pan-fried fish

[cellio]

This was really good. Summarized from Fish: the Basics (which I've mentioned before).

For 1 - 1.5 pounds of firm fish fillets (I used ocean perch):

Mix 0.5C flour, 1t salt, 1t dried marjoram (they give alternatives), ground white pepper to taste (not black), some paprika. Spread the mixture on a plate.

Rinse fillets, roll in flour mix to coat, shake off excess, set aside.

In a skillet, heat about 1T butter and 1T olive oil. They should be hot but the butter shouldn't brown. Add the fish; turn when the edges look crispy. The book says 2-10 minutes total depending on thickness; I ended up at about 6 minutes over medium-high heat (translation: started high and then turned down to medium when I worried about heating all the way through without overcooking outsides -- I'm not very practiced at pan-frying).

I'm sure this is calorie-laden with all that fat and stuff (just checked -- yeah, FitDay agrees with that assessment), but boy was it tasty! The white pepper gave it a nice little non-hot zing. (Note to self: a second pepper mill, dedicated to white peppercorns, would be a nice and inexpensive improvement on the mortar and pestle. Yeah, blah blah spice grinder blah blah. Someday. How do you clean them so your grains of paradise don't taste like white pepper?) The recipe suggested some cayenne pepper or cumin as an option, but I didn't do that this time.

I have no idea what the culinary and/or chemical effects of using two different fats in the pan are.

Comments

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

Thanks! One tip I will pass on, though--don't use 100% cornmeal, or it turns out a bit TOO gritty IMHO. Cut it with flour; I do about half and half (and a healthy spoon of seasoning.)