Binging with Babish: The Wire Special

Lake trout. Like egg creams, in New York. No eggs, no cream. Exactly. No lake, no trout. (laughs) For another slice and some potato salad, I'd choose a little more. How did you want that? Half cooked, lots of horseradish. (Unintelligible chatter) (Men lowering their glasses and grunting) Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we're taking a look at something completely unrelated to the holidays, namely The Wire foods. Which starts, first and foremost, with lake trout, and as Bunk says, “no lake, no trout.” This is Atlantic whiting. But whiting is a little hard to come by, so if you can't find it, use haddock, cod or halibut.

Despite hailing from Baltimore, this fish sports a semi-Southern coating, with the dried batter composed of flour, cornmeal, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, and, most importantly, Old Bay (that's which distances it from the south). Mix to combine and then it's time to start making our wet dough, which starts with four cups of whole milk, 2 eggs (or just one if you only have two left and need the other for breakfast brew later) and a little of the spices that we put in the dry brine. That is, garlic powder, onion powder, Old Bay and cayenne. We beat it with a good old fork and then dredge the fish first in the wet batter and then in the (you guessed it) dry batter.

My air fryer is a little small, so I'm going to do one after the other for efficiency reasons, I don't know. Make sure the fish is generously coated with the dry rub before placing it in 350 degree Fahrenheit oil for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown and crispy. And now we're going to go back in time as I show you how to make thick cut French fries. We'll start by peeling some Russet potatoes (we want Russet for their high starch content) and cutting them up. Turn them into thick fries, the kind that would accompany a meal like this.

And then we'll fry them in a little bit of vegetable oil at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until they start to turn blonde. We don't want them to brown completely, just a little crispy on the edges. Then we will drain them on a baking sheet lined with paper towel, separate them (so no one is on top of each other), and freeze them for 24 hours until they are completely frozen. At this point, you can keep these fries frozen for up to three months, so you can have fresh fries whenever you want, but for now I want fries in my face right away.

I'm sorry. Now we are going to fry them for another five to seven minutes until they are golden brown and super crispy. Go ahead and let them drain for a few minutes before placing them in a large bowl with a healthy pinch of kosher salt and tossing them well. Make sure you do this while the chips are still hot (otherwise the salt won't stick). Now go back in time to when I just finished frying my fish and have been keeping my fries warm in a low oven. Serve in the necessary Styrofoam cover, with two slices of white bread and our lake trout on top and, of course, some healthy hot sauce.

And this turned out pretty good, but as you may have seen, lake trout is inexplicably served with the bones still, making for some dangerous bites for the untrained diner. So why don't we try Wee-Bey's personal favorite, beef with lots of horseradish? Beef is made from cheap cuts like eye round and bottom round, so here I have a round roast that I'm going to heavily salt, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 24 hours. This will significantly increase the tenderness of a cheap, lean cut of meat. Once it has rested in the refrigerator, we are going to brown it well on all sides in a very hot pan with a little vegetable oil.

We need a good caramelized crust on the outside of this piece of meat. Then, once it's browned on all sides, we'll brush it with a spice rub. Mainly season with salt with a pinch of freshly ground pepper and a good shake of smoked paprika. This will bring in some of the smoke that we're missing from what would normally have been grilled over charcoal if we're talking about real Baltimore beef. Insert your meat thermometer (coarse) into the thickest part of the roast and bake at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour and a half until it registers 115 degrees internally (for a medium-rare pink color).

Now in Baltimore they would use a machine to cut this as thin as possible, so we compensate by softening it with salt overnight and just cutting it as thin as we can with a very sharp knife. Piling it on top of a soft white bun, a few white onion rings, and of course, way too much horseradish, because if you're going to deal with a bunch of bodies, you might as well clear out those nasal passages. That doesn't make any sense, but oh well. What are you going to do? Here's a nice cross section. Of course, you can cook the meat to your liking, but if you cook it more well-done, you are wrong.

You can tell I like a food on the show when I take a big bite and my hand shakes. Check it out. Heh. See? Well, as hearty as these two meals may have been, neither is as hearty as the quote-unquote "breakfast" enjoyed by dockworkers in the second lower season. An egg was cracked and turned into beer and whiskey. To the bottom. This meal really has it all when you think about it. Carbohydrates. Protein. Alcoholic beverage. The building blocks of life, so to speak. And I must say that even though I did this at about 10 pm, I felt the need for a big nap afterwards.

I couldn't imagine going to work on the docks after this. Yuck. As always, this is all Ziggy's fault.