♪ They say ye'are what you eat, so I don't eat chicken feet ♪ ♪ But I love me summa' Grandma's pickled beets ♪ ♪ Well, cut it up, put it'na pan ♪ ♪ Throw it on these sholders see where it lands ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Maters, taters, beans and corn ♪ ♪ The cow's in the barn and the sheep's been shorn ♪ ♪ Kids in the barnyard ♪ ♪ Chasin' Grandpa's chickens, chickens, chickens ♪ ♪ Spices, slices, cuts and dices ♪ ♪ Gonna slash your grocery prices ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Help you grow your garden good ♪ ♪ With recipes to suit your mood ♪ ♪ Try some grub you've never tried before ♪ ♪ 'Fore, 'fore ♪ ♪ Smash it with a wooden mallet ♪ ♪ Gonna educate yer palette ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ In Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen ♪ We're gonna cook some good now.

Hello and welcome to the Farmer's Kitchen.

Nicki's been working on her Spanish moss garden in the background here in Kentucky.

I have.

[laughs] You did a good job.

Thank you so much.

It looks good, huh?

I didn't think that could grow in Kentucky.

Actually, where are we, Nicki?

We are in Florida.

Yay!

We're in Florida.

We've been on the lake today.

And my hope was to get enough critters to come back and make us some fisherman's stew.

What else is it called?

Bouillabaisse.

Now this is not an exact dish.

We're not in the south of France.

We're not gonna act like we're in Marseille.

But we're gonna use pretty much the same ingredients.

Now, when Raoul, here's a picture of Raoul cooking for me.

The French chef that I got to study with and watch.

One of the first things he did when I brought him a fish one time, I really didn't understand what he was doing.

He was taking all the parts and pieces that I was gonna throw away, and he made a fish stock out of them.

Then I noticed he took tomatoes and white wine, and looking back on that, I realized that he made a bouillabaisse.

Now a lot of people might pronounce this differently, but usually, in the French, if there's two S's, it's not the Z sound, it's the hard S sound.

You might hear some people say bouillabuzz or bouillabaisse.

I think the proper pronunciation is bouillabaisse.

We're sticking to that.

Bouillabaisse.

Got it, got it.

We're just gonna do it.

You can't stop us.

We're out of control.

So, we come back from fishing today.

We've caught bluegill.

We've caught catfish, which we already ate.

We ate that for dinner.

Delicious.

And I'm walking out on the dock, and our buddy Rabbit says there's gonna be tilapia out here.

Guess who swam by?

You were happy.

I said, "Get my boat."

Tilapia, big tilapia.

[laughs] And on this lake, there are blue tilapia, and they can get up to, like, 6, 8, or 9 pounds.

They're huge.

So, I shot me a tilapia.

I'm always amazed.

Even though I know you can do it when you shoot one shot, boom, you got it.

Pretty good.

Well, that's what we're gonna do.

So, we got our tilapia.

Our friend's got some crabs right off the dock, some local blue crabs.

We got some mussels.

We got some clams.

Scallops?

Scallops.

We got scallops.

And shrimp.

And shrimp.

We're gonna make something great.

Nicki, please cut that onion up.

For soups, I like, we call them fingernail-sized pieces.

Look at your little fingernail, and that's about the size I like for soup.

We're gonna sauté our onions and celery.

We might even put a few carrots in there.

So, in this recipe, we're gonna put some fennel.

We got some fennel bulb right here.

And we're gonna let all that get nice and sauteed for about 3 or 4 minutes until they get nice and brown.

We're gonna take at least 4 cloves of garlic.

We're gonna cook some of the sugar out of these onions and carrots.

We're not gonna get them done-done, but you start to see a little brown around the edges.

That's close enough to where we want to be.

After we get our vegetables sauteed, we're gonna deglaze with at least a half a cup of white wine, and we're gonna take some sort of anise-flavored liqueur, and there's a lot of those on the market.

We're using a Posse, and we're gonna take that and probably use at least 2 tablespoons of that.

Now we're gonna let that reduce a little bit.

And in a minute, when that sun pops behind the hill, we're gonna change angles.

And if you look behind us, there's a beautiful lake.

Beautiful, wonderful lake, and we're gonna switch directions and shoot that way because the sun will be down in a moment.

After we get all our vegetables sauteed, then we're gonna come back with our tomatoes.

And we're gonna take, I don't know, that's probably about 14 ounces, like the size of a can.

Those are diced tomatoes.

We're gonna add some bay leaves, some orange zest in there, and we're gonna take a little bit of saffron.

Now, saffron is part of a flower.

It smells good.

Doesn't it smell wonderful?

It's very expensive, but you've gotta have that taste.

Because I spilled a little, and you picked it up.

You said, "Don't spill it."

So, that's a dollar's worth.

We're gonna add some peppercorns.

We're gonna come back, and we're gonna take our stock, and we're gonna strain that.

Strain all the solid parts out of that from the crab and the fish rib cage that we cut out of that tilapia.

That you shot.

That we shot.

Perfect for fish stock.

Now, if you wanna buy some clam juice, it's getting kind of expensive, I've noticed, here lately.

But if you wanna buy some clam juice, you can find fish stock some places.

That'll work perfectly.

If you're gonna boil it down like we did, you wanna strain the top off and get kind of the not-so-attractive stuff off the top.

The yucky stuff.

Then you'll strain the solids out, and you're left with that nice, stocky stuff.

If you wanna put a little bouillon in there, you can.

If you wanna put a little salt and pepper in there, you can to get that going.

I'm gonna take my strained.

Fish stock and pour that in.

Now, I'm gonna bring this to a boil, and I'm gonna reduce that about half.

I'm gonna put a little salt in there, and I'm gonna take some fresh thyme.

I'm just gonna go ahead and pop that in there.

Put a little tomato paste in there.

That's probably about a tablespoon.

Now I'm gonna put the top on.

I'm gonna heat this up and reduce it to half.

[music playing] We've got our fish that I just shot just a little while ago.

What a piece of fish.

That's a nice piece of fish.

That is really nice.

Let's take that, and let's just cut some pieces off.

Now, always, always, always cut out that big.

In the South, they call it the mud vein.

People call it the darker meat.

You always wanna cut that out, cut around that, because that's always strong, striper, or anything else.

So, we're gonna take these pieces of meat, and we're gonna take these, and we're gonna cut them up into little cubes.

So, we're gonna put our fish and our scallops and our shrimp in first.

Now, when we put the clams and the mussels in, generally four to five minutes, you start to see them open up.

It's time to stop.

If they don't open up, toss them over your shoulder.

Don't eat them.

Let's start with the fish.

Let's drop that in.

We're gonna put our fish in first, and our scallops, and our shrimp.

Again, the clams and the mussels will go last.

I'm gonna cook this for about, oh, I don't know, eight minutes or so.

Get that good and hot until your shrimp is nice and pink, curling up on the end.

Now, I don't have any fresh parsley, so I'm just gonna put in a little bit of dried.

Oh, it's gonna be good.

We dropped our clams.

We dropped our mussels.

They're already starting to open.

Nicki, what do you think?

That looks amazing.

Now, what am I gonna do in the end?

I'm gonna finish with a little bit of butter.

Always.

Why are you doing that?

Because it's delicious.

Because that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh.

I like it.

Nobody can stop me.

That's right.

I'm out of control.

So, we're gonna cover that just for a few minutes.

You ready to see, Mrs.

Farmer?

I am.

I'm excited.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Yum.

I'm gonna scoop you up.

A little bit of everything?

A little bit of everything.

I know you like scallops.

I do.

And I know you like mussels.

I do.

And I know you like clam.

[music playing] Look right here.

Big scallop.

Wow.

This is all my favorite stuff.

Oh, wow.

Your sauce.

You did good.

Did you try the broth?

It's very good.

Take another big scoop of the broth.

You know what?

I was talking to Rabbit over here.

He says, "I can't believe you took a 12-inch pan and just put charcoal on it and cooked restaurant-grade food on here."

Better than a restaurant, he said.

He said better than a restaurant.

He did.

The thing is, that's fire.

The heat on the top of your stove may be gas.

It may be an electric range.

But what it has is heat.

It doesn't matter what your heat source is.

If you've got the right heat, the right temperature, you can cook anything, anywhere.

Look what we've got here.

I'm going to eat some more of these.

This was fun.

The bouillabaisse.

The first time you had it?

It is.

It's delicious.

How would you describe it?

I don't know how to describe it.

It's like - If you go to a restaurant and your favorite mussel dish that you get, usually, they have some sort of garlic.

They have butter.

They have parsley.

And they'll have a French liqueur with an anise flavor in there.

The anise is what makes it so good.

That's what I taste.

That's what you're tasting in there.

I like that.

You love your mussel dishes.

Yes.

That's good.

Does that not taste exactly?

You've got your garlic.

And we topped it off with just a little bit of butter.

Are you kidding me?

That's delicious.

Oh, there's a shrimp.

I've got to get a shrimp.

And it makes all the seafood taste delicious in that juice.

You've got your tomato base with a white wine.

You can also put just a little bit of basil in there if you want to put some dry basil in there or fresh basil.

I like that.

That's good.

To me, it's got just that rich.

That's what I was going to say.

It's got a rich flavor.

Seafood flavor with your tomato base, your white wine.

You taste your liqueur in there.

That's so good.

And the garlic.

And it's just beautiful.

The only way you can explain it is just you've got to try it.

Yeah, that's delicious.

Absolutely delicious.

Miss Farmer, you good?

You like it?

I'm enjoying this.

[music playing] [music playing] As you can see, we're not in Kentucky today.

We're in Florida.

And I came down here to fish, but I also brought my bow, my bowfishing rig.

Now, there's a reason for that.

I love to shoot a bow and arrow at fish.

This bow has a reel on it.

It's got an arrow with a barb on it, so when you shoot through the fish, you can pull it back in.

Now, there are several places in Florida where you can shoot at tilapia.

Tilapia is not a native species.

It's been introduced.

It's considered an invasive species, kind of like the bighead carp are back home.

So, you can shoot these.

The great thing about these fish is if you cut that red meat out, they are delicious.

You've had tilapia in the store.

Now, the thing I know about this lake is it's spring-fed and cleaned.

So, these fish are going to taste beautiful.

Now, they're tough to clean.

You have to go under and around the rib cage.

But the meat that you get once you cut that red meat out is beautiful.

So, we're out here today.

No competition except for the alligators.

Everywhere we look, we see alligators.

There's one.

There's one.

You see just their heads.

They're looking for tilapia on the bed, too.

So, we've got a little competition.

But let me tell you what.

When it comes to getting your own food, that's what we're doing today.

Some of these tilapias get up to 6, 7, or 8 pounds, and are loading up our freezer.

Being that it's an invasive species, you can take as many as you want.

And that's what we want to do here.

So, we're going to load the cooler up.

And when we get home, we're going to load you up on some new recipes.

[music playing] [music playing] We made it back.

Yes, we did.

Driving through Atlanta was no fun.

No.

It took two hours.

That was not fun.

You know, we usually drive through the night so we can bust through there.

We got there at 5:00.

It was beautiful.

But it was a stressful drive.

Yes, it was.

We did make it back.

It was about a 15, 16-hour haul.

But you know what, though?

When I look at this right here, it's worth it.

Oh, yeah.

Now, I shot fish, and I shot fish, and I shot fish, and I shot fish.

You did.

Because there's no limit.

They're invasive species, as we talked about earlier.

I went down there to bass fish and bluegill fish.

But when I saw these on the nest, look at this.

Is that not beautiful?

That is beautiful.

That's one of the smaller ones.

Now, I've cut these pieces off to make serving-type pieces.

Now, a bigger filet will look something like this.

Now, I haven't cut the red meat out of that.

You've got to cut the red meat out.

It has a strong taste to it in any fish, whether it's a stripe or a hybrid, whatever.

Cut that red meat out.

My mouth is watering because I'm thinking about what we're about to do.

We're going to make a recipe with this tilapia.

That's fairly simple to make.

But any time you have a good, firm, white-fleshed fish, oh, my goodness, you're talking about something delicious here.

Now, these aren't the farm-raised tilapia that everybody talks about that's not good for you.

This is wild tilapia.

I know they're invasive.

I don't care.

Now, we are on the tail end of some of our sugar-cured bacon.

We ate that today.

So good.

But we're going to cut this off, and we're going to make some bacon grease out of it.

And I guess we'll just have to eat the bacon, Nicki.

Yes, we will.

I can do that.

So, I'm going to turn this on a low heat, and we're just going to go ahead and let that fat just ooze on out.

Let that flavor ooze on out.

Now, this is from our pig that only made it to probably 190 pounds.

Because she was bad.

She was a bad girl.

She bit Nicki on the hand, and Nicki said, "We're taking her for her makeover."

I still have a scar.

So, there we go.

So, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to get our olive oil simmering.

I'm excited.

Look at this beautiful piece of meat right here.

That is.

Beautiful piece of tilapia.

And again, this is the smaller, smaller guys.

I shot some huge ones.

I should have weighed them.

I saw a picture of the state record of the girl holding it up.

One of ours looked almost that big.

Who knows?

I think you're close to the state record.

I think I beat the state record.

I think you did.

And I've never seen anyone shoot so much for so many days.

Of course, I had to shoot with my teeth.

I lost the use of my right arm in the motorcycle accident.

We had new viewers all the time when I was 20.

I was in the Marine Corps.

So, I had to figure out ways to do almost everything.

So, again, here's me shooting a bow here in Florida for this tilapia.

I shot so much that my shoulder, my teeth are fine, but my shoulder is sore.

Well, you would go out for eight hours a day and shoot and shoot and shoot.

I took a nap.

But look.

It's beautiful.

So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do with this tilapia.

I'm going to take a little blackened seasoning.

Now, do you remember when we made our blackened seasoning?

I do.

One tablespoon of sweet paprika.

Two and a half tablespoons of salt.

One teaspoon of onion powder.

One teaspoon of garlic powder.

One teaspoon of cayenne.

Three-quarters of a teaspoon of white pepper.

Three-quarters of a teaspoon of black pepper.

One half teaspoon of dried thyme leaves.

And one-half teaspoon of dried oregano leaves.

I've got some salt and pepper in my flour.

I'm just going to do a light, just a light coating on here.

Wild tilapia.

You know, we have quite a few friends who want fish fries.

They saw how many fish you got.

Well, I've got enough for a couple.

Now, you know who's been wanting fish fry?

Dad has been wanting fish fry.

Yes, he has.

And Dad deserves one.

So, very shortly, we're going to be having Dad's all-out southern fish fry.

A Kentucky fish fry.

We're going to be out of control.

That's right.

Is he getting tilapia or bluegill?

He gets whatever he wants.

I'm going to go ahead and cut some of these onions up into strips.

For a one-armed guy, this is great.

And our bacon is almost done, which it is, and we've got enough grease there.

We're going to start our onions.

All right, we're going to leave this on low.

Go ahead and pull that bacon if you want to.

Oh, beautiful.

Perfect.

Kelly got me this handy fish spatula.

That is nice.

I like that.

That's perfect.

So, we're going to let that get just golden brown.

Now I'll tell you what we're going to do, Mrs.

Farmer.

Now, there's a reason I left that on.

We're going to pop our onions in here.

Turn that back up just a little bit.

And our bacon grease.

So, everything's coming together nicely.

Now our fish is beautiful.

Oh, it is.

Slightly brown.

Oops, tried to break them.

You can't have that.

You know what?

I'm going to get rid of it.

Use your spatula.

Yeah, now let's pop that in the oven.

Ready?

On a low setting.

[music playing] Let's see where our onions are at.

Our onions are looking good.

Oh, look at that.

They smell delicious.

So, now we're going to turn this way down.

Because those are almost where we want them.

Now, what do we do here, Mrs.

Farmer?

What do we do?

We need garlic.

And we're just going to brown this.

A little bit of olive oil.

I don't mind a bit that we've got a little bit of flour in there because that will act as a thickener.

Just when I see that my garlic is golden brown and not burnt, I'm going to deglaze the white wine.

I'm going to come in with half a cup.

And we're almost there.

I'll get that for you.

Half a cup of white wine.

And probably a little over a half a cup of chicken stock.

You smell that?

It smells really good.

Something magical.

So, let's bring the temperature up now.

We're going to reduce this.

Notice we're putting some lemon juice in here.

This is a beautiful, wonderful thing to do with your fish.

If you have a good white, firm-flesh fish.

[laughs] Say that again.

A white, firm-fleshed fish.

You said it.

Say it three times faster.

I'm not going to say it three times.

I have trouble saying it once.

So, we're getting close on the reduction.

So, I'm going to go ahead and fire our burner back up with the onions.

I'm going to man that for you.

Yeah.

And what I'm going to do.

We can even put a pat of butter in there, Mrs.

Farmer.

I like butter.

A lot of people say, "Why do you call her Mrs.

Farmer?"

And why does she call me Mr.

Farmer?

There's a reason.

Because our family, all our family, mom is Mrs.

Farmer, and dad is Mr.

Farmer.

So, when we're a group, we're all Mr.

Farmer, Mrs.

Farmer, Mrs.

Farmer, Mrs.

Farmer, and Mr.

Farmer.

So, it's kind of fun.

So, it's an old family tradition.

There's no other thought than that.

When I call dad, he calls me Mr.

Farmer.

I call him Mr.

Farmer.

That's right.

It's fun.

Now, I'm going to drop this spinach in.

And Mrs.

Farmer, I don't want to wilt this too much.

Okay.

So, just turn it a little bit.

Just turn it a little bit.

I'm going to put a little salt.

We don't need too much salt because we've already got bacon in.

A little bit of pepper.

I would say that's reduced by half.

That smells delicious.

Now, one at a time, I'm going to bring in a piece of butter here.

Maybe two at a time.

Maybe three at a time.

So, we have our spinach, which is good for stress.

Yeah.

Really?

When you're driving through big cities -- Okay, you should eat your spinach.

I need to eat a lot of spinach.

It's good for your eyes.

Really?

It's got vitamin C. Vitamin K1, which is important.

Vitamin A. And look where we're at right here, Mrs.

Farmer.

Oh, wow.

Oh.

Look.

That looks thickening up.

There it is.

And in the very end, we're going to put just a little bit of cream in there.

Now, what I need you to do, Mrs.

Farmer, if you will, is to grab that fish.

[music playing] Oh, my, Mrs.

Farmer.

I'm excited.

You go first.

I get to go first?

This is what you got for us.

You were so patient with me, sitting out on that boat all day.

Oh, wow.

[laughs] A little spinach with wine and some onion.

That's delicious.

White and flaky.

Oh, wow.

You outdid yourself.

I'm glad we got bags of this.

We got a bag load.

[Laughs] I'm so happy.

Mrs.

Farmer.

That's delicious.

We should have shot some more.

I think you got enough.

You shot enough fish.

That has a wonderful fish taste.

Just enough.

It does.

And that in combination with the spinach and the onion and our sauce with our lemon and white wine.

That's better than a fancy restaurant.

You did good.

You outdid yourself.

I'm glad we took all that time to shoot all the fish.

It was worth it.

It was worth the 29 hours.

Oh, no.

Actually, 50 million hours that we spent on the lake.

Do you want to go back tomorrow?

I do.

But let's take a break.

[laughs] I do.

Run for that drive through Atlanta.

I'd do it.

I'd do it.

Pickle beet.

Got to have a beet.

What a meal.

That's beautiful.

It's wonderful.

Delicious.

We used our own bacon.

We did.

We used fresh spinach and onions.

Everything here is fresh.

It's wonderful.

Yes, it is.

No preservatives.

No chemicals.

Yum, Papa.

[laughs] Yum, Papa.

I agree.

As Sammy would say.

That's right.

Carrots in the sauce.

Yes.

So, yum.

That'll be yum.

In fact, there he was.

Amazingly enough.

This is going to blow your mind, but a half hour's up.

But that being said, people are saying, "Where can I find this recipe?"

I'll bet you can go to?

timfarmerscountrykitchen.com.

Look it up.

There are 14 gazillion recipes on there.

There's a lot.

Yes.

And we are enjoying our Facebook time with some folks out there.

We've got a lot of new people on.

The only rules we have are be kind.

That's right.

And if you're not, we just hit a little button and make them go away.

Make them go away.

That's right.

So, we want you to be our Facebook friend, but it's so complicated.

It is.

How do you do it?

You hit like.

It's hard.

I like that fish.

I like it, too.

I like it.

Mrs.

Farmer, what's it all about?

Good times.

Good friends.

And really good eats, as always.

We'll see you next week on Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen.

Dig in, Nicki.

Good job, again.

Yum.

[music playing] Funding for Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen is brought to you by Amerson Farms Country Store.

Something for every member of the family.

[music playing] Ephraim McDowell Medical Center in Danville, Kentucky.

[music playing] Gulf Coast Connection, seafood straight from the Gulf to you.

The Spine Center of Central Kentucky.

[music playing] Wilderness Road Hospitality, Stanford, Kentucky.

Visit Frankfort, Kentucky's spirited capital city.

[music playing] [music playing] To order a cookbook, email TimFarmerCK@gmail.com.