Beyond sashimi: Crudo is all about the ingredients
What's raw fish, but not sushi?
Fresh from the sea (and land, but primarily the sea), is "Crudo." The Italian and Spanish word for "raw" as well as the Mexican word for "hangover," covers raw fish dishes with Mediterranean style. While it can cover meat as in beef tartare, dishes like carpaccio or the German dish, Mett made with pork and onion, we see it more in the Seacoast area as raw fish with variations on that theme.
One new restaurant, Brine, in Newburyport, Mass., (see Dining Out in the Feb. 28 Spotlight Magazine) specializes in oysters, crudo and chops with a regular crudo menu and daily specials in that category like fluke crudo with fried capers, oranges, brown butter and parsley puree, hackleback caviar.
Other local restaurants have been testing the crudo waters as well. More on that in a bit.
It's raw fish, so how is it not sashimi? It's primarily a matter of how it's dressed up as you can see from the Brine example. That is not sashimi, the relatively plain sliced raw fish from Japan, but something with a touch of Mediterranean meets new American. While sashimi relies on its purity and the beauty in the slicing of the fish, crudo is driven more by the ingredients. Slices of raw fish are usually drizzled with oil and some sort of acid or spice, at its most basic, lemon and a touch of salt and gets more complex from there. The term "crudo" can be applied to ceviches, tartars (tuna, other fish or beef) and carpaccio, a term applied to very thinly sliced fish or beef.
What we're seeing around our area is primarily the more traditional dressed-up sliced fish fresh from our local seas — halibut, tuna, salmon and fluke. Crudo is very seasonally driven from the fish to the ingredients, and the oil used is important. Chefs experiment with nut and truffle oil as well as variations on olive oil, all of which enhance the flavor of the fish. Any oil with a lack of flavor like grapeseed oil or canola simply will not do. It's a delicious, healthful and artful way to enjoy fresh fish.
Susan Tuveson, food writer and chef, recently opened Acorn Kitchen in Kittery, Maine, a multipurpose, fully licensed community culinary rental facility. She travels to both Japan and Italy frequently and says that flavor and texture go hand in hand in crudo.
"These types of dishes are fun to put together in summer when produce is most seductive, and herbs are everywhere. When I do a crudo dish I often have some kind of acid in the mix — lemon/citrus, interesting vinegar — but that is not to say the acid plays the part of such in a ceviche, for example. I just love raw fish, and crunchy/fresh/cool against it, like jicama, cucumber, radish, or turnip sliced paper thin. Then there is a burst of citrus —pineapple, pink grapefruit. Other proteins can be prepared crudo-style, such as any tartare. One of my favorite Japanese preparations is tataki where a filet, often mackerel, is seared very, very fast but not deeply cooked, then cooled, served with soy, a mountain of thinly sliced scallion, and fresh ginger, grated. Yes, it's slightly cooked, but the spirit of the dish is crudo, which is another point about things crudo, there can be cooked aspects, but the overall effect is raw, fresh, satisfying."
If you're ready to try some crudo, we have a few choices to start. When Pigs Fly in Kittery, Maine, regularly has crudo on the menu, including dishes like yellow fin tuna poke with avocado, cilantro and radish; cobia tartare with harissa, mint, chickpeas and sour dough or salmon with puffed rice, cucumber and a miso aioli.
At Surf Sushi in Portsmouth, you'll find a mix of "traditional" sashimi and more innovative, composed dishes like scallop with roasted pineapple-jalapeno smash and pomegranate molasses or salmon with horseradish sour cream, scallion, crispy capers, EVOO and black truffle salt. Cava Tapas and Wine Bar in Portsmouth has a tuna crudo on the menu with blood orange pearls, pine nuts and arugula and, at Four Restaurant, also in Portsmouth, you'll find crudo as well. And at Brine, in addition to the crudo specials, dishes like halibut with hazelnut, black truffles, champagne vinegar and EVOO or salmon with Spanish olives, brined golden beets and toasted caraway crouton are artfully served on slate.
You'll find crudo at Moxy Restaurant in Portsmouth as well, where Chef Matt Louis says that his dishes are primarily seasonally driven, honoring our local seafood source.
"It is really driven by the availability of any given type of fish at any time of the year. I have been trying to keep one option in the realm of either something raw or marinated fish or shellfish. When summer flounder was running I used that and I was able to highlight the steelhead trout for a while. Maine shrimp hit its short season, and then oysters from Martha's Vineyard right around Valentine's Day. I don't want to force something if it is not local or running well in season so, depending on the product, that really drives the application in this particular 'category or menu item' spot. Each species needs to be treated a little differently and different ways of showcasing them leads to different techniques of serving them. For me it is 100 percent driven by what fish I should be using at any given time, and what technique best showcases that fish. Like, summer flounder for crudo, Steelhead trout for sashimi. It's about always evolving, always listening to the raw product and letting it tell me what to do."
Find these restaurants mentioned:
www.moxyrestaurant.com
www.fouronstate.com
www.cavatapasandwinebar.com
www.brineoyster.com
www.surfseafood.com
Acorn Kitchen in Kittery is a multipurpose, fully licensed community culinary rental facility for creating and packaging food products for sale, conducting hands-on cooking classes, recipe development and testing, food styling photography, webcast and television production. www.acornkitchen.com
Rachel Forrest is a former restaurant owner who lives in Exeter. Her column appears Thursdays in Go&Do. Her restaurant review column, Dining Out, appears Thursdays in Spotlight magazine. She can be reached by e-mail at rachel.forrest@dowjones.com.