Fish tales
| Published date | 28 August 2021 |
| Publication title | Paisley Daily Express |
He has developed a whole new fin-to-gill ethos to keep us eating fish in a sustainable way and isn't afraid to make statements like: "It's no longer acceptable to be serving AUS$12 (£7) fish and chips at a local fish and chipper."
" He set out his stall in his hugely successful debut,The Whole Fish Cookbook, for which he picked up two prestigious James Beard Awards and sold a whopping 100,000 copies.
In it, he outlined fish butchery as an opportunity to make the most of every fish we buy, cook and eat. Sydney is back in lockdown when we speak, so Josh's restaurant, Saint Peter, has had to quickly re-pivot to at-home dining (again), but he's found that home cooking has ramped up wider interest in fish butchery.
"For a lot of people using a fish shop, there's never really much vocabulary beyond, 'I'll have that one', or, 'What would you want to eat?"' says New South Wales-born Josh, but encouragingly he's had people increasingly "asking us to do certain tasks for them."
" His latest cookbook, Take One Fish, demonstrates the benfits of fish butchery for home cooks, and for seeing every fish as more than its fillets .
He considers the potential of 15 diverse fish species and looks at the maths: "If I can generate the yield of two fish from one single fish, that means one less fish gets taken out of the water."
You've got pushing no-one attention
Josh calls the book "an indirect message of sustainability and making better decisions" - done in a way that's as "provocative and humorous" as possible, hence the witty, graphic photography, bold tone and galvanising recipes.
It's a step on from the Whole Fish Cookbook, which Josh admits is "quite exhaustive", with its recipes for fish offal and charcuterie. With Take One Fish, he hopes to "of"ofer tangible solutions for a protein" that is quite dfficult to a lot of people.
There's a big crumbed swordfish cutlet "that wouldn't be out of place on a pub menu anywhere in the UK", and tuna mince made using the less desirable cuts.
to keep buttons or pays "What's happening to the rest of that fish?" says Josh. "To me, coming up with a solution in the form of a tuna mince was really exciting and very obvious. All of a sudden we've got lasagne, koftas, mapo tofu (to make). It's a wonderful way to introduce children experiencing fish for the first time."
He reckons the tuna chapter in particular will really resonate and "bring more...
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