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>> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: In this episode, Chef David Chang explores freshness in many forms.

>> DAVID CHANG: It's a lot of umami.

It's a lot of deliciousness.

>> BOURDAIN: In Japan he explores the fish preserving technique ikejime.

>> CHANG: I think the first time I saw it I thought it was more like hocus pocus magic.

>> BOURDAIN: In his lab in New York, he experiments with freeze dried freshness.

>> CHANG: I need to listen to and follow instructions on this one.

>> BOURDAIN: And compares fresh and dry aged steaks with Chef Tien Ho.

>> TIEN HO: The basting process consists of some butter, crushed garlic, and fresh thyme.

>> CHANG: What you're missing is this beautiful smell.

There's nothing like it in the world.

>> BOURDAIN: Enter the mind of a chef.

Fresh means or implies new.

A fresh strawberry means you just bought it, you just picked it.

It's not old.

Fresh sushi means, it is implied, fish that is only very recently out of the water.

But is that what you want?

Fresh is a complicated concept when you're talking food.

Particularly sushi and fish.

>> CHANG: I've had the opportunity to go to several fish markets around the world.

I would say the best ones are in Japan.

The Kyoto fish market is like a kaleidoscope of colors, of bright fish, of fresh fish.

Just about all the fish that you can see and dream about, and the pristine quality that it's in, it's quite remarkable.

>> (speaking Japanese) >> CHANG: The Kyoto fish market is extraordinary, because it's not open to the public.

You need to have a chef bring you in.

>> CHANG: So this is basically an adult hamache.

>> CHANG: I really wanted to go there with Shimauchi.

He is extraordinarly hard working, and he knows his fish.

It's really good.

A plus.

Bourdain would say, "Sex in your mouth, right there."

Bluefin caught off Okinawa, around 2,700 pounds.

That's insane.

What makes this tuna better than others?

>> CHANG: If you ever have to ask the question, "Is this fish fresh, you realize that it's certainly not fresh."

Because when you go there, you see the benchmark.

If Rocky ate raw tuna in the morning, he wouldn't have gotten knocked out.

>> BOURDAIN: In Japan there's a technique fishermen have been using for many years that in theory preserves the integrity of the flavor and texture of freshly caught fish-- ikejime.

>> CHANG: Ikejime itself is basically you're severing the brain cortex and spinal cord.

You're preventing certain enzymes that if you didn't kill or break the nervous system of the fish, it would continue to send out pulses and enzymes that would affect the flavor and texture of the fish.

Murata-san is one of the great chefs in Japan.

He's one of the legendary Kaiseki chefs.

And ikejime is the method that Murata uses to serve a lot of his fish.

It took me a while to comprehend the sort of complixity of it all, even though it's so simple.

I think the first time I saw it I thought it was more like hocus pocus magic.

With ikejime, the flesh is more firm.

And, you know, people will argue that it tastes a little bit better, because it has higher glutamic acid, glutamic acid being the main component of umami, which is, you know, a flavor bomb.

Almost all the Kyoto chefs get their fish in live.

And this process happens for almost all the top restaurants here in Kyoto.

These are all hand picked fish.

And what they do is they do a quick death, as quickly as humanly possible.

What it took me a long time to realize, to appreciate, is that they're not just reckessly killing fish.

It's, like, very methodic, it's very careful.

It's like cooking the right way.

What's the best way to respect this fish?

What's the best way to cook this fish?

For people that don't understand Japanese food culture, they cherish their food.

After you do ikejime, when do you eat it?

>> CHANG: It goes against the notion that a fresh fish is exactly what you want to eat, like something right out of the water, you want to eat that right away.

That's not the case.

So there's a sweet spot within that range for a fish.

>> CHANG: For sushi, it's with rice and the rice gives the texture.

Sashimi is just plain.

And the fish needs texture on its own.

And that is provided by the ikejime.

>> CHANG: So this is a big sea breen.

Right now, they're going to sever the brain.

And now it's brain dead.

So, the next process is to sever the spinal cord.

And then you'll bleed it.

And then you shoot a mental cord down the spinal cord to break all the nerves that are attached to the spinal cord.

>> CHANG: And the bleeding process is important because of why?

Like, they bleed the fish out.

>> CHANG: Ikejime is preventing and controlling rigor mortis.

>> CHANG: So it's more firm.

When you cook it, it's more flaky.

It's a better texture cooked.

I don't think ikejime looks brutal.

I mean, you're literally instantaneously putting it out of its misery.

It's much better than letting a fish suffocate.

Most suffocate in huge nets.

It's certainly a better way to kill a fish, I think in a more humane way.

The wonderful folks at NASA at Houston sent us a variety of freeze-dried foods.

They are the experts.

They've messed with freeze-dried foods longer than anyone.

It's probably the best way of preserving the flavor of food.

And it's going to give us a better understanding of how to make a better ramen stock, ramen soup.

This is freeze-dried shrimp.

You're supposed to add three ounces of cold water and let it sit for ten, 15 minutes.

Of course, I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to taste it raw first.

Freeze dried shrimp with, I'm assuming, freeze dried cocktail sauce.

I need to listen to and follow instructions on this one.

Here we have just dehydrated strawberries.

This can't be that bad.

This is probably the perfect example of why we want freeze dried.

It's unbelievable.

It's so packed with strawberry flavor.

And say I wanted to make a strawberry ice cream or any jelly or anything, this is where I would want to go.

Which leads us directly to the freeze dried process.

Screwing around the with concept of freeze dried food was the catalyst for trying to make a better ramen stock.

And to our surprise, it actually worked.

>> DANIEL BURNS: And basically, it was the first try.

It was just shockingly surprising.

>> CHANG: So what we do is we'll use some Benton ham hocks and cover it with water.

Start with a kombu dashi.

What we're going to add to this is some of the bacon and hock broth that's been cooked in a pressure cooker.

And then we're going to add pulverized shiitake mushrooms as you see here.

So this is this much.

So imagine how much more flavor you get out of it.

Here we have some freeze dried chicken in powdered form.

And here we have some freeze dried pork, pork powder.

So bring this to boil.

We'll want to strain it.

This is the strained broth.

Season it up.

That's really good.

We just made this in under ten minutes.

And I know that it's a more delicious way of making stock, and it's a faster way.

And I'm sure that it will be met with resistance, but, you know, that's life.

I ain't going to cry over it.

As you can see, this doesn't look delicious at all.

I thought this sludge from the strained broth was total garbage.

In fact, I said, "Oh that's vomit, that's disgusting," and I walked away.

And the next day, Burns goes, "Hey, look what I made."

And I tasted it and I was like, "That would be so good with a beer."

And I was like, "What did you make that from?"

And he was like, "That stuff you said looked like vomit."

And I was like, "No way!"

And this is what he does.

This is how he made the mushroom chip.

So at the very least this mushroom chip, which is such a simple idea of pulverized shitake mushrooms, make a broth, and don't throw away the food.

I was like (scoffs) But Burns was like, "No, no, let's see what we can get out of this."

And this has been the gift that keeps on giving.

So the idea is you roll it out on silpat, which you can actually get at about any supermarket these days.

Put this in a dehydrator.

You could put this in a low oven at, like, 200 degrees, and just let it cook.

So after you put it in a dehydrator or an oven, this shrinks down and turns into this guy.

>> BURNS: Umami.

>> CHANG: That's a lot of umami.

That's a lot of deliciousness.

Every time I have one, I want a beer.

Okay, lesson is you never know what gold you're going to dig up out of total garbage, trash.

And that gold that came from trying to make a stock that we all were laughing about, and then once you make that mistake, keep a journal of how you made those mistakes, why you made those mistakes.

And you can kind of chart your growth in terms of how things were made.

James Joyce said, like, errors are the portals to discovery.

And this is how the mushroom chip happened.

>> HAROLD McGEE: Some of the most delicious foods come from preparations that are never heated.

Their deliciousness doesn't come from cooking.

It comes from what's happened to them before they've been cooked.

So most of our foods are made up of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

And they don't have much flavor at all.

Most of our foods are mostly bland to begin with.

One of the great things about dry aging is that we take advantage of enzymes to do a kind of transformation of those building blocks that makes them delicious.

Enzymes are nanocooks.

They're stealth cooks that transform the building blocks of living things.

And they exist in the foods themselves and in microbes.

In something like dry aged beef, for example, the meat is allowed to rest for weeks.

Sometimes as much as two months.

And what happens over that long period of time is the nanocooks, cooks from within, the enzymes, slowly break down the proteins, the carbohydrates, and the fats just enough to generate a depth of flavor to the meat that it didn't have before.

There's no cooking method that will do the kind of flavor generation in dry aging a piece of meat that would give you the same depth of flavor.

>> CHANG: We're cooking steak.

And I wanted Tien here because I think he's one of the best meat roasters, the best sauciers, New York has seen in a long time.

So we're talking about dry aged beef versus fresh beef.

And dry aged beef is really controlled rotted beef.

>> HO: A very specific temperature and a very specific humidity.

But honestly, before the '60s, all meat was pretty much dry aged beef.

Most beef now, the carcass is hung for about two weeks before they're processed.

>> CHANG: So even though it's fresh, it's not really fresh.

>> HO: Right, it's still about anywhere between seven to 14 days old.

>> CHANG: Which is what we have here.

This is a clean skirt steak that you wouldn't necessarily dry age.

This has been dry aged, I'm going to assume, 45, 50 days.

>> HO: Yeah, probably in the about 30 to 40 range.

>> CHANG: So all we're doing is putting it in an environment where the flavors that make this nutty, beautiful flavor that you don't find in the fresh beef.

Here we're trying to cook it as naked as possible.

Just salt, pepper, and then at the end of the process we're going to baste it in a lot of butter, garlic, and thyme.

>> HO: I'm just going to sear the porterhouse and roast it in the oven.

In my experience, it's delicious when you have that nice roasted caramelized meat flavor, especially on a dry aged piece of meat.

Something like this, because of the bone it's going to take at least about ten, 12 minutes on each side.

There are a couple different ways you can roast a porterhouse.

Some people do it standing up.

You get a better, even cooking this way.

Though I find it takes a little longer than normal.

You can cook it side down.

So it's been about six, seven minutes on each side.

I'm just going to check it out.

If you're doing this, take your time.

You just invested a lot of money in this beautiful piece of meat, so something as simple as a little cake tester.

Poke it in, and you want to go right in the center.

Give it a few seconds.

Pull it out.

And for me right now it's still ice cold.

So a big piece of meat like this I'd say it's going to be at least about ten, 12 minutes on each side.

So I'm going to go back in the oven.

I checked the temp.

It's about almost room temperature right now in the center.

So now we're going to baste it.

The basting process consists of some butter, crushed garlic, and fresh thyme.

So you're infusing the garlic and the thyme into the butter, and you're basting the steaks with it.

>> CHANG: So what you're missing is this beautiful smell.

It's intoxicating.

For me, the smell, there's nothing like it in the world.

It's just the best.

So if you just sliced that right now, all of the juices in that steak would just sort of burst out and explode.

So you need to let it rest and relax.

>> HO: And this is the most common mistake.

Ah, and it looks so good right now I want to just jump into it, but it will suck.

You will lose all this hard work that you put into it.

And if you really want to be super hardcore, halfway through the resting process just flip them over.

>> CHANG: If it takes you 40 minutes to cook it you want to let it rest roughly 20 minutes.

The fresh beef.

Skirt steak, it's affordable, so you make a marinade, and it just absorbs all this flavor.

This is a marinade that we use quite a bit in our restaurant, at Momofuku.

It's soy sauce, mirin, apple juice or pear juice, garlic, black pepper, a little sesame oil.

You can pan roast it like this.

So you don't have to create a marinade on this.

You can just get oil.

Depending on the state of the beef and the cut of the beef, you have to really alter how you're going to cook something.

So this guy we're just roasting straight in a pan.

It's delicious that way as well.

I'm just basting it in butter and garlic and thyme.

On this guy, just so it doesn't have to rest, I added some of the marinade and then I added some water.

And I'm just going to let it finish in the pan.

So it's going to come to sort of a medium rare, medium and that's pretty much it.

Just so simple to do.

>> HO: And if possible, you want to rest it on a rack.

>> CHANG: If you don't have a rack, you can always just put a spoon underneath.

Because you spent all that time making that nice crust.

If there's no air underneath it's just going to steam.

>> HO: With any meat, you want to cut it against the grain.

For a skirt steak for example, you can see the grain is going this way.

So you want to be able to cut it against the grain.

So you want to go this way.

The textural difference is just amazing.

You can see the difference between the grains-- against and with.

>> CHANG: With the grain, you're eating with the fiber, so it's harder to chew.

When it's like that, there's not as much connectivity tissue holding the beef together.

>> HO: So a porterhouse is a combination of the tenderloin and the sirloin.

All right, so we're going to break into it.

So first thing you do is you're going to remove the tenderloin and the sirloin.

And just follow it down the bone.

It's very simple.

When we present something like this, we definitely serve the bone with it.

So the tenderloin was like so.

You want to slice it against the grain.

Now the grain is going to be this way.

So you want to slice it straight down.

I like to put it back to where it was.

So voila.

>> CHANG: Did you just "voila?"

[Beep] holy [beep].

>> HO: Before I put it on the plate, I like to pat it down to kind of fan it out.

Just kind of tap it a little bit.

And then you have it perfectly fanned out.

You take this beautiful garlicky thyme butter and just drizzle it over.

Definitely want to finish it with some nice finishing salt.

>> CHANG: Boom.

Thanks, Tien.

>> BOURDAIN: What you're really looking for when you're looking for fresh is a sweet spot.

A perfect point of ripeness or age.

And you're looking to preserve or prolong that magic moment in the timeline of an ingredient's life or death.

Fresh, it turns out, is rarely what you want.

You want it right.