Gone Fishin' ~ Good Fish Recipe

[Mare]

Do you all catch and cook fish during the summer months? We do and when we don't catch them we buy them. We just really like fish. We eat lots of salmon but the fish we catch are blue gill, perch and catfish.

 

So, here's a recipe I use for the catfish mostly. It's just something a little different from the regular cornmeal coated fired catfish we usually have. This recipe really lets the taste of the fish shine through so use very fresh or frozen filets.

 

You'll need:

Catfish filets - how ever many your family will eat

cornstarch

salt and pepper

green onions, about 2 for every filet, chopped

about 2 cloves of garlic, minced but you can use more

fresh ripe tomato, seeded and chopped. You will need about a half of a medium sized tomato per filet.

fresh parsely, about 1/4 cup chopped.

lemon

Olive oil

A large skillet.

 

Heat some olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and stir around til light golden brown. Don't burn it or you will have to start over! Burnt garlic is bitter. Take the garlic out of the skillet when it is lightly browned.

Dredge the fish in the cornstarch, shake off the excess and brown the fish in the oil on medium high heat. Brown the fish on both sides. Add salt and pepper.

Add the chopped onions, tomato and parsely. Cover the skillet, lower the heat and cook til the fish is flakey. Normally this only takes about 8 minutes or less. Don't over cook it or the fish wil have a rubbery texture. It's still edible if over cooked just not as tender.

Before serving, squeeze helf of a lemon over the dish. You can leave this step out if you don't like lemon on your fish, it's still good without it.

This will make it's own light sauce and is really delicious over rice.

 

 

[Homesteader]

Well....I just happened to have caught a mess of blue gill this morning. Unfortunately, most of them have been eaten before I saw this. I'll have to try this next time!

[Guest Guest]

Now that is really interesting. I've never heard of using cornstarch as a dredge...I've used flour and cornmeal but never that.

 

What does the cornstarch do that is different from other dredgings?

[redhenfarm]

No, we haven't been fishing in years and that's sort of nuts considering we live by the mighty Columbia River and a hop skip and jump from the Pacific Ocean. We saw lots of sturgeon fishermen earlier this week and I'd love to catch one of those. Or DH can catch one and it would be fine with me.

 

[Guest Guest]

That recipe looks wonderful! Copied into my puter cookbook.

 

Peaceful Home, when we were in Depoe Bay last October, we went out on a charter for 8 hours. We caught so many fish that it wasn't even exciting anymore. We were trying for bottom fish, but we got into a school of Mackeral that was 35 feet deep. We'd throw a hook out, and couldn't even get it to the bottom before we'd have three fish on the line.

 

Six hours seems like the perfect amount of time out there for me. Eight was a little much, and I haven't had the desire to go back out yet. We were way out in International waters, and that boat was pitching us around in 12 ft. swells, and my wheelchair was sliding all over the deck. I finally had to take refuge in the cabin. My poor friends, they were really looking green, and I don't think they will ever go back out.

[Homesteader]

I've noticed that some of my Chinese recipes call for using cornstarch as a dredge,especially for whole fish.

[Mare]

I think the cornstarch is just lighter in texture and taste than flour or cornmeal. It also makes a nice thick gravy or sauce in the dish. Flour will do that too, but it takes longer to cook flour so that could be one reason this dish uses cornstarch.