Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in wilmington north carolina on the carolina coast and today we have the special opportunity to hang out with chef, keith rhodes, and so this is kind of that comfort zone kind of just remix a little bit. He is an extremely talented chef, he's a purveyor and he's so knowledgeable about the local, especially seafood ingredients of the coast of carolina chef keith has kindly arranged for us to go around to meet some of the suppliers. People that supply that harvest ingredients that he serves at his restaurant, we're gon na hang out with chef keith we're gon na eat with him he's gon na cook.

Some amazing dishes and i'm gon na share this entire eating adventure with the amazing chef keith rhodes. In this video right now so to begin our amazing time, touring seafood on the carolina coast with chef, keith rhodes, we're beginning at his restaurant, which is called ketch, he is gon na make for us some breakfast. I know he he mentioned to me some shrimp and grits. Some fish and grits we're gon na have a quick bite to eat here at the restaurant, then before we go straight to the oyster farm and then also up today, we're gon na be seeing the soft shell crabs.

Chef keith is gon na cook out of his food truck. That's gon na be so cool, but anyway, let's stop here at catch. First, this morning, let's meet up with chef keith and have some amazing breakfast good morning, hello, hello, good! Thank you nice to meet you hi micah, yes, chef, keith good morning, good morning. It's a pleasure nice to meet you also good morning.

That's what i needed this morning. First shrimp and grits we're going to do a variant of uh, fried grouper or fish and grapes. Okay and we're also going to do a dish - that's very familiar throughout the carolinas, especially in african-american. Culture called blending.

Susan and i'll explain that as we put it into the pan. But we're going to dive right in with the shrimp and grits onions and peppers. And that's kind of the foundation for everything, not just african american but in the south for sure. So i'm going to add a handful of that here with a lot of stuffies and influence, so you source our shrimp from north carolina here.

These are pamlico shrimp. Here. These are our 16 20 size shrimp today, okay, so we're going to talk around a little bit. This hope this probably won't take any more than about five minutes.

Turning a nice little pinkish right over to the outside side here, we're gon na add a handful of shiitake mushrooms right here, some grape tomatoes right here, i'm going to add some fresh ginger to this dish right here and we use baby ginger, which they call like Pink ginger right here, this is sourced locally grown and i'm going to get a little bit of garlic out of here, a little bit of bacon. Our bacon comes from benton's bacon up in the mountains of tennessee and i'm gon na sprinkle a little bit of old bay in here all right. What exactly is that it's a blend of seasonings that they traditionally use with seafood? Okay, yeah man and it's a chili powder. I would say a little bit of paprika salt cumin celery, uh seed, ground bay.

That's looking really really good right, really good, a little bit of fresh dill. So this mix right here, looking really good. The last thing i'm going to do with this is i'm going to deglaze this pan with a little bit of chinese cherry shrimp and grits is something that came from the lower carolinas um south carolina area, and it got really really popular around the end of the 90S and everybody knows shrimp and grits yeah, so we're done all right and what we're going to do is we're going to plate this until grits grits is mainly cornmeal yeah, it's plus plus those ingredients of cream butter and garlic and salt a little bit of hoop Cheddar and then one of our biggest sellers in the restaurant here, everything is local, very regional. Everything is located very regional and so uh shrimp and grits restaurants um.

When the gullah folks came from west africa to the low country of charleston south carolina, they brought all kinds of different things and at some point, we'll eat carolina, rice and different things like that. But ginger was something that they brought as well, and so it's very popular in gulliver, cooking, you, the use of ginger in ingredients, and so we kind of integrate those things again when we're laying those flavors when you're cooking. And so it's a nice point and it's something you probably won't get when you eat traditional versions of shrimp and grits and fish, and things like that. Okay, this is our traditional version, very cool right on.

So what we're making right now is just a tomato salsa to go with our fish and grits something really fresh and cooling, onions and peppers. That's right that foundation. We're gon na do about a half a cup right there. Now you know um a lot of folks have got this going on a lot of folks either like oprah or they don't like over, and it really kind of depends on how that dish is prepared.

As the okra is sauteing there we're going to move over. To start on the fish and grits, it's a very seasonal, very, very seasonal, carolina coast here exactly, and so we we cook with what's available, and so a grouper is something it's one of our higher end fishes it's kind of like halibut in the north and things Like that and uh it's crazy, because it's gotten super expensive here lately um and what we do is we take all our grouper trim from where we cut all our whole fish. We season it with a little bit of spices and i'm gon na drop this in a little bit of buttermilk all right, so we'll take that kind of drain it just a little bit. I'm going to put it into my seasoned flour here.

Give this a little light toss. You know when we're breading, it's all really about the technique. You know yeah. Definitely so now that we've got our roofer braided we're gon na go ahead and just drop it in the fryer right here, tips about 325 330 and we're going to cut floating all right, nice golden brown.

That's what we're looking for right, quick! But this is beautiful and we're getting ready to plate this in just one moment all right, all right, and so, with this version, we're going to leave the cheese off. Okay stir the salsa around right here, a little bit. We've got local red, grouper adler grids with a tomato ginger basil, salsa super good yeah and again this is very traditional. You could go throughout the carolinas and get grits with fried fish and sliced tomatoes, and so this is kind of that comfort zone kind of just remix a little bit so good smells incredible.

I think we're moving to the dining room to eat. All the dishes are prepared, looks absolutely incredible. The mix - and i love how chef keith adds his classic dishes, but he adds his personal touch to them and i love his use of ginger too. You could smell the ginger on the table as well as those onions.

Let's scoop a little bit of everything, all the shrimp and grits, oh man, i cannot wait limp and susan. They said that hopping john's girlfriend. Oh man, you see that slight char, which is going to be so much flavor on this on this okra. I love that sprinkle a little bit on the inside just on the inside okay, just kind of like boil down sugar, wow cherokee tomatoes, a little bit of olive oil, what a plate of food, shrimp and grits right there in the center.

Oh man, you can see the creaminess of those grits. Oh, i love that that dill in there too, oh yeah, oh yeah, the ginger, that's good! That's incredible! Oh it's so good and i love how you you didn't overcook those shrimp still juicy firm, yet yep bouncy. That's what it is, they're bouncy in your mind, you don't think that it goes together, but once it's kind of integrated and put in front of you and it's going in through a different vessel instead of your mind and your eyes, it's going in through the mouth, The process processes so much differently well said well said that is spectacular, shrimp and grits. Okay, let's try the fishing grits, oh wow, yeah, all the all, the freshness of the fish, the crispiness and then again with those creamy grits.

I love how the grits you can. You can feel the texture they're creamy they're soothing, but not not too rich, like just the perfect balance the limpin limping susan wow. You immediately taste that smokiness from being seared off in the pan. With that brownie.

It's so fragrant. It's got this aroma of the the cured pork, the bacon in there, which is just it's, not overpowering, but it's just like bringing out elevating the flavor. I love the simplicity of it, highlighting okra as an ingredient, okay and then. Finally, the biscuit fresh biscuits that chef keith made the fluffiness.

Oh nice. The molasses is not too sweet, but you really taste the depth of flavor that reduction and then that smokiness being being cooked over the the hickory. You taste the fire in it bite of heirloom tomato local, oh wow, the juiciness of that tomato, oh with the cracked, black pepper on it, oh wow, the the fruitiness of that tomato. What a balance? Oh man, that's a incredible tomato! I love just mixing it up.

Getting that okra going with the grits, you might get a bite of shrimp, you might get a bite of fish and you'll be happy with whatever you get on your fork, wow, so good gon na take a little bit more of the shrimp and grits. Don't think i can decide if i like the shrimp and grits more or the fish and grits they're, both superb they're, just both so perfectly good. Okay, fish and grits is the okra which i'm just gon na, pour on top all right. What what a meal shrimp and grits on the next level so good? That ginger is one of the standout ingredients.

For me, that was the greatest ever breakfast amazing food, and just talking sitting there talking with chef keith and his wife, angela. What i love immediately about them is their respect and their mindfulness of ingredients of uh, where things come from that they cook that they serve on their menu and they're, just so genuine, so nice, it's an honor to have a chance to hang out with them. For a few days from here we're driving to the coast and we're going to go to an oyster farm, this is my first time to the carolina coast. Well, welcome.

Thank you, chef keith, where what are we doing right now so right now we're in holly ridge, north carolina and we're going to meet a good friend of mine, james hargrove, and he has a topsail mariculture and uh we're cultivating local oysters here, oysters that are uh. It's a certain type of oyster that is here that grows all year round and traditionally in north carolina, you only ate oysters. In the winter months they ended with r and uh north carolina. Aquaculture is booming right now, and this is he's one of the guys really responsible for that.

We use these in the restaurants. He surprise uh supplies a lot of the area, we're going to show you all about north carolina oysters. That's awesome mark mark james nice to meet you pleasure nice to meet you there's 150 000 baby oysters in this cooler right here. James did just say a hundred and fifty thousand oysters in that cooler right there, wow and lo.

So how old are these right now at this stage, i don't know when they respond, but probably two months from like inception because, like i guess when the hatchery gets them or the nursery, no, it's the hatchery when they get them when they spawn them. It's three weeks where they're plankton so they're floating around in the water for three weeks and then these, depending on lots of factors this time of year, they're growing, really fast. So, okay, i wouldn't think older than three months. If you think about genetics and chromosomes, most organisms have two sets of chromosomes.

That's why we're called diploids and oysters that are commercially farm raised have been bred to be able to be what's called a triploid and essentially the easiest way to explain it is a seedless watermelon, so that watermelon, you don't have to worry about any seeds at all. It's the same thing here, so these oysters don't put any any energy into growing um gametes, so sperm or eggs, so they put all their energy in towards growing just meat production, so they're growing a lot faster, which is great for us. So this is the australian longline system, it's called the cipa system and we only have a few lines that we're working on getting them up, but um. This first line right here you can see, has some floats on it.

Um those floats on the basket cause it when the tide comes up to flip, and so these oysters are getting tumbled on the tide twice a day, and so they get a great shape. That's really important for the development of the oyster. Yes, yes, the water like rushing yeah, yeah and, and it prevents them from being, maybe stuck in one position in the bag for too long right, ready, yup nice, because each of these oysters that are grown regionally like each little water body, is slightly different. Based off of the environmental parameters and stop sound is kind of a lagoon system which is very rare in north carolina, and so the water is kind of retained in the system.

Longer it's a little slower, there's more sediment in the water and that's kind of you know all those things are going into the flavor of the oyster, and so it's a special set of circumstances and conditions that line up just right and right now. The salinity yesterday was 32 parts per thousand, which is high. I think ocean water is 35, so it's right there at a high high salt, um and we'll taste a couple in just a second i'm going to hop in. We have some over here.

Oh, it's not too deep such an educational experience. Learning about the oysters here and also this is one of the great oyster regions of the united states of the world. There are blue crabs out here. Oh yeah, there are garfish kind of look like alligators, shrimp, uh, trout, um, all kinds, red fish, yeah yeah.

Oh that's a thing and that's. What's amazing about these oysters, um is they're sort of like a nursery habitat yup. Oh yeah we're going to sample some of these. Oh yeah.

These are market ready. It's been if, if i'm remember correctly, getting close to a year less than that, but there's differences in the size right, but uh yeah, but for the most part these are. These are all ready to go just the difference in mud, yeah, a couple inches yep and you can see the growth lip on them and you know a lot of people i like to think of oysters, like snowflakes they're, all unique, yeah yeah and they all have Different little shells that are slightly different um that one's got some really awesome purple screaming. That's really what you like right here: yeah, because that that meat is laying down in there yeah and so that.

That's that's what you want! You know you're going to have a nice size, all the love that's put into growing these. This is a beautiful oyster, washer enough to knock somebody. Nice clean enough, yeah, nice, 150, 000. yeah.

It almost looks like a it's almost like a sand, but they started out. Yeah, they started out basically as grains of sand when they are getting ready to transition from when they're plankton larvae to um a baby oyster. They take kulch material microculture, which is just shell that has been crushed and they spread it out on a thin layer and they've got the um size down so that one oyster will settle on that one piece of culture, and so they really are like sand grains. When they first start out, it's amazing to be able to see this entire process.

The entire cycle that james is sharing with us all the way from those little tiny baby oysters to the full-grown oysters. And it's it's really uh a process of nurturing well of time and giving them the environment, the natural environment all natural to let them nurture naturally, and then just james, fostering it to to work that way. But it's really the the time in the nature that is integral to the production and to the raising of oysters in a natural way like this okay. So we're we're heading to the shore to the live oak tree, where we're gon na sample some of the oysters.

It's beautiful here too, the nature pristine, what an incredible spectacular location on the banks we uh docked up on an island underneath live oak trees, so peaceful, so clean and pure and beautiful, and we're about to crack open some oysters. You so good! Look at that! Okay, good easily be one of the most beautiful places that you ever eat, an oyster, not to mention freshest, oyster, that you'll ever eat mmm. Oh, that's a oh! That's a beautiful thing! Oh wow! Oh nothing, not too salty! Yet just that taste of the sea. The purity absolutely sensational, yeah they're, sweet too so sweet yeah.

I do want to taste it with lemon too, just for the just for the purity of it cheers my friend james okay, let me get in there come on james cheers, cheers guys ma'am wow, that's so good, even even though even having them on the ice really Cold just takes it to a different level from room, temp yeah. You know what i mean yeah, absolutely you know yes, i want to put them on. I set it for a little bit because yeah there's something about it. When it's nice, it's a little bit refreshing and then the salt and then yeah, there's nothing like an oyster to allow you to really taste the scent of place, like the oyster, that's for sure embodies where it was grown.

Unlike anything else on the planet. Okay, you can't that's, there's nothing else. What a statement yeah! Thank you very much. Oh man juicy melt in your mouth, not overpowering in any way, but just like.

Oh just a pure harmony, a balance here, wow yeah yeah, it's good with the hot sauce too good. Both ways yeah man but yeah - definitely with the lemon. It's just like the purity of it. You can just taste the essence of the oyster, the sweetness of it, but i do love hot sauce too.

Oh one got away. This scene almost looks like a painting straight up like we're in a painted scene here with the colors, with the light with the live oak tree on the boat, so coming in from surf city wow, some of the greatest oysters you will have anywhere in the world. Just blown away by this entire experience hanging out with chef keith, seeing where the ingredients well, when you go to catch chef, keith's restaurant, this is the back of the scenes. This is where his oysters come from and just to see this gives the food that you eat the food that we eat more meaning the process that goes into it.

It's an honor to also hang out with james who puts so much love into the oysters that he raises yeah i mean they don't even need anything. Sometimes it's really nice just to taste the purity of it. You know exactly where it's coming from yeah that sweet balance, sweet and salty balance, last oyster, very nice, the taste of nature at its finest three of them. That was incredible and not only were the oysters, some of the best that you'll ever have.

But that was an education on sustainable farming of oysters in the greatest quality ultimate care. Huge. Thank you to james for giving us a tour for showing us uh how he produces how he takes care of oysters. His oysters are available again at keith's restaurant at catch.

You'll find them so you can eat them when you're in wilmington and then at a variety of supermarkets. I'll have all his information in the description box below from here we're going down the coast to carolina beach. I believe, where we're gon na meet up with keith and angela's friend, who produces soft shell crabs and there's gon na, be a surprise there waiting for us. So we drove down the coast to a place called carolina.

Beach met up with uncle phil yeah uncle phil and uncle fella. What yeah you do well, i commercially fish and mostly crabs. Okay - and we also do soft shells - and i think that's what you're really here for and uh in the wintertime, i'll oyster, so chef keith has been telling me that you've been getting crabs from him for over 20 years, wow yeah yeah. It's been a very long time and all all sorts of crabs are especially soft shells, especially soft shells.

Okay, that's the majority and then we'll uh. Take it to the food lab over here and uh yeah, we'll we'll cook some and uh. Let you really see from shed or from farm to table per se and see how that really tastes cool right right. All right! Let's go back here, we'll take a look all right! Okay, so that thing was bought 38 years ago today, awesome now, here we are stepping underneath the house, the softshell crab.

What would you call this? A molting room? Yeah, yes, absolutely, and so these that tray right there. Most of these crabs are uh 24 48 hours away. I can tell by putting my finger up under his shell right, there he's starting to crack open. So what i'll do is we call that a buster, because it's starting to bust and then i'll take this crab and i throw the ones that are getting closer to busting in this tray? Just so i know where they are coming out of their shell and you can see where you can actually see it's starting to crack right along there.

Yeah then i'll. Stick them in this right here now these are. You have molten crabs like see that female right there she's just come out of her shell, so they've released that shelf yeah yeah. Look that this is that that's just the top the top shelf yeah, so they leave when they come out of that shell.

They leave everything behind. Even the lungs get a new set of lungs, wow yeah, that's cool yeah, it's really cool, incredible and so yeah i'll just go ahead and yeah i'll just go ahead and stick him in here, because what you want to do is once he comes out of that. Shell he's like a deflated balloon and he's got she's got wrinkles in her and she can barely move everything. So you have this very short period of time.

Yes, when you can harvest them before the shell gets hard yeah about. How long is that window? It changes with the water temperature now that we're cooling off a little bit uh it's about three hours, three hours yeah. So it's something that you have to constantly monitor and really like care for yeah in the fall i'll, keep it running and then you know you might have six hours so but yeah not much sleep wow, and so these are the empty shells. There's is that another soft ground, but or not? I think this is that yeah i'll pull them out, put them in the refrigerator and that stops all of the getting hard and then keith gets them and he's quick on cleaning them and getting them fried up and he takes care of them in the kitchen.

Oh yes, he does that's my hand, that's a full-size manhand there and uh. That's a nice crab right there. That's a big male right there. Those guys are ready.

Oh yeah, ready to eat. Oh yeah beauty, that's a big one! You can feel that oh yeah, it's actually a fascinating process and a fascinating creature. The way it does that too, it's just it's incredible: yeah beautiful, almost a transformation yeah. So these are a tray of soft shells ready to go we're on our way to catch food.

Truck which is in the backyard here, it is not gon na get fresher you can. It would be impossible to get fresher than this wow yeah. I usually take the hood off all right and then we clean it so you're left with a crab. That looks just like that right now, all right, absolutely awesome: chef, keith drove down the food truck the catch food truck, so we're gon na step into the kitchen here we're gon na cook in the food truck.

Oh, it's so cool. What's the story of the food truck, oh wow, so the food truck really kind of came about because we opened up a very high-end, restaurant and i'll. Just say that when we opened up that restaurant everyone couldn't really make it in the front door. It was just at a level of cooking and that everybody couldn't make it so we wanted to be able to have something that was super accessible but still serve the food with integrity like we do and uh that's how the food truck was born per se.

Most of the time food truck it's already pre-booked and right now we do a lot of work movie production here in the area. There's a really big studio spring challenge movie studio here, so we're actually out on set many days of the week more. I mean more accessible to everybody and also well it's transportable it it drives, and so you can pull up to gatherings uh. It's the perfect social food vehicle and also with the same philosophy of chef, keith and his sustainable approach to seafood, his again integrity and friendliness.

Oh, it's so cool and it's so cool to have this experience where he drove it here to uncle phil's house to get the soft shell crabs. What did you call it from shed to shed to mouth to mouth some chopped bacon? I've got some fresh jalapenos. I've got some cut dill and some garlic powder take a little bit of mayo, and this really well and that's going to be our backdrop. A soft shell, just kind of put it right in the buttermilk a little bit and then we're going right into the bread and just a real gentle ready.

You don't need to pat it down really heavy or anything like that. Okay, but i'm gon na transfer. It right to this pan right, quick crabs go into the buttermilk and into the flour mixture. Just gently kind of shaken off those are ready to go in the deep fryer.

You can probably hear that hiss they're just popping they're frying so beautifully. Oh man, that aroma of the top shell crabs so good. That's experience, man ready in the south. We see hot out the grease hot, healthy grease.

That's it right. Soft shell crab hot out the grease fresh as possible fresh out the grease fries soft shell crabs made into sandwiches beautiful plating man. I cannot wait to try it little man. Thank you, chef, pee, yeah for sure absolutely amazing.

It's our pleasure north carolina's, finest serving right out the window yeah. Let's do it give those to mark his wife. The final finishing touch chef had made this pickle from yellows. I think it's a squash but shaved very, very thin, made into a pickle, it's raw, so good that literally less than 10 minutes ago yeah it was in the tank.

Now it's in the bun wow, it's a big crab yeah, they call them whales. We go another cheers, cheers bam, yeah all right. Oh oh wow! Yes, that is so serious, i'm seriously good! So it's so crispy! Oh and i love your batter. It's just perfectly seasoned.

You see the skin and the shell. Well, you see that medius on the ends. Meatiness on the inside extra crispy wow, that's sensational, the aioli that you need too. That's the ultimate sharpshoot crab, crispy chocolate crab sandwich and it's delicious sharp tooth man.

It is our pleasure for sure i'm glad you enjoyed it and then there's pickles with those red peppercorns in there mm-hmm with the the dylan now so good wow chef. Please hear the man absolutely awesome pleasure and what i've loved so much is that the whole concept of today is that we've seen where your ingredients come from, that's right, which always makes eating more meaningful for sure the work that was behind the production of the ingredient That you then treated with so much respect right to serve well, you know that's what we do um, we believe in it and we we really live it. We do it. You know from from out there in the ocean, harvesting, oysters mussels, soft shells and whatever else we can get our hands on yep try to make it tasty awesome right on so cool.

Thank you chef. While it was good next up, we met up with anna. Yes, sir and anna, what do you i own? A company called shellam seafood and i harvest uh wild shellfish, so clams oysters mussels and stone crab all by hand directly to chefs here in north carolina and keith is one of my favorites to supply so cool yeah, and so we're just going to kind of go Out we've been waiting for the tide to get low, so we can go out and get the wild muscles, but we're going to do something special with the mussels a little bit later and just kind of let you see what we do with indigenous ingredients here, how We just take something right from the hand right from the ocean minutes later we're creating something super fabulous. It's a beautiful day out here.

Thank you, yeah. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, and this is a beautiful place down here too chairs. Would you like another cooler to sit on? Maybe the max me a very few, if not the only female fishmonger in this particular area, yeah yeah in this area, it's a very male, dominated yeah yeah for sure, especially with the shellfish she's, the only one that does it yeah so that yeah! That's that's a real big thing here.

You know and you've been chef. You've been uh friends with anna for a long time. You've been yeah absolutely for 10 15 years, y'all ever want to go to yeah and he kind of started out helping me source these local muscles. That uh other folks didn't want to deal with.

You know anyone to cook with and she took the opportunity to go ahead, get them for me and ever since then, there's been no looking back. She's uh expanded, not just give them to me, but there are other chefs that want them in the triangle area. In central north carolina, so it's just a great thing. So these particular mussels they hold a lot of the salt water, and so it's very important that you have time to purge these and they're a little bit different than the pei mussels they're a little bit larger and the water is, you know they take on the Flavor of each little terroir, where we're at or where they're harvested so a little bit more, where the water's not circulating as much.

The salinity tends to be a little bit higher than where they're harvested and the water's getting lots of flow. But i will say that, if you're doing dishes, where you add the mussels to broths or something like that, these mussels tend not to really work well, unless they're purged really sunny when we left looks like a storm is coming up, so the wind has picked up, But that's okay, it's actually! Oh, my head is blowing away. The wind is strong, but this is the spot and a beautiful spot too. That's over.

Is this an actual? What is this? Okay, it's an estuary that can be publicly fished, all right, um, but it's maintained by the state and it's just a really healthy, just a really healthy island yeah, exactly okay, okay and this little hori hori knife and we just push them up. And then i always d beard them, but they grow to between two to six inches and they grow in these little clusters and um. A lot of i've noticed a lot of baby stone crabs in my boat afterwards, so there's little stone crabs that will eat their way through the bottom of the shell and live inside the mussel and um they're, beautiful they're, so good, they're, so salty. So we're just gon na go through this grass and there's a lot right here: hey little mini jackpot and you never eat these raw.

You always cook them. Okay, i wish you could eat them raw, because i imagine that would be amazing. My favorite way when we eat them is just to grill them and let them pop open slightly okay, um not to overcook them. So it's a little bit more work for the consumer, but it's well worth it well worth it and we just have to wander and search.

Okay, yeah! You are fast, but what a location, what a cool place, the ocean's just across there yeah we're in this. It almost looks like we're in a grasslands meadow where we're surrounded by sea. It's beautiful in this muddy, muddy out crop full of grass and anna. You are an expert.

Well you just! I can't even see them but she's. Just like, oh there's, a cluster of muscles right there, which you just harvest into the basket, look for their little lips, just like when you clam sometimes and they're so cool get trained to it. This is so cool. It's really wet right there.

So let's go okay! You want to try yeah sure, they're, called sea beans see beans. It's like an asparagus cucumber. Thank you. Would you like one? So a lot of the chefs that i work with will use these for um like a crudo or a raw preparation.

That's cold with these sea beans, they're good, oh wow, that's saltiness, yeah, yeah, salty brininess, and in the summer they turn bright red and the red bean part gets a little sweeter but they're. Oh that's, delicious yeah, they're! Really yummy! You can imagine the pop! That would add, and the texture too, to the fish cluster all right, yeah and i leave these little baby ones behind all right, because it just makes sense. Excuse me micah quite a bit while i'm out here, oh yeah, so when the tide finally drops all along here, is this beautiful oyster bed, okay and touch back where you can see the divots down, there's stone crab nests and i catch those all by hand. So everything is very like um.

Look at this hands ever zero waste. Wow there's another big cluster iphone um. Nobody else is harvesting these in north carolina they're, not even on our trip ticket program. Nobody really wants them yeah! Well, they they have not been a commodity and they we've been eating them.

For my husband and i've been eating them for a long time, but uh no other fisherman was marketing them or selling them it was. It was so exciting to introduce something that they weren't used to, and that was totally unthought of but, like i said, they're, not even on the trip ticket program, you're showing respect to the ingredient, harvesting it and then chef keith is showing so much respect in the Way that he prepares it exactly it's both sides and that's so important one year, especially when you're eating yet another scenario where chef keith serves ingredients when you're eating at catch or eating the food that chef keith prepares just think about anna here harvesting mussels wild on This muddy embankment in the rain in the wind in every element and loving it loving it and loving it. Look how like it's a great time and i've known enough for approximately 45 minutes now and already like your happiness out here, is just shining like you. You can tell that you love it.

Thank you. You can tell that you love it like from the start. You know, and that's that makes a huge difference. So thank you so much.

I agree. I love working with people who share that same passion and then and then yeah then take that back to the restaurant, and this is the behind the scenes of what happens so cool to see so as you're washing them. You can see they have this beautiful pearl. Sheen to them nice, oops, they're, beautiful, fried lobster, tails or lobsters, and they stack them very expensive.

The beard is, the beard is what holds into the marsh it's like their legs, okay, that little and that soaks up all that flavor. So once you remove that um, then it's ready to steam, but if you leave it on there's a lot more longevity, okay, so nice to hear you talk about my product, they are really pretty. I'm really happy with the sizing see that's our dealer's tag. Okay, yay! I love you guys so so so! Oh yes, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So much.

You cannot be out there in the elements through rain through wind out on that island digging through the mud searching for wild mussels. If you did not love that anna truly, that was incredible. Thank you for taking the time to host us to show us what you do and what you love and that amazing natural ingredient, those local north carolina mussels, we're heading to a restaurant called bento box, where we're gon na meet up with one of chef, keith's friends Who he it's a japanese restaurant, so we're gon na eat, japanese food, but then also chef keith is to cook up a couple dishes: okay, everybody say hello to chef lee, how you doing what's up chef, i'm good! How are you awesome? It's just as much of a pleasure to meet you too. Thank you.

This is like an incredibly special meal, collaboration between chef, lee and chef keith, and that's the other thing. This is awesome, so cool, i'm so stoked today about that, because the last time he and i cooked together was for a private dinner for an auction that people had been on just to have us come for not wearing that fresh wasabi. James. Can i hand this to you and you can wrap the rest? So that's the toro.

The last time we were supposed to go was when we went to thailand. Oh yeah, so that'll be sashimi. That'll put right in here the fattiest part. It is okay.

Yeah! Look at that marble that heavy fatty content so much flavor, just butter. Yes, it melts it melts yup, a fresh wasabi that makes all the difference so so sushi is just something that you fully fully love. So i absolutely love sushi. I love asian food in general.

Okay, i mean i love the asian culture in general. You know, i'm i'm somewhat like you. My wife is asian as well: partially she's, half cuban and half korean all right and uh. You know when i started with this guy in rhode island in 1985.

I never imagined how much it would open up. My my palate, my mind, my mentality to just understanding how to find and use just the simplest ingredients. There's three ingredients we have here so i'm gon na put this on here and then we're gon na go, get some sauce shells going. Okay, awesome! Instead up a surfboard uh, these roasted oysters that are stacked with slow, cooked collards, bittens, bittens, bacon, pimento cheese.

We use a little bit of panko breadcrumbs on the top there and then we just bake those off in the oven. What do you call? What do you call these? So these right here are dirty salad, oysters dirty salad, yeah, it's something that we feature they catch on the restaurant, so these are. These are local, coconut cream, plus carolina gold, local soft shell, crap yup soft shell crab. What a combination is this something you've made before, or did you uh? No i'm making this up right now, just awesome! This can be your role mark.

This is called masago aurora beautiful this next one is one that's already kind of on our menu james. You want to take this a role, unlike anything, i've ever had and chef lee's creativity just came up with that, just off the top of your head and with the ingredients that went into it that soft shell, the center of it, but then wrapped up in ingredients. North carolina jumbo lump crabby cream cheese, we use a little bit of rose in here some fresh dill and celery seed. That's all it is for our crab dip and uh.

This is something common in the south. Absolutely absolutely north carolina crab dip you'll see that's right. Many different ways: it has a nice brown across the top, and that's really good uh from the cheese makes it that much umptuous we're gon na transfer this into a container and serve it with some north carolina, pork rinds. What are you making next? I'm going to make a miso sauce for the mussels.

It's been slightly boiled uh, steamed, steamed, steamed them yeah for about a minute to open them up and to release some of the liquids. Okay, that's trapped in them, but you can just see the difference in the muscle meat. Those are the mussels that we harvested earlier this morning, yeah just natural completely natural chef. Lee is over here making a miso sauce for the mussels thai basil micro greens.

Okay, nice, is it all the way up? Oh no, it's not there. You go we're all sitting down for a family meal. This is the best it's great to hang out with you and your family. We appreciate that.

We appreciate you. Thank you again feel free to just tear in, however, i'm gon na i'm gon na dig into those mussels since we harvested them since they're, right out of the wok right now and that combination. Thank you for this amazing meal, cheers so good. You taste the sea, water flavor.

Oh, it's such a complexity of of natural taste to it and then, with that amazing miso glaze that it doesn't overpower the flavor of the actual mussel in case that freshness shines. This sushi surfboard i'm going to grab a few of them. Magurou. Okay, oh and i got ta, try this soft shell.

Okay, this is the softshell second version of the softshell crab roll, the spicy version, the freshness, the fried top shell crab. Oh, it's delicious! I like that, that um freshness of the asparagus in there too soft shell crab roll - that is a beautiful creative roll wow it on the top. It is everything everything southern as it gets. Oh wow, oh you feel like the strands of the crab in there, but it's so rich, so cheesy so creamy and the pork rinds makes the perfect chip just scoop it off.

This one is the otoro, the fatty tuna belly, one of the great single ingredients. It liquefies on your tongue such an incredible table of food, incredible people, so we're gon na sit here. We're gon na keep digging in clear the plates and just enjoy our time hanging out and again. Something to emphasize is the use of local north carolina ingredients.

Ah, yeah wonderful meal. Thank you! Okay. We got poke next poke raw cubed fish, hawaiian style with pork rinds tube. I don't think i've ever had that combination, but they had like.

I like the fried like pork, it. Oh that's, crunch mmm. Oh so good! You taste uh. Is there a little bit of miso, focusing on the freshness of that tuna chef, keith's fried oysters, which is again? This is a dish that he serves at the restaurant, the blue cheese slot at the bottom.

If you taste the oysters crispy that melts in your mouth at the same time, okay, next up for the roll on the menu, the oyster baked oyster with collard greens, i i i made that on the fly like i'm sitting there, making stuff that i just made. I'm really right. I made it up right now when he was standing. Yeah, oh wow, yes, soft, shell, special, the combination of failures, the complexity, the cheese, the collard greens.

That's like a complete meal in one shell, in a single bite, we spent two full days with chef keith and his wife, angela and family, what an incredible time we had and what a learning experience it was. But first i just want to say thank you to chef, keith and angela for going out of your way to truly make this memorable to show us the local ingredients, where you source your ingredients, the friendly people that we've met and the just the quality of ingredients And the amazing cooking, it's just been an incredibly special time more than i had hoped for big. Thank you to everyone who was part of this. Who was part of our time on the carolina coast and i'll.

Have all the information in the description box below that you can check out when you're in wilmington go, say hi to chef, keith he'll be at ketch restaurant, some of the best food you can eat so good, ah just positivity and passion that shines. So i want to say a huge thank you for watching this video. Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, click subscribe now and also click. The little bell icon and that way, you'll immediately get notified of the next video that i publish thanks again for watching goodbye from wilmington north carolina, and i will see you on the next video.