More than ten years have passed since the chef Angel Leon surprised us all with a series of marine proposals elaborated from products considered discarded that drew attention for their meaty appearance and for having a more than convincing flavor. Now the serieswhich is the concept that comes to gather all kinds of marine sausagesis sneaking onto the menus of some restaurants whose chefs have followed in the footsteps of the man from Cádiz who once managed to make our heads explode with that ham from the sea.
At present there are several chefs who are demonstrating that The possibilities in this area are endless. and that this marine charcuterie still has a long way to go. From the also Andalusian Dani García, who is very aware of this novelty in several of his restaurants; entrepreneurs like Willy Moya, who has just completed his first year in charge of Poncio (Madrid) and to celebrate it he has dared with a madrinero stew that does not need much more explanation; or the young Catalan chefs from Fishology, to whom we have already dedicated a complete report.
We have sat down with them to taste those creations that are not only achieved visually or texturallyand, of course, to find out what they’re up to right now.
The trip with which it all began (for Lobito de Mar)
Before getting into the kitchens of the two aforementioned chefs, it is time to briefly review, as a reminder, the birth of this movement that finds its maximum exponent in Ángel León. Since long before his seafood sausages hit the supermarkets there was a trip to Australia, hand in hand with Dani Garcíafrom which these two geniuses returned amazed.
The manager of the Lobito de Mar room tells us just at the moment in which the table of marine sausages monopolizes all the prominence at the table. And after tasting them and verifying that it is a very interesting option both for its flavor and its texture, it is time to ask which fish are the most suitable for making this type of preparation. To which the R&D team of the Dani García Group responds: “We we prefer to use blue fish Due to its high fat content, in the case of sausages, fish with less fat infiltration have not worked for us, as is the case with white fish”.
After discovering that sea bass and croaker are the best options for everything related to series, the next step is for them to explain to us what the process consists of, from when these pieces are caught until the butifarra, chorizo, sobrassada or mortadella that we have just tried reach the plate. “Once the meat is obtained, we season it with different spices. The most important thing is control the amount of fat in the fish that is added to the recipe. In addition, it must also be taken into account that products such as chorizo are only obtained by curing the product. On the contrary, the mortadella has a cooking process”.
Before saying goodbye, we confirm that, at a nutritional level, it is better to consume this type of delicatessen because “the fat in fish is always going to be healthier as it is unsaturated, so it is much easier for our body to assimilate”. Although it should not be forgotten that the greatest benefit of all is for the planet: “Best of all, this can be done with fish that come, or could come, from aquaculture, so we manage the resources of the planet”.
And of course we check that these sausages are accepted among the public. “Probably what surprises customers the most is its great similarity both in aesthetics and in taste, compared to sausages of meat origin.” To which the R&D team adds: “They tend to repeat themselves, but also because in Lobito de Mar is one more offer on the menu that they can include at any time to enjoy a great experience”.
Finca del Mar By Ángel León – Mussel Pate with Sea Lettuce – Ideal for Exotic Tapas – 120 Grams
Before making our second and last stop in the capital, it is important to remember what led to Ángel León at the time to get into this garden that would end up inspiring other chefs like Andoni Txintxilla (Hamarratz) or our next protagonist. Broadly speaking, it all began as a result of inquiring into the philosophy of harnessingmore specifically when a company that cleaned fish contacted the R&D Laboratory of the man from Cádiz to offer them the belly of mullet, sea bass and sea bream that they could not take advantage of.
From there, those marine sausages that They have 25% estuary fish and that is what provides the necessary fat, they have been making a place for themselves in the menus of some restaurants like the ones we are dealing with today. And the idea is that in the near future there will be more and more people who offer chopped, mortadella, sausage, chorizo, York ham, butifarra, sobrasada, loin or cecina with a high ecological value.
Willy Moya’s ‘Cocido madrinero’
Fate has also wanted a very personal proposal to come our way, created by chef Willy Moya, who makes a nod to the world of delicatessen. It is a Madrid stew, of which we will give you all the details below, in which fish is the protagonist of each and every one of its turns.
First of all, we warn you that you can save yourself from calling to make a reservation because this particular ‘Cocido madrinero’ has only been available for two weeks. Something that we fully understand after seeing the enormous work behind this development, which at first was going to be something very different. It seems that Willy, seasoned in kitchens in London, Seville, Istanbul and Madrid, “wanted to make a Madrid fish stew and, for that, I needed to create something similar to chorizo, blood sausage and bacon”. To which he adds: “Although the initial idea was to make a trompe l’oeil, we ended up making marine charcuterie”.
and that is the reason that has led us to visit Pontius, located very close to Madrid’s El Retiro park. That is why we can tell you that the first turn, which is an ‘Oyster with Moroccan lemon menier’ that comes to replace the marrow, is followed by the ‘Soup with rice noodles’ and the tray with ‘Fennel, chickpeas, potato and carrot ‘. But the important thing in this case comes with the fourth overturn, a marine festival which consists of ‘Bonito in butter, chorizo of dogfish in marinade, tuna blood sausage with onion, monkfish and butter fish’.
Before getting into the marine cold cuts, we make a stop to make it clear from the beginning that “the first thing was to make a super fish brothvery reduced and very concentrated, but, once clarified (with egg white, leek, tomato and shrimp heads), we realized that we needed a compango that would dress the whole dish”.
Now yes, we will disassemble each of these elaborations to see what they hide behind their meaty appearance. In the case of chorizo, it is dogfish paste mixed with marinade. But Moya warns us that they didn’t get there right away: “We made many attempts, in fact at first the chorizo was going to be marinated hake roe, but it didn’t work.”
For the black pudding they have opted for a tuna with onions to which they have subsequently incorporated squid ink with the aim of giving the matter some color. And so we came to bacon: “In this case, it was clear to me from the beginning that it had to be a belly or a very fatty fish cooked at a low temperature, and what worked best was lemon fish.” Finally, note that the black pudding is nothing more than beautiful in butter, which is super unctuous, and the white meat is given by the monkfish.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that in this house they experiment with cooking. Moya tells us, that he knows how to make sausages because he has been involved in some other massacre, that last season they already put in a letter a cooked ramen type that also left more than one orthodox of this traditional recipe speechless.
So everything points to the fact that in 2023, with the arrival of low temperatures, we will hear from them again. Of course, daring clients will not be missing. “Has been people who have even had it for dinnerkeep in mind that it is much lighter than a traditional stew, that there is nothing greasy and that the noodles we use are made of rice”, points out the owner of Poncio before saying goodbye.
In DAP | Matured fish and their offal: the butcher of the sea that inspires Dani García to break the schemes of seafood cuisine
In DAP | Fishology, the Barcelona restaurant that is revolutionizing fish cuisine with impossible maturations and sausages