how do you fry your fish?

[dsmith]

We usually either fry or bake. When I fry, I do the basic :cornmeal, flour , salt and pepper recipe. Once in awhile we like it prepared like Long John Silvers. Here is that recipe:

2 lbs fish
1 1/3 cups self rising flour
1 cup water
1 egg
2 tsps sugar
2 tsps salt
With mixer, blend the flour, water, egg, sugar and salt. Dip each filet in batter, coating generously, and quickly drop in hot oil. Fry to golden brown.
(The batter has to be "just" right. Too thin, and it doesn't stick. To thick , and it sticks to the bottom of the pan. Kinda like pancake batter.

[daveedka]

I never batter fry any fish that has a lot of Fat like a catfish. The wet batter seems to seal in the fat too well and give the fish a poor flavor. For catfish or any other fatty or oily fish I use the Aunt Jemima's self rising cornmeal, and use the recipe that is on the back of the bag as a starting point. I double every ingredient except the cornmeal, and then add a pinch of cayeene pepper (For folks who don't like it hot) or sometimes a tablespoon of Cayenne (For the cajun's among us).
I always cook in canola, because peanut oil is expensive and nothing else really tastes right.

Dave

[dsmith]

Thanks David for that point. I never thought about that. Fish that have that "fishy" taste aren't so good. I'll remember that. One time we bought some fish called "whiteing" Ya'll may know what it is , we didn't but decided to try it. That was the nastiest fish we ever ate.

[daveedka]

Whiting is great pan fried with a very light cornmeal caoting. It also makes fantasztic cut bait when nothing else is available. of the two uses, I'd rather fish with it than eat it, but really anything that swims I like, I just like some things better than others. I've eaten things that a lot of folks wouldn't even try to use for bait, and enjoyed them immensly.

dave