking a little bit of everything, getting our color out here. What’s kind of cool about Shiraz is we started a little bit of meat and the masher so you can roll with that Shiraz right into the fish because it will actually go with both, especially all these earthy veggies and the roasted garlic, it’s one wine that can carry you to the whole meal.
Divya Gugnani: So there we have it, out Date Night Stripe Bass with seasonal roasted vegetables and let’s get involved.
Chef Dave Martin: What’s fun is it doesn’t have to be fish if you don’t like fish. One if you were a vege person, eliminate the bacon, this can be a vegetarian entrée. You can also do—you can threw a quail on this, there are so many things that you can do, it’s juts fun to have all the different roasted vegetables, all the different flavors, the textures, and colors.
Divya Gugnani: And it’s fun to make together so cheers, thanks for having me.
Chef Dave Martin: Thanks you.
Divya Gugnani: Stay tuned to Behind the Burner where we give you the tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary wolds on fire.
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