Southern Fried Catfish

hey welcome back to how to barbecue right i'm malcolm reed today i'm going to show y'all how i do mississippi fried catfish let's get to cooking so for this recipe i'm starting with the best catfish in the world mississippi pond raised i've had these fillets they come frozen i let them thaw out in the refrigerator overnight then i put them on a wire rack i want them to start drying also i'm going to use a paper towel to get as much moisture as i can off of them drier filet is going to be a crispier fish when we fry it so i want my catfish thin and crispy that's the mississippi style and you'll see these fillets are pretty good size these are like a five ounce catfish fillet and they have a seam that runs right down the middle if you battered the filet and fried it like this you're gonna end up with thick fish it's not gonna cook as good as it does when we cut it into strips so i'm going to take each fillet and just take a knife and run it right down that seam that creates two pieces of fish that's going to fry up it's going to batter it's going to be nice and crispy and it's going to cook fast we're going to lay these right back on our wire rack once we get them split into strips let's do that for all of them just find that seam go right down it create two pieces of fish these are beautiful fillets you can see the color a slight pink color skin's been completely removed and it's just pure mississippi catfish so now we got the fish on the rack it's time to get some seasoning on it this is starting the flavor process i'm using some salt pepper garlic my ap rub and i'm not going super heavy with it we're just going to do a nice light coat on the backside of the fish first and we're also going to put a light layer of my king craw cajun seasoning and it gets the same thing not too heavy we just want a light coat of the king crawl on it if you got a favorite cajun season hey go right for it you just want to get some spice on it now we're gonna flip these fillets over and do the same thing to the back side after the fish rest for a few minutes it's time to get the batter going all i've got is two cups of just plain cornmeal put it in a ziploc bag this makes it easy you want to season that cornmeal too so we're going to use the same thing we put on the fish hit it with a little bit of ap and a little bit of that king craw cajun seasoning we're going to zip it up mix that up a little bit i want my cornmeal seasoning you notice i'm not putting anything wet on these fish i want them dry because it's going to make them crispy the batter is going to stick i don't like thick battered fish i want it to be crunchy but i want the batter to be part of the fish not a big caked on piece and all i do is start dropping them right in our cornmeal you can do four or five at a time just put them in zip it back up and toss it around until they're all covered super easy keeps down on the mess too now check it out these fillets are coated extremely well we've got that cornmeal batter all over the outside but it's not thick i still want to let this dry out so what i do is put them right back on the rack and they need about 10 or 15 minutes just sitting here at room temperature perfect time to fire that oil up so i've had the fish drying for about 15 minutes just sitting right here on the rack while my little tabletop fryer comes up to temperature if you're doing small batches of fish this is the easy way to do it i've got a little double basket full of peanut oil i'm bringing it up to about 375 degrees you want to verify that with a thermometer even though it's got a thermostat on your fryer check that oil you want it to fry really fast but you don't want it to be too hot or too cold now we're ready to fry i can see the oil dancing around i verified it was 375 degrees all you want to do is just carefully lay that fillet right in that hot oil drop it away from you immediately it's going to start frying but you could use any kind of oil you want for frying i love the taste of peanut oil it gives that fried fish so much flavor but if you want to use vegetable oil canola oil whatever you want it'll work i'm not going to crowd the baskets on these i'm just going to do about four pieces at a time two in each basket now you can see that fish is starting to float it's gotten golden brown frying process has slowed down that tells me it is done i know it's gonna be crispy i know it's gonna be cooked through because it's thin it's like to let it sit here and dry out that peanut oil has done its job it gives that fish great flavor but it also holds that perfect fry temp i'm just gonna dump it out on a little butcher paper let it drain a little bit fry the rest of these fillets now that we got all the catfish fillets fried up hey it's time to eat and it's best when you serve it hot right out of the grease let me show y'all how i eat it we're gonna take one of these pieces fresh fried mississippi pond raised catfish you got to put a little hot sauce on it just drizzle it right down it i've whipped up some homemade tartar sauce using blue plate mayonnaise some dill pickle relish little chopped onion little tx seasoning that's going right on it i'm also gonna squeeze on a little bit of lemon just a little bit of juice right over the top that's the perfect piece of fried mississippi catfish it's hot it's crispy it's fried through and through but you get all that flavor from the ap from the king craw cajun season creamy tartar sauce and a little bit of hot sauce and some lemon that's perfect catfish now y'all i service catfish just like this you can serve it with some fries some hush puppies your favorite coleslaw you got a southern fish fry right there ready to happen hey thanks for hanging out with us here at how to barbecue right if you like what we're doing subscribe to that channel y'all know you can find us on facebook instagram twitter i'm gonna do a fish sandwich for tick tock with this catfish and shell and i are gonna talk about this mississippi fried catfish on our weekly podcast and all the other delicious stuff we're doing so y'all give that a listen too we'll see you next time man catfish done right [Music] you

Channel: HowToBBQRight

Views: 163,982

Keywords: Malcom Reed, HowToBBQRight, How To BBQ Right, Fried catfish, Fried fish, How to fry catfish, Catfish recipe, How to fry fish, southern fried catfish, Mississippi catfish, fried catfish recipe, catfish fillets, catfish, how to make fried catfish, the best catfish recipe, mississippi fried catfish, easy fried catfish, how to fry catfish, southern style fried catfish, homemade fried catfish, malcolm reed, how to barbecue right

Id: QXFLcKFv3lQ

Length: 5min 27sec (327 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022