Shea Gallante Makes Black Bass with Razor Clams and Ramps

[gentle music]

Hi, I'm Che Gelante.

I'm the chef at Crew.

And today we'll be making fresh black bass

with live razor clams, sauteed fresh ramps,

hon shimeji mushrooms and marinated spring garlic

and cherry tomato relish.

The longest item will be the drying of the grape tomatoes.

So we're going to go through the process of how

we get to the point of drying them.

So what we do, is we just take a small sharp knife

and we just make a small incision in the bottom

of the tomato.

It's an age old concept.

Just applying heat and shocking with cold water

in order to kind of blister the skin.

Done properly, it'll feel just like it did when it

was raw, but it won't have any skin on it.

And we would just toss them in blood orange juice.

A little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Like they're glazed and we just put them into

a 200 degree oven.

And we cook them for approximately,

it would take an hour and a half to two hours.

At which point, they would look like this.

My cooks call them tasins.

Tomato-raisins.

Like a nickname.

So next we have our spring garlic.

We're going to thinly slice it.

Just cover it in olive oil.

You're going to put that over very low heat.

To kind of let it confit or steep.

You're going to add the balsamic to it.

Just like a regular vinegarette ratio.

This is a finalized product of the marinated spring garlic.

What we're going to do is take that into a small bowl.

We have the cherry tomatoes that we made.

We're going to put that in.

And as well, we're going to add some chopped tarragon

to this.

You want to just mix that up, you want to season it

with a little fresh pepper.

Tastes good.

These are live razor clams.

Slick your knife along the bottom of the shell.

You don't want to cut the clam in half

so you just want to make an incision.

We want to take these and what I do

is I just take it like this, and pull it back

against which way it normally wants to go.

And then what we want to do, is we want to put

one finger gently on top of it to keep it from moving.

We're going to slice it down the middle

to basically butterfly it.

We're going to make a quick little stock.

So we take the edge of our knife and just scrape out

the byproduct of this clam.

Cover it with liquid, and you want to just steep it.

We're going to lay them flat, with a sharp knife

we're just going to cut them in julienne.

You want to put them in the pot and heat them

just as they're kind of still alive

and they still have some nerve left in them.

We have our ramp.

So what we do is we remove the leaves from the stem

of the ramp.

Slice the bulb in half.

Thinly slice the stem.

The bulb that you cut in half, you want to thinly

slice that as well.

Kind of want everything to be the same size.

We're going to cut the leaves in about three

quarter inch squares.

We have pretty much everything prepared.

We have our hon shimeji mushrooms,

which we've trimmed down to this size.

You want all equal size.

What we want to do is take our fish,

our black bass.

What I like to do is take the skin

and I like to score it.

You want to gently just pierce the skin,

about every quarter inch.

So what we're going to start by doing

is sauteing the ramp stems that we've sliced up before.

You just want to gently sweat them.

We're going to start with the hon shimejis first.

Because they're going to take the longest.

We want to season it, a little sea salt and fresh pepper.

We're going to get our second pan ready to go

to start the fish.

So everything comes out at the same time.

You want to keep these moving around the pan.

They're very thin, and they're not so much

necessarily fragile, but it's a green leafy item

and it can sear and brown very quickly.

Deglaze with the clam juice.

We're just going to let that simmer.

With a proper amount of mushroom stock,

a touch of sherry wine.

You'll see at the end when we finish it with

a little sherry vinegar, you want to put the acid

in the end because it will change the color

of the ramps, it will turn brown.

Okay, we're going to season our fish.

Fresh salt and pepper.

See how it curls up.

What you want to do, is just take your fish spatula

and you want to press it down.

Gently enough just to make it flat,

but not too much that you're kind of damaging

the flesh of the fish.

So at this point, our garnish is ready.

You want to add the razor clams,

once the razor clams go in, we don't want to really

cook it too much longer.

I can see the change in the color,

which means they're just about cooked.

It's coming along nicely.

What you want to do is cook the fish half way

on the skin side, and then you want to flip it

and cook the fish halfway on the other side.

So we're just about there.

We have a nice evenly brown, crispy skin.

What we want to do now is take the clams,

we're going to finish this,

at this point you want to use good olive oil,

and two drops of sherry vinegar.

You want your garnish to be glazed.

See how this is kind of a glaze in the pan.

See how when I move the pan, see how it runs in the pan,

it's not too liquidy, it's not like too viscous.

I'm going to take some small diced butter.

We put it into the pan.

Half a teaspoon of shallots and chopped thyme

and you just kind of spoon the butter over the fish.

Don't be afraid because all this butter stays

behind, it doesn't carry over into the dish,

so don't say, oh my God, all that butter.

So next, what we want to do, is we want to plate it.

Put a little bit of clam mixture in the middle.

Right out of the pan on top with the fish.

And if you can see, you'll see just the right amount

of consistency from the garnish,

and you get all the natural juices from the fish

falling down through.

And we just want to take these chive flowers,

you know they're beautiful, they add a nice color

and again a beautiful, vibrant flavor.

Makes the dish look beautiful.

Roasted black sea bass with razor clams, hon shimeji

mushrooms and fresh ramps with grape tomato

and marinated spring garlic topping.

[gentle music]