(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Great bass playing Nancy. - That was awesome, let me do that. - I know, you got it, you got the fun going on there. - Thank you. - Cleaning us next here on Big Blend Radio. Nancy and I, we've got our special guest co-host here, Judy Cohen, we call her traveling Judy. And our next guest on our summer festival is Five Star Chef Ivan Flowers, he's a culinary instructor in Temecula. He teaches high school students how to cook. Yes, they are learning. And he is joining us today to make sure that we cook good stuff over the summer. And today it's all about grilled Pacific swordfish, so not any swordfish. You need to go into the Pacific Ocean and get it. And listen, white vinegar is involved citrus and a butter glaze, so everyone, the recipe is up on blendradio and tv.com, just type in the search box, swordfish. It will be the only recipe we have on swordfish. So welcome back Chef Ivan Flowers, how are you? - Hi guys, how you doing? - We're doing good. - How are you? How's summer going in San Diego? - Nice, good weather, no complaints. June gloom, unfortunately, but not too bad. - Oh, you know, that's what we have wine for, you know? Yeah, good wine or a nice beer. Good food, you know what I mean? You got that right. So do we, this is the truth about you. I said before we brought you on, it's about cooking with integrity. It's about getting real, you know, real food. And looking at the photo of this grilled swordfish, you know, Nancy, now we're allergic, but Judy, you eat fish, so she's gonna be your go-to on this. But it looks really delicious, this dish, and it looks like we're eating real food and not getting all the sodium off the shelf. That's your new nickname, by the way, no sodium. - Boy, yeah, the less sodium the better. There's a lot of alternatives. - Yeah, a little bit works, but you don't need to kill some. I just watched a recipe the other day on the Food Network where they made a short rib dish, and they put, I think, 17,000 milligrams, 17,000? 17,000 milligrams of salt in the total dish. - Wow. - Yeah. - Oh, that's a little, that's a little. That's not so bad, 17, just 17. That's not so bad, I mean, 10,000. - 17,000? - 17,000. 17,000 milligrams went no dish, yeah. - Well, we could do a little pizza. Yeah, well, no, that's crazy. That would be my dinner last night. Okay, if I would, I had to throw this dinner out last night. I made dinner, and I had to throw it out. This is a trick. - I would be very proud. - Well, listen, this is, you're gonna get so mad out of me. - It made you don't, no, this is how steep I am, right? So we have, go get rice, and we're in a friend's place in Florida, in Colorado here, Florence, and in her house, and I'm like, okay, so I got this rice thing, and it's a box of rice stuff, and then you put this seasoning. Well, you know you shouldn't be doing that. And I forgot about it, so I put my own seasoning in, there was wine involved, and I put my own seasoning on top of their cruddy seasoning. And so it was a pile of, I sauteed the mushrooms, and zucchinis, and everything. And everything was good until I decided to put seasoning on top of theirs. And so when you get these seasoning packets, isn't that kind of the warning sign that you're about to go on the sodium ride? - Oh, yes, absolutely, yeah. Danger, Danger Will Robinson. - That's it, Danger Will Robinson. - That's what Nancy said. 'Cause she kept looking at us cooking, 'cause are you sure you don't need help? I'm like, no, I'm not a cooking guest, though. (laughing) - Yeah. - So, so Ivan, I am wondering. I mean, I know you're gonna talk to us about grilled Pacific swordfish today, and the recipe there. But is the magic in preparing fish, having fresh fish, or can you do it using frozen fish? - You can do it both ways, and I'll tell you, you always wanna get it fresh, okay? If you're buying, when I was working at top of the market, and we brought a fish in a hole. So, we always got fresh fish, and you could see the eyes were clear, the gills were red, and the cavities smelled like perfume. Scales weren't coming off, it was beautiful. Or if you go to a fishmonger, and you're looking at, for example, let's say Pacific swordfish, and it's fresh, you'll see there's a little bit of a bloodline that runs through it. And you don't want it with a heavy bloodline, you want it light, and it's fire engine red. When you see that, you know it's fresh. Fish has to be fresh. You know, you're talking about, you buy it, you have a two day window to cook it. Not like meat that gets aged and put in cryovac. Frozen fish, there are some really good companies where they actually process it on the boat. They put it in a cryovac, a vacuum seal, and you can see, even with some of the frozen, the bloodline is bright, bright red. So they're handling it correctly. The trick is, when you're buying fish, for example, some swordfish boats, excuse me, will go out for three days. And so the fish is really fresh. Some will go out for a month. And that's when you want to buy, you know, the fish purchases by what they call top boat. That's the last fish that's caught. The ones on the bottom have been in ice for a month. So it's really, really, you have to know how to buy fish, you have to know the questions, and it's a visual thing. You have to know what to look for. But fresh is the way to go. - Right, okay. - Right. Even if you get into your recipe, I have an interesting story about the, in Japan, in Tokyo, going to the fish market there, and seeing the big tuna market. Have you ever been there? - Yeah. No, but I've seen, I've gone over that a lot with my students. It's an incredible, incredible market where they come out and they bid. And they actually somewhat freeze the tuna. It's not completely frozen. They put like a frost on it. And again, it's all fat levels. They're looking for tuna with the most fat. And unfortunately, they do a lot of bluefin. You know, bluefin, we have to watch. - Yeah. - But it's like they get, I mean, I think the record was a million dollars. Somebody bought a fish from them. I mean, it's like, it's like the milk. - Yeah, and we have to get up at like three in the morning because the bidding and the auction starts at four in the morning. - Yeah. - By six o'clock, it's all over. Anyway, we diverged, but there you go. - No, well, that's big blend radio. That's all we do is diverge. - Yeah. - Bring you here. We put a topic out there to bring everyone in and go, "Ehhh, you know, this is a psych. It's summer-fest. We're going to talk about winter." No, I'm kidding. But Nancy, you had a question there. Oh, I was just going to ask if canned tuna is really fish because I'm allergic to shellfish and fish, but I've always been able to eat canned tuna. So I'm thinking when they say it's chicken as a sea, it's really chicken and not tuna. That's Jessica Simpson. - No, it's fish. It's usually skipjack or albacore. And what they do is they cook it in the can. In the '70s, people were buying it and it tasted like cat food and then they came up with a way to cook it in the can. You always want to get albacore. That's solid white albacore, but it's fish. That's not fishy, doesn't taste fishy. - I don't understand because I'm allergic to everything fish and shellfish and fish, but not tuna. I don't get it. So I don't think there's fish. - I'm glad you're not, you can eat tuna. - Yeah, that seems like that's a... I stay away from all of it because I don't want to eat it. - I can't eat salmon. You can't eat that, but I can eat tuna. - It's interesting. - Yeah, it's weird, so I just thought tuna's really not fish. - Let's take you to a doctor and do a nose test, Nancy, and see what happens. - No, I didn't have done that. Thank you very much. - No, well, Chef Ivan, this is interesting. So the swordfish, so this is like, to me, this is that beautiful creature with the sword nose, right? And so I know they fish this. I know friends who go to Baja and get them and cook them. So this is like the ultimate for summer grilling, right? Would you do it on a barbecue, like, you know, in the backyard and get your friends around? - Yeah, you know, they're called broad bills. They use their bills to actually get their prey. They knock them kind of unconscious, and then they, you know, they're able to eat squid and different things, mackerel. They're an amazing, amazing fish. But the majority of people, when I was a kid, my parents used to eat swordfish on the east coast. And it was terrible because they overcooked it. So it's very, very dry. You never want to overcook fish. Swordfish has a staky consistency. When you buy it on one or two sides, there'll be skin. It's important that you leave the skin on because that keeps the fish moist. You take it off after you cook it, it pulls right off. But you either want to grill it or you want to broil it. And you want to keep it slightly on the rare side in the middle because when you take it off, the fish keeps cooking. So you want that slight translucency in the middle. Once you do that, swordfish is magnificent. When swordfish is made correctly, there's nothing like it. Grill it, broil it. Another way you can do it is as a pakata. You do it pakata style in a saute pan over higher heat. But again, with all fish, you have to have translucency. You have to be connected to the fish. From the time you pick it up in your hands and you season it, it's a feel. It's very different. It's not meat. It's different. It's fish. It's delicate. And swordfish is creamy and buttery. You know, I'll tell you, when I was in the restaurants as a chef, and people would say, I want the swordfish well done. You know, you can order a filet mignon. They want it well done. I don't care. Eat it the way you want it. But when they did swordfish and they said, cook it well, I wanted to take a fork and stick it in my brain. You know, I was like, oh my god, it's not even going to be close to what it's supposed to be. So you've got to care for it. You've got to really care for it. So if it's OK, so you talk about cooking the Picata part. And I look at it and I'm going, OK, like, I'm going to-- this is the thing with all of your recipes. We're always able to take it and adapt it to a different ingredient or build on it, right? There's always this foundation. So you've got this beautiful glaze that sounds amazing with the marmalade and butter. And unlike in the white vinegar, I'm thinking, I already want Chardonnay right now. Like, I'd like to change by wine right now. I want Chardonnay. But now I'm hungry and thirsty. I'm looking at going, I could probably do this with chicken or even pork in a weird way, right? Or no? Oh, yes. Yeah. What you're doing is you're creating a gastric. Gastric is when you take an acid and something sweet. The acid is the vinegar. The marmalade has the sugar in it. I use the sugar free. And then the butter kind of sits in the middle. And you work it down in a saute pan until it becomes a little syrupy. That gives such a clean, clean flavor. It allows the swordfish to come out. So you're not disguising it. You're not putting something on that's going to be too heavy. You're doing something that's just going to help that fish when it hits your palate, just kind of explode with flavor. And swordfish is juicy. You know, I don't use the word moist. I never like to use the word moist, except per piece of cake. Don't start us on the word moist. You know that was the most hated word one year? I thought it was funny. But anyway-- You know that our prime minister just-- our prime minister in Canada just used the word moist. And that got a lot of publicity. They used it up to me on the speaking moist week. They did that their last episode or the last run. They used the word moist. And moira did moist. Moira, you're like, you're like, Moira said moist. And she said it loud and proud. So anyway, sorry, I would go back to your moist swordfish. So it's juicy. It's always juicy, never moist. And then you cut into it. And it's juicy like a steak. As long as you don't overcook it. Oh, I got the smell. And you know when it's done. You know. I think I can talk questions on marinating. So do you marinate swordfish before you cook it? I do. I put sometimes a little olive oil, maybe some herbs. And then it's up to you what you want to put into it. You can put a little olive oil and soy if you want. You can put a touch of Worcestershire. You don't want to use any citrus, because it'll cook the fish. You can put different curries in. You can use different things. But a light marinade, what I do is when I grill the fish, I put the marinade, I put the glaze on. And then when it comes off the grill, I use what's left of the marinade, the glaze actually. And I hit it again. The entire time I'm cooking the fish, I'm putting that glaze on. So it starts to get almost like a light amber color. And that sugar starts to cook. And that vinegar starts to work, and that butter starts to brown. And again, I want the swordfish to taste like swordfish. Right. That's important. Yeah. I mean, that it does actually have that part of it. Now, would you do like a beer, or would it be like a chardonnay, or a pino, or on the side with this? All of them. All of them. You know what? You could also do red wine with swordfish. Why not? You know, it doesn't really matter anymore. A shard of the yonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, a nice beer, ice cold, hard lemonade. Hm, that's my new wine, cemmonnay. Cemmonnay, cemmonnay, cemmonnay, hm. You can do a nice crozay, or a nice crozay. Yes, yes, a nice crisp crozay, absolutely. I can't believe the wine we just had. And in Colorado, we were up in the wine country, and you wouldn't believe the white wines, the wine that-- I mean, they used the cemmonnay that they normally, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, that they would normally put in like a blend. And they serve it like, here's your pure goodness, and it is like liquid sunshine. It is amazing. You know, I can't drink white wine. I can't do it. I only read. I don't know what it is about white wine. I drink one glass of white wine. And I'm like, buzz that in my head. I can't touch it. Champagne gin. It's white. It's white. [LAUGHTER] I don't know what it is. That's interesting, huh? Sugar content. It could be-- Yeah. Maybe. I thought we-- Didn't we have for white wine when we started? No, you had beer. You like light beers, huh? That's kind of more of your thing. Yes. Light beer. You know, in San Diego, they're so famous for craft beers. These things are like 600 calories a piece. You know? And it's like people drink these huge craft beers. It's super high in alcohol. You said you. And they're like 600 calories. You said moist and huge on the same segment. I'm just saying. [LAUGHTER] Oh, it's sorry. It's Sunday. I can do that. That's funny. That's funny. But you know, you're right about that. I mean, those beers are heavy, you know? Yeah. I've gotten myself sick on those like things. Oh, I'm into it. And the next, you know, even the flavor is so heavy. Yeah. Like, it's too rich. Yeah. I don't even know if you can eat with, like, other than a pretzel or something like, yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. That's a hard thing. It's IPAs. It's a lot of IPAs, IPAs, IPAs. Give me a really, really ice cold, light beer. I put a little bit of lemon in it. I like corona, corona light with an ice lime or lemon. I'm happy. That's cool. I like that. I like that. Yeah. So, Chef Ivan, do you get to go back and teach this year? What's happening in the schools? I don't know. I don't know. Wow. We don't know. We have no idea what they're going to do. I would imagine it's going to be a hybrid social distancing, along with-- I mean, because I can't, you know, I have 40 students to a class. I can't have them in the kitchen shoulder to shoulder. I can't have them in the lecture room, unless it's six feet apart. So, they're working on a lot of different approaches. But I have no idea yet. I'm waiting to hear. Wow. So, can you teach virtually, do you think? Because you think you can teach cooking virtually, like people buying ingredients and preparing things? Yes. I have hundreds of videos that my wife-- she produced a lot of them and from different TV shows. So, I have hundreds of videos that I use. And it's very interesting, because my students, when we're doing virtual distance, they did some of their best work. I had them submit everything from baked goods to meats and chickens and small-- I was amazed with what some of these students were doing, because in the classroom, they tend to get a little shy in the lab. But you teach them technique, and then you work with them through it, and then you set them on their way. And I was amazed with some of the stuff that I saw at this one student that was just mind-boggling, the stuff that she was turning at. Mind-boggling. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. You're after just coming from all of this. There's good stuff coming from our social distancing and new ways of learning. Yeah. I read this thing about when kids are learning at home, for the most part, there's a lack. They can actually concentrate on what they're doing, instead of looking around the classroom and trying to impress somebody, and that there's a lack of the bully syndrome when they're working at home. And a lot of other things. Yes, and a lot of other things. Cell phones, distractions. There's a lot. So, yeah, you can teach it. Now, I wouldn't want to go to Cardi-- I wouldn't want to be doing cardiology classes online. But, yeah, you can teach cooking. You can teach cooking. Luckily, I have those videos, which really help. Everybody, I told you at the beginning of the show, it's Chef Ivan cooking with his pickle. And so on that note, we've got a song to play for you. And Chef Ivan, I know it's just like a whirlwind show today. But thank you for joining us on our summer fest and waiting for us, because we were running late. But we want to say happy Father's Day to you, because we know you've got a mew me, and you've got a doggy. And one of them is pickle. We want to say happy-- I have a pickle, a kugel, and a kinesh. They're all named after Jewish delicacies. I name all my pets Tracy and I after Jewish delicacies. So if we get another dog, it's going to be what? The bagel, bagel will be the fourth one. Oh, God. Great. Well, hi to Tracy, too. He's awesome. And please tell her I really enjoy her Facebook posts about the quarantine and what goes on in her mind, the deep, dark side of Tracy. I really enjoy that. The dark side. No, let me tell you, she will win on who gets the last glass of wine. Tracy will always win. Oh, I know that for sure. All right, well, does it enjoy your summer? I know we'll be having you again soon. Thank you so much for the great recipe. Everyone ship Ivan's grilled sword. Did I say something wrong there? I did, didn't I? I did not say that. I did not say that. I did not. Somebody else said that. I heard-- I was about to say Pacific, because it has to be Pacific. But they couldn't change it up if they want to. But grilled Pacific sword fish is up a quest radio and TV.com, so check it out there. Nothing like live radio, everybody. Here it is. It's a song called Dada Dada. It is from the Madison's Lizzie Harris wrote this for her dad. And it's off of their album, Air on the Side of Love. So we're going to play that. And you can keep up with them at Madison's music.com. And then after that, we're going to talk a little bit about Alaska. So enjoy. Thanks, Chef Ivan. Stay tuned, everyone. You're welcome, guys. Thanks, Chef Ivan. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Dada Dada. There I would try to find you inside the walls. You'll be there. Listen to the sound of the systems working. You'll be making sure. Making sure that the lights are glowing. The air is flowing, the water running around. You are listening. You are listening closely to the sound. Dada Dada. There I would try to find you inside the logic. The machine humming and the sound of the motor running. You'll be making sure. Making sure that the lights are glowing. The air is flowing, the water running around. You are listening, you are listening closely to the sound. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] ♪ The sound ♪
