Tennessee · Main
Fried Catfish and Hushpuppies
- Intermediate
- 60 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light, opening aromatic and staying there.
Ingredients
- 4 catfish fillets, soaked 30 min in buttermilk with hot sauce (the mud-cutter bath)
- Dredge: 200g fine cornmeal + 2 tbsp flour, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder
- Hushpuppies: 150g cornmeal + 60g flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 minced onion, 1 egg, ~150ml buttermilk
- Oil for frying; lemon, tartar sauce, hot sauce
- Coleslaw and white bread, the fish-fry constitution
Equipment
Deep-fry pot
The skills inside
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batterDraining fried food: a rack, never paper
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · fish
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the hushpuppy batter thick; rest while the fish soaks.
- Dredge the drained fillets in seasoned cornmeal, pressing lightly; fry at 175°C, 4–5 min to golden crunch; drain on a rack. 5 min
- Drop the hushpuppy batter by spoonfuls into the same oil; fry rolling, 3 min, to deep bronze spheres. 3 min
- Salt everything in the air; pile the platter; lemon over the fish. Serve loud, with slaw, pickles, and no ceremony.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter 80 recipes
- The coat is continuous before it goes anywhere near the fat: held up to the light, no bare patch of food shows through anywhere, seams and thin edges included.
- It is bonded rather than resting on top: a gentle shake sheds loose dust only, and the coat does not slide off as a sheet when the piece is handled.
- It bubbles hard and steadily from the moment it enters the fat, and the bubbling visibly slows as it finishes; those bubbles are the surface water leaving, and a quiet entry means the fat is too cool.
- Out and drained, it is an even gold-brown all over and it is still crisp several minutes later on a rack; a coat that softens within a minute of coming out never lost its water.
- Broken open, there is no paste of raw flour under the crust and no hollow gap where the coat has lifted away from the food.
Where it goes wrong The fat was below temperature or the pan was crowded, so the coat drank fat instead of sealing against it: it comes out pale and heavy, greasy to the fingers, and slumps off the food as it cools.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Vermentino or Sauvignon Blanc
- Also Right
- Albariño
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus
Lean fish, bright acid, done: coastal whites built beside the same boats; the fresher the fish, the leaner the pour.
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