The weather here has been gray and dreary over the past week, but we’ve been anything but. We’ve been celebrating kid birthdays at parties all over town, having multiple play dates, grabbing Chinese food off of dim sum carts — it’s been really fun, but also dizzying.
After a string of back-to-back social engagements, Ge Ge looked at me one morning and heaved a sigh. “Can we eat at home tonight, Mama? And can we have catfish?”
Of course, what the kid wants (food-wise), the kid gets, and so I prepped my skillet for some cornmeal fried catfish.
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Cornmeal fried catfish is a good ol’ Southern staple. It reminds me of the times I used to spend fishing as a kid back in South Carolina. My neighborhood stocked the pond with catfish, and my grandfather and I would spend our afternoons baiting and hooking catfish for dinner. My grandmother would steam or pan-fry them, Chinese-style, but nowadays I can’t look at a catfish filet without imagining it rolled around in crusty cornmeal for a crunchy-flaky bite of wonderful.
My recipe has evolved over time. I used to batter and fry with combination of milk, eggs and flour, but recently I’ve found that just dragging very dry filets (patted dry with paper towels) through a mixture of cornmeal, flour and spices is good enough to make a nice little coating without too much heavy batter.
I garnish mine with green onions and lemon wedges and served it with a side salad, mashed potatoes and the best roasted green beans, but this catfish is light and flavorful enough to go with just about any good vegetable side.
We ate our cornmeal fried catfish filets like fat cats on Easter, quietly and licking our fingers smugly. After dinner, the hubby and I drank a little wine sitting in our camp chairs on the driveway while the kids swirled around us on our bikes.
Yup, our suburban life might be boring a quiet, but we love it, all the same.
Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a Lily and Val Keepsake Kitchen Diary! Details here.
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- 2 pounds catfish filets, cut in half lengthwise (about 4 long catfish filets)
- ½ cup coarse, stone-ground cornmeal
- ½ cup flour
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- 1 teaspoon pepper, plus more to taste
- ½ cup canola oil (more or less) for frying
- Lemon wedges, for serving
- 2 green onions, sliced on a diagonal, for serving
- Equipment needed: wire rack, baking sheet, pan with high sides for frying, candy thermometer
- Rinse the catfish filets and pat dry thoroughly with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and pepper and set aside on a plate lined with paper towels.
- Set up a wire rack inside a rimmed baking sheet. Line the top of the wire rack with several layers of paper towels and set aside.
- In a 9x13 baking dish, mix together the flour, cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.
- Heat canola oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat until the temperature of the oil reaches 350 degrees.
- Dredge (drag) the catfish filets through the cornmeal mixture one at a time and place in the pan. Fry the catfish in batches, about 3-4 minutes per side, until the outside is golden brown and the inside flakes easily with a fork.
- Drain the catfish on the wire rack lined with paper towels. Let cool slightly, then serve with lemon wedges and green onion.
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