Fresh Fried Fish

For this post, I packed up my deep fryer, and traveled to upstate New York, where I spent Memorial Day weekend. My first day there, my Dad, brother, and I had a lot of success fishing, catching a total of 30 bream and yellow perch.

That day, we cleaned them all and prepared for dinner. As an appetizer, I showed off the experience I've gained with the deep fryer by making mozzarella sticks. I also made a cool variation on the ones I've already written about. Last week in the supermarket, I saw string cheese that was mozzarella and cheddar swirled around each other. And it was on sale! Obviously, I had to try this. I used the same recipe as with normal mozzarella sticks, and these were similarly delicious. Cook them just a tiny bit longer, since the cheddar doesn't melt quite as fast. These also looked cool when you took a bite and the different colors of melted cheese oozed out. Both versions were a hit with the family.
Then we moved on to the fish. We cooked 12 of our fish (24 sides) and three of the fish had eggs, which are tasty when fried up. The basket comfortably holds six pieces at a time, so we did two batches using egg and breadcrumbs, then two batches using the cornmeal and flour recipe I'm used to.
Everyone loved both of them, and I personally couldn't say one was better than the other. We ate them in buns and added ketchup or tartar sauce. Both batches cooked in about the same amount of time, but the breadcrumbs made a slightly darker finished product. I'll definitely try the breadcrumbs again, so that says a lot, given that I've always enjoyed the cornmeal recipe.
If you were curious, in the foreground of the picture of the cornmeal fish, those smaller clumps are the eggs. Good stuff!

So, I think this supports my "just use breadcrumbs on every non-dessert food" theory. Even though I can't definitively say it was better or worse, if I hadn't looked up or known any recipes, I could have just done this, and I would have loved every bite, which is exactly what the theory proposes.

I realize I've done a lot of breadcrumb deep frying lately, so next time, I'll do something a little more involved: fishcakes (poor man's crab cakes) made from bluefish, which I also caught on a separate fishing trip.

In the meantime, keep the suggestions coming. Though heart disease may stop me from getting to all of them, I want to hear your ideas, and I'll try to do as many as I can! I'll also do some maintenance on this site at some point to see if I can add it any more features like a specific suggestion board, voting, etc...

Fried fish

Ok, I started off with frying fish because that's what my roommates had in mind when they got me the deep fryer. I do some freshwater fishing in NY on Lake Champlain and at a pond in Connecticut. I mostly catch bream and some yellow perch. Occasionally, I'll land a bass, but I didn't have any this time. I used to fry them up in oil on the stove, but that usually gets really smoky in our kitchen, and blackens the outside of the fish very quickly (although the inside is still delicious every time!).


So, for the fish, I normally mix about equal parts corn meal and flour (but a little more corn meal) on a plate. Then I beat a couple eggs in a bowl, dp the fish in the egg, then in the flour and cornmeal mixture. While doing this, I also liberally sprinkle both sides with garlic salt. I can't find the exact online recipe I used, but it suggested double dipping. That is, after I take the fish out of the egg wash and cover it in flour/corn meal, I put it back into the egg, and then back into the flour and corn meal again.

The fish cooked at about 375F for a few minutes. Since the fish float in the oil, I made sure to turn them over a couple times so both sides get cooked well. I also only cooked a couple at a time, so they didn't get to crowded in there

These fish were AMAZING! They got a perfect golden yellow-brown color, but not too dark, unlike cooking them on the stove. Also, the double dipping was a great trick to learn, as it helps more corn meal stick to the fish for cooking. So I could properly quantify how good the double dipping was, I cooked a few that were only dipped once as a control group. Those were still great, but I thought the second dip caused the fish to puff up a little more and become a lot fluffier.

So, all in all, this was a great first run with the deep fryer. The fish were delicious, and, not to ruin the surprise, but double dipping will turn out to be a useful trick for a number of deep fried treats that I'll be writing about in the future.