Is the best fish the one served fresh out of the sea?

Throughout God's life, it has been said that the best fish is the one just out of the sea. However, there are myths that do not hold up... a session at Madrid Fusión, like the one seen this Tuesday on the benefits of fish maturation in a roundtable at the Dreams space, which included three chefs expert in cooking fish on the grill, stewed, or raw: Jerónimo Athuel, a Brazilian chef from the Ocyá restaurant in Rio de Janeiro; Diego Schattenhoffer, an Argentine settled in the Canary Islands and chef at the restaurant Taste 1973 (with one Michelin star) in Aroa, Tenerife; and Carlos del Portillo, chef of the restaurant Bistronómika, in Madrid.

Moderated by the gastronomic journalist Jesús Lens, the talk was very insightful from the moment Lens asked the audience if they knew what fish maturation was. Only three people raised their hand. Athuel cleared up the doubts for the rest. "It's the way to maintain the freshness and quality of the fish for a longer time. But this can only be done if the fish is of quality. 'Without quality, there is no maturation,'" he specified.

Maturation requires the fish (whole or sliced as it comes from the sea or scaled and gutted) to be kept in a refrigeration chamber at a temperature between -0.5ºC and 2ºC, under conditions that allow the specimen to lose water. A one-kilo red mullet needs two days of maturation; a two-kilo sole does well with three or four days; a 20-kilo grouper extends to ten days, but there are larger pieces like swordfish that chefs like Schattenhoffer subject in his restaurant in Aroa to extreme maturation of several months.

With maturation, the fish reaches the table and the diner's palate at the most optimal point of flavor and texture. Carlos del Portillo explained that at Bistronómika, they mature hakes, sea basses, monkfish, turbot, groupers, and red mullets. "It's about the fish reaching its purest essence, being at its optimal point. And that optimal point is not when you take it out of the sea. With a certain maturation, the fish gains in flavor and texture. That grouper that has just arrived maintains the 'rigor mortis' and needs that rest, which is a word I prefer over maturation, so that it loses moisture." And he insists: "A two-kilo sole is impossible to eat fresh, it's very tough, it comes like a board, you can't even put a knife through it. We scale it, gut it, and remove all traces of blood and it loses that excess water and 'rigor mortis'. And when you serve it after the rest, you put in the knife and when you pull it out, it's like pulling it out of a five-jotas acorn-fed ham," he detailed.

"They were amazed by the flavor"

In his restaurant, he says that there have been diners who, after being served a sea bass with all the flavor and texture offered by the maturation process, exclaimed: "Damn Carlos, I had never eaten sea bass like this." That's the difference.

Del Portillo assures that anyone can mature fish at home that they buy in the morning. "Those who have tried to let it rest in the refrigerator for two or three days and then cooked it have been amazed by the flavor and texture. Just with those two days, the fish has improved," summarized the chef from Madrid, who believes there is still a long way to go in this field. "We are still taking the first steps."

The three chefs almost jumped at the moderator when he asked if maturation involves the same process as salting. "No! This has nothing to do with salt," they snapped at him.

Both Athuel and Schattenhoffer emphasized the importance of the fish being of quality, because it is that quality that maturation allows to preserve from the moment the fish leaves the sea until it is served on the table. "The magic of maturation is in maintaining the quality that this fish offers us."