Athletes in the Kitchen: How to Cook Fish Ep 2

Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. Get ready to dive into all things training, nutrition, recovery, and more. Whether you're a new or experienced endurance athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone who just wants to improve your health and fitness, this podcast is for you. I'm Chris Newport, founder, head coach, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer with the Endurance Edge and the Fueling Edge. With more than With over 20 years experience in the fitness industry, 18 years in multi-sport, and over 10 years as a sports nutritionist, I'm speaking with athletes and experts about key actionable steps you can take to reach and sustain peak performance and health. Let's do it.

All right.

Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. This is Chris Newport, your new host, and I am so excited to introduce our chef, John Kohler. He is our culinary development chef. That— doesn't that sound so fancy? Uh, with the Fueling Edge. So we're excited to have you part as part of the team. Give us a little bit of background on how you got into cooking, what your perhaps some of your schooling is. Let's get to know you. So tell us.

I, Began in restaurants when I was a teenager. It was one of my first jobs, and I continued with it all through college, mostly doing, uh, busing, dishwashing, waiting tables. And then after college, I was in advertising briefly, and it wasn't really for me, so I got back into restaurants. And that was on the East Coast, up in Boston, and I Ended up traveling across the country working for restaurants, managing restaurants, and around 2006 decided that I would be a— I would like to start working more back of the house and do more cooking, as I was primarily front of the house dealing with guests until then. I went to Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, and they trained me in the French classical way of cooking, which is lots of butter and lots of sauces. Since then, I've definitely refined my style to make it much more healthy but delicious nonetheless. I've tutored under some chefs on the West Coast in California that are, that are quite well known out there and have a lot of skill, and made my way up to the San Jose Bay Area and My last position in California was I worked for Apple, iPhone Apple, for 5 years. And while there, really embraced the style of cooking that was desired by Steve Jobs. And that was healthy cooking, vegetable-focused. And goal of that, of those meals that we served was always to give the employees that ate them more of a pop after lunch so they could get more done in the afternoon and their productivity would stay high rather than them going out to fast food and getting, you know, one of the burger places or one of the fast food Mexican restaurants. And after those, because of all the fats and especially the unhealthy fats that you get and the high salt content in their food, there's that crash, that food hangover that they would get after lunch. And our cooking was designed specifically to eliminate that so that productivity as I said, in the afternoons would remain high. I came to North Carolina in 2018. I love it out here. This is home now, and I'm just very excited to be doing something that is healthy-focused, helping people live better lives, and it still allows me to be creative and do what I love to do, which is to make meals that people remember and have them enjoy them.

Love it. Awesome. So when you were out in Boston, you did a very little-known race out there. Tell us about that.

I did. Um, in 2000, I ran the Boston Marathon. I was a student at Boston College at the time, and I decided about 3 months before that I wanted to run it. I went through a charitable organization and raised some money for them. So they gave me one of their slots. I trained for like a month, uh, ran the marathon. I remember afterwards, you know, all the runners out there will get this. I was walking backwards upstairs for 2 days afterwards. Um, very painful, but, uh, it was a great experience. I'm glad I did it. I'm not sure that I'll ever make another marathon.

Well, I certainly wouldn't recommend training for a month for a marathon again, but that's pretty awesome that you at least have that experience under your belt. That's really cool. So you mentioned being at Apple and how they're so focused on getting good quality foods to avoid that afternoon crash. What were some of the things that you guys liked to make out there to give them that healthy, high-quality fuel?

Well, again, um, I, I'll focus on the, uh, the vegetable portion because everything was, was vegetable forward, meaning that about 60% of the plate was vegetable, um, and then about 20% each carb and protein. We would always try really lean proteins. Occasionally we would dip into stuff, uh, that, that was less lean, but, you know, breast, um, pork loin, most of your fish. And if we did beef, it was, it was generally the, um, the beef loin that doesn't have as much of the fat that comes out of it. Portions were usually about 6 to 7 ounces of vegetable, 3 ounces of protein, and about 3 ounces of the carbs. So doing that and avoiding frying anything, using either baking or braising, those types of things would definitely help out in making sure that that meal didn't give them that crash after lunch.

And you guys had quite a diverse type of cooking too, like, like culturally diverse, I should say.

That's correct. We had stations at each one of our corporate cafes and the stations ranged from Latin to Japanese and sushi to Indian. We had Thai stations and then we had stations that were fusion of everything. We usually called those Pangea. There was barbecue stations, there was vegetarian stations, there was complete vegan stations. So not to mention the Italian stations and the pizza stations. So there was always a really good option for everybody. Everyone could almost always find something that they liked. And each one of those stations ran a special every single day. So every station was different, what they were serving every day, in addition to the standard items that we served on a daily basis.

Very cool. I love it. So now that we've gotten to know you a little bit, John, this is our— we're going to have this segment pretty regularly. We're calling it Athletes in the Kitchen, and Chef John is going to help us figure out how to cook and how to cook healthier. So with our meal service, which is called the Fueling Edge, it's not only a meal service, but it's also a method or like a system of eating. And the first step in that method is what we like to call pick powerful proteins. So those proteins that are going to give you good quality fats and good energy and, and those kinds of things, especially fish being one of those and the fatty fish in order to get those important omega-3s, things like salmon and tuna and cod, so that we've got all those good quality omega-3s that help us in everything from brain power to performance and the like. But I feel like so many people are intimidated by cooking fish, whether they don't know how to buy it, they don't know how to make it. So here's our chance to learn from you. When we buy fish, what's— what should we be— what should we be looking for?

Well, uh, a couple of the things I look for when I'm buying from, uh, say the local grocery store, I'm always looking at the label to see if it was either wild or farmed. For me, wild's always going to be preferential. They have more of the omega-3s in them. They usually, to me, taste a little bit better. You can tell that difference in taste. And I usually like to buy a fish that has been pre-frozen. Something that a lot of people don't know is that all sushi that has been served, that is served in the United States, is required to be frozen for at least 24 hours at some point. And that's how they kill the, the parasites that are naturally in wild fish, farmed fish as well. But so frozen fish is not a bad thing like people sometimes think. I prefer fish that has been previously frozen. And if I can actually buy it frozen, then I can defrost it as I like. If I buy it from the store and it's already defrosted, I'm not really positive how long it's been defrosted for. So buying frozen fish, I think, is kind of a taboo that people have, but it's something that I would encourage everybody to do.

So would we look for that in like the frozen aisle section, or should we go talk to the butcher and ask him or her what's in the back that's still frozen? What's your recommendation on that?

I would recommend talking to the butcher or the fishmonger at the grocery store. Same thing for your meats. But if you get to know them, and you talk to them often, they're going to give you the better stuff that they have. And, you know, there's not a lot of people that take advantage of that. They're there to help you out. And a lot of people don't think that they want to be asked questions or talked to, but in my opinion and from my experience, they really do. And they appreciate when you talk to them and ask them stuff and let them share their knowledge with you. I would go through them, ask if they have anything in the back that has, you know, just is either in the process of being defrosted was just defrosted or is still frozen.

And when we buy that fish and it's, let's say it's in the process of being defrosted, should we take it home and then refreeze it? Or should we take it home with the intention that we're going to cook it in the next 24 hours, 48 hours, a week? What's your recommendation for that?

That's a great question. So what I would recommend is if the fish is either defrosted or in the process of being defrosted, take it home. I would cook it within 48 hours, and when I get home, what I would do for storage is I would take a, a piece of Tupperware that's large enough to hold the fish, and I would put it with the— if it's a skin fish, the skin side down on that, and then put it in the refrigerator uncovered. And what that does is that allows the, the fish to dry out a little bit and gets the moisture especially off the surface. And what that does is that really helps when you're cooking it to get the proper browning. And if it is a skin fish, to get the skin nice and crispy.

That's a great tip. So I feel like that's a potential mistake that a lot of people might be making. Would you agree with that? And how, and what, and what does that do to the, if it's too wet, what does that do when we try to cook it?

Uh, yes, I definitely agree. That's, that's a mistake that, um, that a lot of people are making. And when you try to cook something that has a lot of moisture on the surface, you'll never get that nice browning on it because when it hits the pan or when it's— when the heat starts to permeate it, you're actually getting steam from all that moisture instead of getting the actual skin to be in contact with the surface, which is what allows the browning, technically called the Maillard reaction. Which is the caramelization of the sugars that are in with the protein on the skin of the fish or the surface of the fish.

That's the good stuff, right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Awesome. So if you're putting it down too moist, I have a feeling that that's probably why a lot of people's fish might be sticking in the pan.

Absolutely. It will cause sticking. It will cause the, like I said, the fish to steam rather than to get that nice browning on it. And this is something that goes for really all seafood. Any seafood that you're going to do in a pan, whether it's scallops or shrimp or fish, you definitely want to make sure that you pat it really dry before you, before you cook it.

Okay, good. All right, so pat it dry. And then what about— so let's say we're grilling it or maybe cooking it on the stovetop. What should the heat of our pan be in order to avoid that sticking and get that good Maillard reaction?

I use a medium-high heat. So if I had the dial, I would put it on around a 7. If it's a flame, you know, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up. And then it's important to make sure that you get some oil in your pan. I'm a big fan of using either grapeseed, canola, or avocado oil, and not olive oil. Olive oil has a very low, what they call smoke point, which means it's going to smoke very, at a very low temperature. And that's going to be an issue when you cook the fish in terms of the flavor. Olive oil gets very bitter once it gets too hot. And that point for olive oil is about 270 degrees. And you definitely want to cook your fish hotter than that. So using one of those other oils is definitely beneficial, especially given that some of them, especially the avocado oil, has almost the same exact health benefits as the olive oil.

Yeah. And I'll, I'll agree with that one. So olive oil is amazing and we definitely want to get all those good monounsaturated fats, but if you, and this goes for olive oil or any other oil, if you are cooking it past its smoke point, you're actually having the reverse, the opposite health effect. So you want to get all the good health effects out of your, out of your oils, not the icky ones. So, absolutely. All right. So good, good tip there. If a fish has a skin on it, so like let's say it's salmon because, you know, we want everybody to get those omega-3s, should we take it off? It sounds like we should leave it on because we want that good browning.

Absolutely. So leaving the skin on the salmon is definitely my choice. That's two reasons, actually. First, I do like to eat the skin. But second, if you don't like that skin, you can peel it off very easily after it's cooked. But another thing is that when you cook salmon, I'm sure that everyone's seen the, the white gunk that comes out of salmon. It's called albumin, and it's actually just a protein that's in liquid form in inside of salmon. And when it heats, it coagulates and comes out all— oozes out all white. Well, if you cook it with the skin on for 75% of the time with the skin down on the heat source, whether it's the grill or the pan, and then you flip it and cook it that remaining 25% of the time, you're going to get much less of that albumin coming out. And so it's going to be more visually appealing when, when you do serve it or eat it.

So it sounds like start with skin side down, start cooking skin side down, whether it's on the grill or what about in the oven? If we're roasting salmon, should we still have skin side down?

In the oven, I put the skin side up. And what I do is I pat everything dry, season the fish.

I'll put some parchment paper down so that the flesh of the salmon does not stick to the pan. And instead of cooking something, the fish at high temperature, What I do is I put the oven at about 250, and this is something that, that I read years ago that, that a very famous chef Bobby Flay does. By cooking it at a lower temperature for a longer time, it helps to keep a lot of that albumin inside the salmon rather than having it ooze out. So if you would cook it for 7 to 8 minutes depending on the thickness at 350, then you're going to probably almost double that time to about 15 minutes at 250, and that's going to give you a medium-rare piece of salmon depending on the thickness. Medium-rare for salmon is about 120 degrees. And if you don't like a little bit of that almost rawness in the middle of your salmon, then you're going to want to go for more of a 130 to 135 degrees internal temperature. And that will, that will probably, depending again on the size of the fish, take about 20 minutes, maybe 22.

So for the home cook, do you recommend them getting a thermometer, or how do we know when fish is done cooking?

Yes, I absolutely recommend a thermometer, unless you've been cooking fish so, so long that, that you can just touch the outside of this, of the flesh, and tell that it's done, which not a lot of people can. I highly recommend getting a kitchen thermometer from Sur La Table, or I'm sure you can even get them at the local grocery store these days. Just make sure you're getting a food thermometer and not a human thermometer. And with that, make sure you're temping all of your foods, especially, you know, fish is not going to pose as much of a health threat in terms of foodborne illness as things like chicken or turkey. Those are the things that you definitely want to be temping, as well as your ground meats and ground items, because the bacteria can get into those and get into the middle of those. Whereas your solid items, your steaks, your pork loins, it's— any bacteria is mainly going to be on the outside.

Yes, good, good tips there. There for sure. All right, so we've got some good tips for putting fish in the oven and perhaps on the stovetop or even on the grill. So how do we make it taste good? What are, what are some of the things, whether it be— well, let's, let's start with salmon since we're kind of focusing on that. What flavors, or should we marinate it? What kind of seasoning should we use? Give us some examples.

Sure, great question again.

One thing I would, I would recommend doing if you have the time, and this will also help with that albumin and provide more flavor into the fish, is doing about a 10-minute brine before you cook the fish.

And to do that, what you, what you do is you take 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of salt, mix those together until the salt is as dissolved as you can get it, and then soak the salmon in that. And that water can be room temperature, you just don't want it hot. And give it about 10 minutes in there and then pull the salmon out and pat it dry. And if you do have the time, again, I would recommend also putting it, after you patted it, into the refrigerator uncovered for about 20 minutes. So this whole process will take about 30-35 minutes before you cook the salmon, but it'll definitely make a world of difference afterwards. If you don't have the time to do it right before you cook, you can always prep it the night before, do the brine, pull it out of the brine, put it into the refrigerator, and just leave it in the refrigerator until the next day.

Nothing bad will happen to it.

So that's one thing that I would definitely recommend doing. I'm a big, big fan of dry rubs on fish. I use lots of times on my salmon, like a hickory smoke type of barbecue. Seasoning. If you want to go with just salt and pepper, that's great too. I think there's a lot of options that are pre-made salmon with some of the— one of the avocado dressings that you get from the grocery store. You can make your own relish that perhaps is just some diced cucumbers, diced tomato, olive oil, and a little red wine vinegar in there with salt and pepper and kind of chunk that on top of the fish. You know, anything that you like the flavor of, you can put on top of the fish and use it to enhance the regular fish flavor.

So, John, I know you didn't mention your kids, but you've got 3 little ones.

I do.

How— have you gotten them to try fish yet?

I have.

My kids usually enjoy fish. However, my kids also will eat one thing one week and love it, and then the next week when I serve it, they'll tell me, Daddy, I don't like that. Given that, my kids, in order to get something else, they always do have to take one bite and make sure that they don't like it. So usually when I cook the fish, they will take that bite and say, you know, then they'll be like, oh my gosh, I do like this, Daddy.

I'll be like, yes, I know you do.

You ate it last week. So for them, it's usually just more of a plain fish. They're not big on sauces or relishes or anything like that.

They—

I'm fortunate in that they just like salt and pepper fish done in the pan and served with rice and veggies on the side.

I think sometimes people take for granted just, you know, plain sometimes is— or like salt and pepper sometimes goes a really long way.

Absolutely.

I definitely agree with that.

A lot of the food that I serve is just the natural flavor of the food. Most of the things that I serve, I wouldn't be eating if I didn't like the taste of just the plain food. Because covering up the taste with a thick sauce or something that's very, very flavorful, it just kind of goes against buying the nicer cuts and the spending money on the things that are nicer if you're not going to enjoy the natural flavor of it.

So that goes back to buying a good quality.

Absolutely, absolutely. And there are even some places online, if you all email Chris or myself, I can recommend some places, but there's some places online that sell flash frozen, fresh caught fish that I use a lot. And that's a lot of times what I'll bring home for my family. I'll order those, they come in shipped next day. And then I just put them in my freezer and I pop them out a day before I'm going to cook them. They'll defrost in my refrigerator and then I go about the business of prepping and cooking it.

Great tips. Yeah. And we can put some of those links in the description on our website. So what about some local places? If anybody's local to like the Raleigh-Durham area, have you found any good quality fish places locally?

You know, I usually buy my fish from either Lowe's or Whole Foods or sometimes Harris Teeter if I'm buying the fish that is on special, you know, already been defrosted. For the frozen fish, I do a lot of my shopping at Costco or BJ's. I think that their products are high quality and very consistent and they do offer the wild option on most of their frozen items.

Yeah, cool. Okay, so pretty accessible for most people. So if you had your way, if you're not cooking for anybody else, you're not cooking for the Fueling Edge, you're not cooking for your kids, you're just cooking for yourself, what would be your fish of choice and how would you prepare it? Wow.

Um, my fish of choice would absolutely be tuna. I would use the ahi tuna loin, bluefin if possible, yellowfin if I can't get the bluefin. Both are very tasty. I just enjoy the bluefin a little bit more. And I would season it with a hickory smoked barbecue rub on the outside, gently sear it, and then I would just a little bit of sauce and a little bit of wasabi and kind of eat it like a seared piece of sushi or sashimi.

And anything with it?

I'm a big fan of brown rice, so I would probably eat it with brown rice. And my favorite vegetable is artichoke, so I would probably steam an artichoke. And I do eat my artichokes dipped in mayonnaise, West Coast thing that I picked up when I was out there. So yeah, probably be artichoke in the mayonnaise.

I like it. You're making me hungry. All right, so if anybody wants to cook along with Chef John, just to make a little plug here, a little announcement, on Friday, February 26th, from 5:30 to 7 PM, he is going to— he and I both, uh, he's going to be doing the, the cooking, and I'll probably be running my mouth a good bit, or, you know, poking and prodding you about all these different questions about how to cook fish. We are making a honey chipotle glazed salmon with a Veracruz succotash and a simple side salad with a cilantro lime lime dressing. So tell us about the Veracruz succotash. What do you— what is all in that? What do we— what can we expect?

So the Veracruz succotash is an adaptation of a recipe that I found years ago. I use shelled edamame with diced peppers, diced onions, roasted corn. So when possible, I use the corn on the cob, but when not possible, frozen corn that I roast in the, in the oven real quick. I like to put a little tiny bit of jalapeño in there for some flavor, and then I toss it with a little bit of cooked bacon as well as olive oil and red wine vinegar. It's really a great, great flavor, and it goes so well with, with so many dishes. You could serve it at a picnic, you could serve it with fish, with beef, with pork, anything you want. It really goes well with everything. Super healthy too. You can leave out the bacon if you're not into bacon.

But why would we?

Absolutely.

It's just such good flavor. So this sounds pretty fancy, but do you think that we can still execute this as like a healthy weeknight meal, like a pretty quick weeknight meal?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Everything is all in the how you buy everything. The vegetables would be the hardest part, and it's not really a big deal how they're chopped up as long as they're all approximately the same size. So a little tiny bit of knife work, and then you just sauté the vegetables, you cook the salmon, and the salad and the dressing are just— the dressing is just blended. So it's a couple of items into the blender, blend it up, And then you've also got a dressing there that'll last 3 to 4 days. So you can save that if you want to make a little extra and put it on a lunch salad the next day or use it for something a couple of days later.

I love it. Great ideas there. And again, you can sign up for that on our website, theenduranceedge.com. That is Friday, February 26th. So you get to cook along with me and Chef John, and this is a wrap to our first Athletes in the Kitchen episode. So I am excited to continue to pick your brain about how we can continue to eat well as athletes and high-performing humans. So John Kohler, chef of the Fueling Edge, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me, Chris. Uh, it's been a pleasure and I look forward to next time.

Awesome.

Thanks.