Brad Makes Campfire Seafood

Vinnie, you hear that?

Nothing.

Just sizzling shrimp.

(upbeat music)

(pot dings)

We're set up here in the woods,

we've got our multi-zone fire all dialed in ready to go.

If you guys wanna learn more about how to make

that incredible multi-zone backwoods fire,

tune in we have another no, no.

No, no, no.

Check out.

So just say that?

Check out a previous episode we did about that.

Check this out we got a nice little thing going.

All right I set up my work area,

we're gonna make a little dinner back here.

Got this pretty sweet cooler and it really allows me

to bring other types of foods into the woods

other than just the usual stuff,

hamburgers and hot dogs,

this ain't no baseball game.

So what we packed up in here,

check this out Vinnie get in here.

So we got some oysters,

Patagonian Wild Red Shrimp, very nice.

We got some langoustines all the way

from friends down in New Zealand.

And then I got some salmon collars

that I'm soaking in a little suoey sauce.

Bear with the bag,

they're gonna get real pretty on the grill.

First this, we're gonna do salmon collars.

Whoa, get out of here you ain't no fish.

Put those right over there,

let them smoke, let them cook a little.

We'll do skin-side down first.

I got these shell-on shrimp.

So yeah we're just gonna throw these right on the grill now.

We're not gonna clean them or nothing,

just throw them right on.

Cook them through but not crazy

and then I'll put them in the cast iron

over there which is hanging out.

I put a little butter in it,

some spices and we'll do like a little

spicy kinda buttery shrimp thing,

I mean how bad could that be?

Just gonna want to flip these little bugs up,

real nice little shrimp.

I just wanted to get a little smoke,

a little char onto the skin.

So the ones in the hotter spots,

I can just put right back into here.

They need invent something for smoke in your eyes.

How you doing over there, Vinnie?

Oh yeah, maybe they call that goggles.

Here's a good little tip.

Oh, hot!

When you're cooking fish,

if the skin doesn't wanna release, wait.

It will when it's ready.

This one's starting to move around.

Look at the color on that, huh?

What's nice about the collars is

that they're relatively cheap.

As they're getting more popular,

they seem to be getting a little more expensive.

They're fatty, they're delicious,

but they're also kind of tough,

it's not like a big floppy flaky filet.

They call it the collar because I guess it's, you know,

a collar.

It's like right behind the head before the filet,

that little chunk there where that little fin is.

The fin, well which fin, Vin?

Fish have several fin.

They got these fin,

I think they call them the pectoral fins.

And then they got, I think the dorsal.

Different species have all different kinds of fins.

Vinnie, that's a different television show, all right?

Stay on topic.

Those don't really need too, too much.

Put a little bit of lemon in there,

let that get a little color.

All right, I got a little bit of spice,

a little custom blend here.

So I'm just gonna let that heat up

and then I'll put it off to the side again.

I'm gonna add a little bit of butter to these shrimp,

let that melt and start getting nice.

Oh, a little bit of paper.

I got a mixture here.

Oh, it's like a little riff on like Old Bay.

Now I got another little thing here.

It's kind of like Aleppo, but it's like a Maras Biber.

The salmon collars, you can tell when they're done.

You can start probing around and the meat goes

from that like almost very glossy deep

almost red-orange to that more opaque lighter pink,

the fish is done.

And the collars can really take a hammering with heat.

They're so fatty it's almost

like you wanna cook them pretty hard.

The shrimp cooked pretty fast anyway.

The best way to check is to take one out, cut it open.

The shrimp should be white all the way through,

not that like translucent raw kind of shrimp looking.

I mean again, these are references.

These are ideas that hopefully

you guys can find some inspiration on,

get out in the woods and cook for yourself.

It's not like oh cook this shrimp for 15 minutes

because your fire is gonna be a little different,

your hot spot might be a little colder than mine,

yadda yadda yadda.

So it's like you guys know what to do,

well then just do it.

Not just because I'm sitting on a Yeti cooler,

but I'll tell you what,

I was pretty surprised,

I mean those fish were ice cold.

We're not 25 miles off in the Appalachian trail,

schlepping all the cast iron and stuff like that,

so save your comments, all right?

We walked in about 15 minutes

and just wanted to get into the woods

and get out of the kitchen and just try different things.

Look at those shrimp.

That's a beautiful thing.

All right, so this shrimp are pretty much done.

I'm gonna let them hang out.

Let's try this bad boy out.

I've never cooked these in the woods.

I mean you can eat the claw,

but I think it's all about that tail, baby.

So let's try to get that a little chahhed up.

Then we'll flip them around and get those claws cooking.

I wanna finish them in the potatoes.

Oh, something smells good, huh?

Yeah langoustines, very similar,

it's almost like a little mix between like

a giant shrimp and a lobster.

I've been wrong before,

maybe we should Google that one.

Whoa, nelly!

Look at that, huh?

Hot hot hot.

Why don't you use your tongs there, bonehead?

Get that lemon,

a little squeezy-squeeze.

So we just melted some butter in there.

I put a little bit of that Old Bay riff on there

and some scallions and we put a little bit

of that green garlic in there too.

That'll be a nice little sauce

for the langos, for the shrimp, for whatever you want.

We got some nice juices coming out

of the heads of these langoustines here.

These things are starting to happen pretty good.

The tail is starting to curl a little.

It kind of cooks like a small lobster.

So I'm just gonna place them.

Hoo!

(electronic music)

Hoo!

All right.

For me, a perfect grilled oyster is like 70% raw.

So like the outside gets a little color,

it doesn't look raw, it looks cooked,

but in the inside when you eat it,

it's just pow!

A little ocean popper, man.

Oh, ocean popper, Vinnie.

Cut, don't film this.

Tell you I haven't learned anything.

You want Vinnie to not film something,

you certainly don't say,

Vinnie don't film this.

So you got your flat side

and then you got the cup on the other side.

Place that bad boy like so.

I like to take the cup-side down and as they get hot,

they'll start to pop open a little.

Oysters, like I said,

they really depend on the size as cook times go

and how you like them because you can just eat these raw.

So let's face it,

it really comes down to personal preference.

As soon as they start to pop open is

when I like to eat them.

As soon as they open up,

I like to just put them on a little plate.

Let them cool off a little.

Oh this is it, baby.

So it's got that little inductor on top I like to cut.

Oh yeah.

Look at that, bud.

Like I said, cooked on the outside a little

but you can tell that's raw on the inside still.

(slurps)

Oh.

So boom.

We got a little appetizer.

Everything else is done, we're good to eat.

Oh, meaty man, look at that.

Cooked all the way through.

Oh that's good, man.

I'm not just saying that, that's good.

Catch them all.

Oh that was good that shrimp, man.

(acoustic music)

Like real (beep) good.

Oh look I'm gonna peel, oh god no.

Oh yeah look at that, Vinnie.

Huh?

Look at that buttery salmon.

Oh good god.

Tell me you don't like salmon, I'll tell you try a collar.

Perfect.

Fatty, it's almost like salmon belly.

Oh it's delicious.

Let's try a lango.

Oh god.

Oh it looks like crab meat.

Right in the old butter sauce, huh?

Ho ho, that was awesome.

If the tail doesn't wanna come off,

that means it's not cooked.

And a great way to open these bad boys up,

similar to a lobster tail,

you just crack them between your hand like that.

Push those little spikes in.

Oh god maybe you don't do that.

(slurps)

Oh that was good, Vinnie.

All right, what I'm gonna do here is take my long tong,

do the old long stretch, I'm gonna pull

that little heat element out now because we're done cooking.

We have enough little coals under

there just to keep our food hot.

All right we can all gather around the campfire,

me and all my friends.

So you stumble across someone

in the back of the woods here cooking

(sniffs)

man that smells a little funny, huh?

It don't smell like hot dogs and hamburgers or bratwurst.

Hey all great, all fun,

but look at that spread.

Middle of nowhere.

With the right cooler,

you can bring anything into the woods.

I brought Vinnie.

Man I'll tell you what,

I wish I had this at my house.

It's fun to cook on.

It's a lot of work,

but as soon as you get a little system down like so,

you can really just start to have fun and play around

and start cooking with different ingredients

and I mean it don't too get much cooler

than sitting around a fire next to some mossy mountain here

eating langoustines and salmon collars

and some pretty gnarly looking shrimp.

Bon appétit, baby.

Bears, you're worried about bears?

Yeah well, we'll clean up real well,

we'll get a big fire going later.

Any seafood trash, if you have garbage

you can put it up in a tree or you can hike it out.

But we should be fine.

I hope so.

No Vinnie, I ain't noodling, man.

You know what,

I do a lot of things today

but I ain't noodling for fish, okay?

Bring my own seafood, pal.

All right,

if I go noodling I'll end up sticking my hand

in one of them holes pouring out snapping turtle,

missing about three fingers, all right?

I'm good.

Freaking noodling.

Are you going noodling, Vin?

Yeah I didn't think so, bud.

But wanna fly me down somewhere

and go noodling with one of them boys

who knows what they're doing, I guess I'd do it.

Stick my hand right in there.

Oh Jesus, Vinnie.

Did you do that?

No, no.

I don't know if I have a corkscrew.

(yells happily)

Who's better than us, Vinnie?

(smooth music)

I don't wanna go to urgent care, Vinnie.

I didn't cut my leg off.

(scoffs)

Urgent care.

No, we got this nice tape.

Don't worry about that, Vinnie.

Everything's good, babe.

Just don't look at it, don't look at me, Vin.