How do you cook your fried fish?

Oil, temperature, time, batter..,?

Peanut Oil, 350 degrees, until they are floating, soak in yellow mustard and a little hot sauce, roll in yellow corn meal with salt and pepper

This but I use canola oil because of peanut allergies. I might start the oil as high as 370. It's better to let the breaded fish set up for awhile before frying.

Corn meal with lemon pepper, 350 for 7 minutes. I cook fish at least once a week. I use vegetable oil because it's cheaper. I strain it twice and can use it three times before I have to throw it away.

Soak inbuttermilk. Roll in Louisiana fish fry and fry till they float.

For catfish:

Soak in buttermilk,then salt,and add a good shake of Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning for each side. Mix 1 and 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal, 1/2 cup self-rising flour with an extra 1/2 teaspoon or so of salt mixed into cornmeal mix.
Heat oil corn or peanut oil to about 375, add fish without over-crowding. Turn once after fish starts floating until lightly brown.
Hold in hot oven (275) on paper towels until ready to serve.

For bass or crappie, replace buttermilk with brushed on mustard.

Whatever oil is handy. I like to add some pancake mix to my batter, keeps it a little sweet, about a 50/50 mix. My fish fryer tells me when the oil is ready, but I think it's around 375. Cook it till it floats

Canola oil at 375

Batter using zatarans crispy southern with lemon and a sprinkle of tony's

Fry till crisp and golden brown. I pick the basket up and poke it with my finger. If your going to cook by a time I hope all the pieces are the same size and thickness.

Deep fry catfish filets in peanut oil. Heat the oil gradually to 390. If you heat it too quickly (on high) it will scorch the oil and give a bad flavor to the fish. When you add the fish, the oil will bubble and you'll lose your heat. Turn up the heat so the oil can recover and hold at 360 while frying for 9 minutes.

Do yourself a favor and buy a package of frozen breaded okra and put it in there after you've done your fries.

Also, fry your fries twice if you have a big crowd. The normal basket will hold 2 pounds of fries. It will hold 4 pounds that has been precooked, and they will come out crispier.

Same here except maybe use Louisiana Fish Fry instead of corn meal.

use Seasoned Louisiana Fish Fry on it and youre done!

Corn oil or what ever oil I have, 350-375, lemon pepper with a little salt, corn meal and cook it till it floats/golden brown.

I use either a packaged fry like La Brand, or a mix of 1 flour to 3 cornmeal, S&P to taste, maybe a dash of ceyenne. 375 oil until it floats, then just a few more seconds to crisp up the crust. On a side note, we fried "eating sized" catfish, about 11" body and tail, whole when I was a kid. First the fish would float, but you had to wait until it turned itself over before it was done.

I've seen one fish fry ruined by a peanut allergy. It's simply not worth it to me.

Mix of corn meal and corn flour 50/50 that I grind myself, seasoned with Tony's and dropped into veggie oil at or about 350.

I agree Bill, to many allerges with Peanut oil these days.

Try crushed saltines instead of corn meal or batter.

That's what we always use.
Good stuff.
Fry between 350-375
And try not to eat it all as soon as it is cool enough to sample

Vegetable and canola oil's flash temp is lower than I like for frying. Fry it too cold and you get soggy, greasy fish. Hotter oil=cleaner, crisper fry and won't come out greasy. That's why I like peanut oil. If you have someone with a peanut allergy, cottonseed oil is a good substitute. Has a higher flash temp so it won't burn at the higher temps I like for frying.

Mix flour and Corn meal 50/50 season with tony's till it's just a little too salty. Drop fillets in a bowl of eggwash, pull and dredge in batter mix, set aside. When a pinch of flour will bubble quickly in the oil it's ready. I like to roll the fillets in the batter once more immediately before dropping in the grease.

When they float they're done. Do not cover with paper towels! I keep on a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet in the oven to let the grease drip through (prevents sogginess).

I also like to fry some pickles in the grease beforehand as an appetizer.. maaaaan I'm gettin hungry just thinkin about it!

You can find a whole bunch of different answeres on the interweb, but I started using canola oil because what I found several years ago said it had the highest smoke point of the readily accessible reasonably priced oils.

Looking now after reading what duckcoach posted I found info all over the board.

That said almost all of the commercially produced/refined oils have a smoke point of greater than 400 degrees and that should be big plenty for frying fish.

Do gator and frog legs just the same...

IMO there's no such thing as reasonably priced oil! I just bite the bullet 3 or 4 times a year with 3 gallons of lou ana peanut oil @ $29.99

I buy name brank canola vegi or corn oil for like 7 bucks a gallon. I know it still isn't cheap but its $3/gal cheaper than peanut oil, which I can say I have never seen a benefit of using and has a much higher affinity for allergy issues.

Other than all the cool kids say use peanut oil what are the benefits? Seems like the big chains would use it if it were better, but they don't.

I mean I've had some noticeably greasy food come out of canola oil. I have no qualms using it in a pinch but IMO peanut oil definitely makes a difference.

I'd say Chick Fil A is a pretty big chain, they use peanut oil.

Oil Story

Allergy-Free

Anyone dealing with a peanut allergy understands the danger of allergic reactions. The protein in peanuts makes it the leading food-allergy-related killer in the U.S. However, Chick-fil-A’s peanut oil suppliers use a complex process to purify the oil. This refining process removes the protein from the peanut oil that triggers an allergic reaction.

“All our sandwich ingredients are peanut-free, and there is nothing on the Chick-fil-A menu containing peanuts,” said Worrell. “But, we never tell customers concerned about peanut allergies to just go ahead and eat our food. We tell them to ask their doctor.”

This, or Tony Chachares (sp) fish fry. Friends and family come from miles around and all the neighbors line up when they know I'm having a fish fry. It's nothing for us to have 35 -40 people.

Fried fish is about like sex. The worst I ever had was wonderful.

After all of these responses, has anyone tried to cook an onion in with their fish? I always put 1/2 of a white onion in the oil held at about 350 degrees. The onion releases an acid into the oil and this prevents the oil from ever burning. It also adds a nice flavor to the fish. Leave the remains of each half in the basket for about 4 rounds and replace it with the other half. I cook fish very frequently and an Ol' Cajun taught me this trick about 40 years ago. I have never burned a piece of fish since.

Oil at 375, fish dipped in egg/milk wash, then into cracker meal 75% and Panko breadcrumbs 25%, with garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and paprika added. Cook until golden brown, then do a batch of hushpuppies with diced onions added to the batter in the same oil.

This batter seals out oil better than cornmeal.

oil, vegetable or canola, zatarans crispy southern my favorite, or any of the dry powders done per instructions. another favorite is panko bread crumbs done per instructions. another favorite is beer batter, flour and beer whisked up to a pancake batter, dip and fry, quite messy and leaves lots of crumbs in your oil though.

Vegetable, peanut, or canola oil whatever is handy. Temp at 375. Sometimes I dip in an egg/milk wash, sometimes just milk, sometimes use nothing. Depends on what kind of mood I'm in, do I want more crust/light crust etc...cook till golden brown. My favorite batter is Louisiana Seasoned Crispy Fish Fry, Andy's comes in 2'nd, Zatarrains in 3'rd. Just fried up a mess of food tonight. My brother is in from out of state and was going nuts for some fresh seafood. So fried up some fish, shrimp, puppies, fries, and both raw and fried oysters. I'm stuffed!

that looks really good skinner!

Thanks, it was!

MMM skinner that looks tasty, I need to do me a good fish fry soon

im not a fan of hush puppies but others are, how do you make them

I made them for years, then started using store bought ones.

Same here. I like the sweet corn puppies from HEB. Quick and tasty!

My wife and kids not too crazy about my fried fish, so I'm hoping with these tips they will like it. I never tried peanut oil, sounds like that is the best oil, so I'm gonna try that, my wife likes it as heathy as possible, and mine came out pretty greasy.

Hush puppy thread

Start with well cleaned fresh fish. Don't leave the pieces too thick so they will cook through evenly.

How oily the fish will come out has nothing to do with what kind of oil. If your fish came out drenched in oil and soggy you either didn't have the oil hot enough or didn't cook it long enough.

Use a thermometer and don't put any in till the oil hits 375 degrees. Don't over crowd the pan the oil will drop in temp too much and you will get the soggy fish again. Almost any of the commercially produced seasoned fish fry mixes will be great and far better than just corn meal. Just because the fish is floating does not mean it is done.

Good advice there. Also, if you don't want fishy fish make sure you remove all of the blood line (red meat). Cut it out, that is where the fishiness comes from. I am anal about this. I've known a lot of people that were ruined on fish because of it. I haven't really eaten enough freshwater fish to know if it matters or not, but it definitely makes a difference with most species of saltwater fish.

The science behind frying...the rapid bubbles coming from the food being fried is caused by moisture turning to steam and escaping, causing a "high pressure area" inside the food keeping the oil out. If the fish or whatever isn't releasing steam and bubbling at a good rate it's absorbing oil and will be, well, oily.