Chef Edward Lee is a master of meshing Korean and Southern cuisines, but in this video from Mind of a Chef, he travels to Argentina for a lesson in the native cuisine by Francis Mallmann. Mallmann prepares what he calls trout in "little hell," which has the freshly caught fish encased in salt and roasted over an open fire from both sides.
Mallmann explains that roasting the fish packed in salt makes sure absolutely no moisture is lost: "If you grill it, it will lose water. If you cook it in a pan, it will lose water. But here, all the juices of the trout, of the flesh, stay in the trout, and that's a beautiful part of it." When they're done, the filets are served simply with olive oil and some of the leftover salt.
"One of the things that attracts me to this cuisine is there's no sauces here, there's no garnishes to hide behind," Lee says. "I don't really see it getting any fresher than pulling it out of the lake in the morning. You really appreciate and respect what Earth gives you when you get to eat something that was alive a few hours ago."
