Your bag is empty.
Searing seafood over a wood fire is for adventure seekers. There’s small oily fish, and large meaty ones, chiseled scallops, slippery clams, and umami rich uni. Anyone who has sipped the briny liquor from the deep cup of an oyster—or sighed a little in the afterglow of eating grilled king salmon bellies—already knows that seafood is sensual. To get really primal with all the fats, juices and flavors of seafood, cooking it over fire adds an earthy, smoky experience to the salt water freshness. And the cook can only appear fearless to those gathered around the fire.
It’s an extra challenge, but pleasure-wise, the results are so worth. And there’s an added bonus to eating more seafood: It’s great for your sex life. A recent Harvard study found that couples who ate fish twice a week or more had sex 22 percent more frequently than couples who did not. They suspect the omega-3 fatty acids ramp up sex drive, and stamina is increased due to the rich protein. And spoiler alert: They find that both men and women became more fertile from seafood consumption.
Douglas Bernstein is executive chef at Fish, a restaurant perched alongside a boat harbor in Sausalito, California that’s known for being on the cutting edge of sustainability. He grew up with a fascination with fire. “I love starting them- campfires of course,” he says. “Now it’s my job to start and tend a fire every day.” He prefers the dynamic, primal experience of fire over the frying pan. “Cooking with live fire is analogue cooking. In an increasingly digital world. You have to work the fire,” Bernstein enthuses.
And he’s mastered seafood and fire. A line of hungry customers snakes outside and around his establishment before the door opens and consistently throughout operating hours. A huge wood fire stove is the centerpiece of the kitchen, where whole Dungeness crabs, meaty ling cod collars, fresh sardines and squid sizzle and roast. “You’re adding the ingredient of smoke to seafood,” Bernstein explains. “And this is your baby. You can’t start it and walk away. You have to tend it and work it. This is for people who like high intensity cooking.”
As for sustainability, there’s no comparison between sustainable seafood and farmed and ranched meat. “Wild fish require no inputs, like fresh water or fertilizer. And farmed shellfish like oysters and mussels actually improve habitat they are grown in by filtering naturally occurring algae out of the water.” And as for fire and fish, he pointed out, “This is our last wild food. Seafood is as primal as fire.”
Amid the delicious chaos at Fish, Bernstein sat down with Playboy to share his pro-tips and recipes for cooking seafood over wood fires at barbecue dinner parties and rustic beach outings during Labor Day weekend…and beyond:
His First Note? Remember that size matters:
*”Small wood-burning grills like the Konro are great for portability and popular with chefs for precision, low smoke and sustained heat. For best results, use specialty charcoal, binchotan, from Japan which is high-carbon, kiln-dried oak. It’s pricey and can take a while to get started; lighter fluid should never be used, as it will taint the flavor. Instead, put it over an open flame, like a fire or gas stove for about 30 minutes or until you can see flames come out of both ends of the charcoal.
You can use a chimney starter for this like you would regular charcoal. While traditional charcoal or wood will get hot and then taper quickly, this burns evenly, clean and stays hot for a long time. For a large fillet, like tuna, these grills will get you a nice, quick sear, but leave the center raw. This is why you don’t want to cook a whole fish like a trout on it. It works really well for small fish, which cook quickly, and oysters that will take on the heat and flavor well, as well as seafood kabobs that cook quickly since they’re in smaller pieces.
*You can use a charcoal grill like a Weber, but bigger is better here so you can get even, consistent heat. Use dried fruit woods like apple and cherry. You can also mix them with oak, hickory or other hardwoods. I use oak and cherry. Avoid soft woods like pine as they have resin in them that can change the flavor in unpredictable ways and new green woods, as you’ll get smoke instead of fire. You can ignite the fire with a chimney starter for this too, or just do it the traditional Boy Scout fire starter way of using cardboard, kindling and stacking larger pieces on top. Allow about 45 minutes to an hour for your fire to catch and then burn down to embers. Use a tool to rake your embers so they’re even and your fire will die down quickly, so if you’re cooking for a lot of people, be prepared to stoke it. Keep a bucket of water on hand for safety.”
Sardines
“Herring, mackerel, large anchovies, small pike minnow all work for this. Little fish like these are the most sustainable ones you can eat since they are low on the food chain, they are full of omega-3’s, and lowest in mercury.”
Ingredients
• 1 pound sardines, gilled, gutted, and scaled.
• 1 cup olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest, 2 tablespoons orange zest
• 1 cup chopped parsley
• Skewers (if using wood, soak in water the night before so they won’t catch on fire)*
*
Prepare
Toss the fish in the olive oil, citrus zest and parsley. Make sure you use zest and not the juice, so it doesn’t “cook” the fish ceviche style. Skewer fish through the mouth and turn fish as you salt and pepper it. Lay diagonally on the grill so that all the meat is over hot spots. Flip after 3 minutes, or until skin is crispy. Remove from grill, take off the skewers and plate with crunchy celery root slaw and finish with uni mustard (recipe below).
__Uni Mustard__
Ingredients
• 1 cup cold water
• 3/4 cup yellow dry mustard powder
• 3/4 kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar
• 8 medium sized uni tongues
Prepare
Place the water, dry mustard, salt, turmeric, garlic and paprika in blender and puree. Transfer to a small stainless pot and cook the mixture over medium-low to low heat, stirring often, until it turns to a thick paste (about 30 minutes). Whisk the vinegar into the mustard mixture and continue to cook until thickened to the desired consistency (about 10 minutes). Let the mustard cool to room temperature and transfer back to a blender with the uni and blend until incorporated.
__Grilled Uni__
*”If there’s any seafood that will ramp up your sex drive, it’s this one. If eating oysters is kissing a mermaid, uni is well…”
*
Ingredients
• 8 Live Sea Urchins
• 1 Fresh Lemon
• Finishing Salt
Prepare
Clean the sea urchin, gently removing the “gonads” and clean the cavity of the shell (or ask your fish monger to do this for you). Put the cleaned uni back into the shell, placing uni of two urchins in each shell. Lay on the grill for 3-4 minutes—or until you see a slight bubble. Before removing from flame, squeeze lemon juice into each one. Finish with sea salt.
__Cod Fish Collars__
*”Fish collars are a very underrated and often go to waste. These meaty sections are the fattiest parts of the fish and are particularly tasty cooked on a wood grill. Since they cook longer than a fillet they take on more of the grill flavor. Ask your fish monger for collars- they will come from larger fish like King Salmon, tuna or ling cod. If you have a whole fish, clean out the gills, then remove the head, and cut behind gills to remove the collar. Then split the collar.”
*
Ingredients
• 4 Ling Cod Collars (Or other large fish)
*• Neutral vegetable oil
*
*• Kosher Salt & Pepper to taste *
*• Finishing Salt *
*• Chives to garnish
*
Prepare
Toss collars in oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on the grill and cook for 7-9 minutes on each side in the middle of the heat range on your grill. Remove from grill, sprinkle with good finishing salt and pinch of chives. Serve over seasoned salad with lots of lemons.
____