Cookbook of the month: Josh Niland – The Whole Fish Cookbook
THE STORY
The Whole Fish Cookbook is one of the most interesting cookbooks I’ve ever read. Josh Niland’s philosophy about handling and cooking fish is so different to anything I have seen before. No wonder why the whole culinary world is talking about him.
Over the past few years, one of the most popular cooking trends, especially in restaurants and professional kitchens, is nose-to-tail butchery. Side note; There is an episode about that on Netflix’s Chef’s table featuring Italian butcher Dario Ceccini.
Josh pioneers that same approach, but for fish. He also runs a fish butchery, but I’m not going to talk about that.
Dry-ageing, curing, recipes using fish offal, and lots of other interesting techniques that would previously only been used for meat.
The book is 30% knowledge and 70% recipes. In the first part, he explains his philosophy, talks about sourcing, and provides tips on how to tell if a fish is fresh. By the way, I have written something about this too.
Back to the book. The recipes are split by method:
- Raw, cured, and pickled
- Poached
- Fried (deep, shallow, and pan)
- BBQ and grill
- Baked and roasted
On top of the great tips and knowledge shared, the book has incredible photography and is very well written.
Long story short, buy this book.
Or if you are not convinced, follow Josh on Instagram.
