Off The Deep End: One Fish, Two Fish, Deep-Fried Bluefish

As you may remember from previous posts, there was, at one point, 17 pounds of bluefish filets in my freezer, and much of that was still there over several months later. Because fish probably shouldn't be kept for that long, and because my roommates and I wanted to put other stuff in our freezer, we decided to get rid of a lot of it. We'd already baked plenty of it and made fishcakes a couple different times, but this time I wanted to just try deep frying the fillets.

I didn't have the highest expectations going into this, because bluefish is a very oily fish, and I thought that deep frying it in more oil might be overkill. Nevertheless, we had to use it up somehow. I used a beer batter this time instead of normal breadcrumbs or corn meal with which I have deep fried freshwater fish. No particular reason; it just seemed like the right decision.

I used this recipe for the beer batter and used a Yeungling Lager again for the beer:

1 cup beer
1 cup flour
2 eggs beaten
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda

Blend flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add eggs and beer until mixture is light and frothy.

I cut each filet into about four pieces that would fit better in the fry basket. I cooked a few pieces at a time and kept them in for 6-8 minutes or so. These pieces were a little thicker than other types of fish I'd fried before. The fish certainly looked fine when it came out:

Bluefish has weird darker sections of meat that I think taste fine, but apparently some people don't like because some bluefish recipes say to remove it. I kept it, and you can see the striking difference in the two cross sections here:
This fish was fine, but, as expected, very oily. That said, my roommate and I still enjoyed it hot out of the fryer and dipped in either ketchup or tartar sauce. The beer batter tasted good, but I either didn't let it sit long enough or didn't let the beer get flat enough, because small bubbles could be seen in the batter and were noticeable on the cooked fish if you looked closely. The recipe I used didn't call for letting the batter sit, but a lot of them do. Beer batter should have a smoother appearance if made properly. I don't think it affected the taste, but it probably changed the texture slightly. It still had a crunch to it, but the oil from the fish made it a bit softer than it would have otherwise been.

Also, since we had so much and we wanted to get rid of it, we made a lot more of it than we probably should have. You can see our sizable pile of fish below. I usually am fine with eating fried fish out of the fridge the day after, but this fish got even oilier after cooling down and the coating got soggy. It really didn't keep well. I ended up eating a lot of it in hamburger buns with plenty of tartar sauce, like a poor man's Filet o' Fish sandwich (which is already a poor man's fish). It disguised the oily taste enough, but I would not recommend deep frying any more than you would eat at a given sitting.

Furthermore, it pains me to say it, but maybe deep frying isn't the best way to cook this fish. The fishcakes are great deep fried, but if you are just eating bluefish filets, I'd recommend baking them. There are plenty of good recipes out there.