Brad Makes Smoked Whitefish In Montana | It's Alive | Bon Appétit

is that dog or morel mushrooms hey guys santa's live we're here in lovely montana meeting up with steve varnela from meat eater cooking at his house some of the white fish that we caught the other day and we're gonna be cooking them up two ways smoked and then one of my favorite ways is stewed in tomatoes with some garlic and olive oil yeah let's get to work [Music] steve vanilla back to steve's house thanks for having me steve pleasure yeah yesterday we kind of we did a great job on the river caught a bunch of whitefish even a couple trout my first montana trout and now we're back here you're gonna show me you know one of your favorite ways one of your favorite ways to prepare whitefish smoking them well good let's set these fish up and we'll get going we'll scale one and we'll get the rest yeah you were saying you got a cool little trick to easy cleanup for scaling yeah oh i love it yeah dude it's like you're sitting on a dock some old timer you know that i mean there's a lot of ways to scale but this is a it works great yeah you know a little half inch tack screw there boom and your favorite bottle cap give them a nice edge so the reason i like to do it under water is you don't blast scales all over the house you do it a dry like that and they do the things shoot everything from the ceiling and so i do him in there generally yeah all right look at that i like that oh your scale is easy it's a great little tip there steve scaler i like this bus tub action man i do it different than how you do it what are you talking about i see you're judging me hard the eyes are just like awkward i i do it like it would look aggro maybe real sexual well i'm doing it harder i'm doing it methodically a little sectional i was a little more random and then my signature move people miss these signatures i grab here and i finish very aggressively very aggressively yeah get that that that around that guild that's a trouble spot by the collar that is a tough that's a trouble spot down here too you know i get all that good i got one of your knives there and i tell you what i use this for mostly salt water but for fish well it's like my kind of my go-to fish knife some guys sold one on ebay for over a thousand bucks what call me up i'm not you know i'll do 1200 all right go leave a message in the youtube so what so steve i'm just going to do it come in this event yeah they and then you can kill them but just eventually i like that do you know the fins what it means if i know the fins can you name the fins no steve really caudle cottle adipose dorsal oh that's the trouty one right a little brown trouty little weird thing i remember all that stuff uh pectoral and these sounds i have a hard time remembering yeah that's a tough one um stew on that one i'm gonna i'm gonna cut from the vent so that's i'm never calling it anything but well he has a yeah he has a uni-hole a cloaca go on everything he does is in and out of that hole no kidding urination defecation reproduction yeah i'm guessing that when you open that stomach it's just gonna be a full bug blast oh yeah oh yeah it's gonna be a black blob of uh aquatic larvae feel it see how it feels gravelly yeah you know why because he's eating those case wing caddis he's eating remember how on that rock he builds his own house gets in there out of that gravel no he's eating the bug and then just passing all that gravel out that's the what the k the caddis are uh encased in yeah yeah you feel bad about killing him what does he feel about the thousands of things he killed yesterday he was really he felt really good he's killed thousands of things all right cool and these would be our little tomato experiment now while you're at it just got the rest of them yeah all right so we're going to clean up the rest of these fish and then we're going to throw them in the brine we'll show you steve's brine and get the other fish ready for the little tomato little roasted tomato bake we're gonna do [Music] so it's just a half a gallon of water a gallon of water with uh one measured a half cup of salt cup of salt that might have been a little heavy a half cup of sugar so i can't forget that and then a quarter cup of sugar yeah yeah i can't forget that i usually don't heat the broth we're gonna turn that off just a little you know we'll use our little whisk here and just get it going so it's all nice and dissolved that's all we need and there's a bunch of supposed to be in there laying in the bottom yeah we got it hop four hours i get it you're right we'll put a couple lemons in there all right look we'll do one one little smash cool of a garlic just for good measure i'm a big part of that guy when i go with my wife to yoga you're setting an intention okay do you want it to taste good that's right you're setting your intention but it doesn't matter you're right as we learned from rosemary trout many years ago that only salt penetrates the cellular walls but i can't help it in the spirit of that let's put dill in there too yeah a little dill maybe a little mint just a spring all right see oh little montana mint baby it brews it gets the oils out really you really want that small fish to taste good a little dill oh it's classic classic profile very good now all right cool and then we let that hang out and then we put our fish in there like i said overnight you set one up yesterday that we're gonna be able to smoke today so we can go pull that out of the fridge and now i'm gonna show you something a little experiment we're gonna do together steve good old-fashioned canned tomatoes all right big fan just crushing these up a little because they were whole you know you could do it whole or you could buy them crushed so this is what we had and uh that's what i asked for uh yeah so we got a little tomato going and i put about three cloves of crushed garlic that i just gently uh sliced up there i have oregano you do do you want it yeah in the garden oh yeah i have sage in the garden oh let's do a little a little mixed bouquet yeah steve let me get the fish all right i'll hit them with a little little olive oil oh that's the move all right lots of that stuff let's just get it going all right we'll do a little salt in there yeah come on look at this beautiful fish look a little pinch of sugar too tomatoes are sweet but i'm going to add just a little bit to it take a grind off this feel that thing now take us take machine titanium take a stroke on that once oh ooh that's well made yeah something else isn't it yeah come on here's his chance i don't know here's his chance kimmy warner a spear fisherman gave it to me swimming pepper cannon pepper cannon this thing has got this you know you could turn around and like you know club a bear with this thing it's amazing oh it's got a nice feel geared real nice and pepper and a rolls royce man [Music] beautiful everyone should grow herbs right if you can put them right in the window so we got a little sage we got a little oregano and we got a nice little sprig of mint yeah then pack a little tomato in there but not too much yeah it's exciting man i like it yeah right got a little chilled brine and we're gonna just throw our little fishies in there let them get nice and uh nice and briny and you know that's another little batch of smoke like we were saying two hours overnight ideal all right so steve we've got our white fish all brined up cleaned up yesterday they've been in there overnight now we're gonna you know just pat them off they get a little slimy a little uh a lot of times hoes them or you know ransom uh let's blast them off okay yeah there you go so you got the nice little cabinet smoker running on propane we can just kind of what temperature usually that the smokies at i'm watching for when it'll peel that's really nice and i'm also watching like how much time i have that's right so if i could do it one way or another uh if i could take my time i'll take my time but if i gotta go i'll just crank the heat up and then you know it's cooking though when you get like the fat comes off and it looks like it looks like someone looks like cream cheese yeah like scrambled egg whites yeah that their smoke is too hot if you find something then i should do this though i should be a lot better at this if you find like the magic combo yeah i guess write it down those are good well these look great man we're going to let them hang out dry a little bit right get a little air on them we can trust them we'll run the run the ropes on them here and they're ready to hang them in that the smoker well what do you got there show me that again steve you've got a nice little technique going i'm just delivering the string yeah that works great all right just a nice i'll do them like that classy one little last little dealie i'll knock them off there you gotta throw a granny in the end there there you go man that's some classy right there steve oh yeah that's something you like teach your kids and like feel good about that's him oh that's what i'm talking about man let's go we're gonna get these get a little air dry on them right oh yeah oh that's nice yeah these little tails though i gotta go fire and hold bud oh it's a propane element you know heating element just got a little burner down there you know we're just going straight dry chips we're going to do a kind of warm dry smoke right on there so we'll warm that up and then this is just a cabinet smoker where it's nice steve's got steve's got these things which are fantastic you can just for hanging you know instead of putting on the racks i'll tell you good smoke fish story i borrowed my buddy smoker and was smoking some bear meat from southeast alaska it tasted like smoked salmon and i said to him you need to clean that smoker out man that smoked salmon got all over my beer meat i never smoked salmon in that smoker no candy it was the bear was so gorgeous insanity that he tasted like smoked salmon one guy liked it dirt myth he thought it was great dartmouth is an alien i've had like i've had trichonosis i've had all these food borne pathogens you know so there are things that you don't want to let hover for prolonged periods at certain temps right the danger zone danger zone stuff 40 and then 140 right yeah go let's get the fish going yeah i like it one day a guy was at a was watching the guy at a tire guy was watching a guy at a time as all great stories though at a tire repair shop and saw that they used the scales to rough up tires to patch him no yeah the solo coalescence i gotta learn my facts to tell you that story but it's interesting fish scales i'm not you know everything i say basically needs to be fact checked there we go oh that's put down the cover of a magazine man cover anything modern smoker boy that's a beautiful thing steve all right so we're gonna let these cook for a couple hours keep an eye on them you know every every smoke's a little different but you know probably two three hours i'd say all right steve grab the uh the hot smoker oven i got it set to 250 uh which is nice and now we're gonna do a nice little slow roast we'll check on it really pretty man and maybe at the end we'll blast it real quick [Music] pull the muscle lower into my door you've got to be careful it's always the silly thing the armor wasn't even used we're not the young pups we used to be steve [Music] yeah so our fish are done smoking they've been going for a few hours to you know about two two and a quarter and um we gotta turn it off they're just hanging out resting nice we're gonna be making you know steve's world famous uh smoked white fish dipper yet and i'm gonna help him out we got a little bit of onion that i got that i sliced up and diced up real nice mince you know real fine and about three two cloves of garlic um and now we're just gonna you know he was telling me to zest up one one lemon with his favorite little zester here right steve you got this thing for cocktails for father's day father's day and then also oh this is what cooking at steve's is great and he also came out with some some young horseradish which is fantastic i'm gonna mince that up into a paste add that to it mince up this i'm gonna slice up some of these scallions and then the leaves here i'm just going to do a real quick little chiffonade quick little thin slice and i'm going to throw it in the tomato look at these bad boys these are these are done too i'm gonna crank the temperature up just a second and i'm gonna slice up these scallions at the end and i put a little black pepper in there oh oh and then the secret ingredient the little fresh horseradish all right we'll peel that off a little bit [Music] really nice beautiful you know the thing on knowing when it's done is uh you feel it and it's like there's there's a there's space little puff away you know that is gorgeous steve yeah it's like opening a good book man it's just like opening a good book that cool let's bring his table start picking it peels right back almost looks like a trout right i think it's better than smoke trout really oh yeah that's coming off not too bad though no that's the trouble the trouble yeah this is so good it's it's a good fish to smoke let's pick another one that will have enough for our deal oh my god it's like butter this is i don't know if i want to say underrated but why isn't this on like every menu i'm talking about healthy portion of butter you slap that right in this is like the base man that's what i'm talking about buddy ah yeah make sure it's not poison that's a lot of onion do what you want well no you tell me that's the fish okay that's the fish yeah that's good a little more oh you smell that steve good god it's perfect onions a little garlic and butter you can't beat it pardon my french i'm sorry this is going to be delicious flavors got nowhere to hide then we'll kind of we want that to kind of thicken back up yes sir yes sir let me get some little bowls that we're going to chill it out yeah oh yeah let and get that nasa black pepper too do the chives called them scallions before well there you go i like that oh let me eat this stuff in here yeah the lemon zest garlic onion um and some chives and then we've got our fish a little bit of white wine some nice horseradish from the garden i feel like you do this cold sometimes oh i make it that's always going in the fridge just for a minute just for the water yeah just help it set up a little spready that looks great steve you know yeah follow look at this spread bud fit for kings and queens look at that [Music] damn something that's good man what'd you put in there like nothing just tomato that's good so simple you know what it is it's like smoky tomatoes you know can't go wrong smoky tomato and oily fish and you know what it is it started with how we treated it right on the boat we didn't just let it flop around on the bottom of the boat for four hours in the sun no killed it put it on ice i mean look at that you could tell someone that was like almost anything good yeah look at that though come on hard to argue that spreadable smoked fish that with a little rice oh that's awesome on a scale one to ten of uh edible whitefish i'm an edible uh freshwater fish chan you're going 10 10. oh yeah all right same man i was saying just as far as fresh water eight ten eight i didn't think i could um come to love him more but now i love him even more me too i think it might be one of my odile it might be one of my favorite fish in america i'm just gonna go ahead and throw that out there whitefish man i think like i was saying before you know folks coming don't get me wrong i'm glad we caught a couple trout yesterday and like secretly i wanted to but to be able to catch something that's all just like a native fish here that's been embedded in this this land and the people have been here you know way before we have this is awesome and i'm glad we got to cook and catch and celebrate these awesome fish together man and just hanging out and uh and having me at your beautiful home man i really appreciate it thank you yeah that's a big mitt steve oh dude humongous banana fingers yeah my old man met john wayne once john wayne shook my old man's hand and said um you're that's the only hand i ever shook that was bigger than mine stop it yeah man you got some good stories dude yeah and i've never seen it's on that guy i'd like to think that i could i think yeah john wayne would be impressed hey johnny wayne on john wayne ain't got nothing on steve vanella baby you think john wayne eat white fish no ah they give me gowdy probably say or [Laughter] let's something out of this guy's house

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 519,225

Keywords: bon app, bon appetit, bon appetit brad, brad, brad bon appetit, brad it's alive, brad leone, brad leone 2021, brad leone ba, brad makes, cook whitefish, food, it's alive, it's alive bon appetit, its alive, live food, make smoked fish dip, meateater netflix, smoke whitefish, smoked fish dip, smoked fish dip recipe, smoked whitefish, smoked whitefish dip, smoked whitefish recipe, steve rinella, steve rinella maneater, whitefish, whitefish recipe, yellowstone river whitefish

Id: qHF-h4DQy7Q

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/dudebroguy69]

Wonder what was going on behind the scenes... Steve seemed pissed the whole time

[u/T3VSS223]

Steve was not turning on the charisma for this shoot 😂