Summer Semester '10: Catch of the Day

Sorry for the lack of updates, I recently moved and my computer is busted. I'm stealing a little time away from work, believe it or not, to chip away at this update I've been meaning to post for a few weeks now.

So this is something I really enjoy: deep sea fishing. I went a couple of times back in medical school for various friends' bachelor parties, and then I just went again recently. We mostly fish for striped bass (a.k.a striper, rock fish) in the North Atlantic. Once, we went on an all day trip, but forgot to bring anything but beer. That was entertaining. My personal favorite part of the trip is bringing home filet upon filet of awesome fish. The last time we went, we also caught some blue fish, which I found infinitely more flavorful, but much smaller than the striper.

Being known to experiment with food and having a huge glut of striper filets to experiment with, here's something that I came up with that works really well. You can certainly buy the fish in a market rather than catching it yourself, but for some reason, it may not taste as good. Use panko bread crumbs - this will give the outside of crispy texture that regular bread crumbs won't give you.

Panko and Spice Encrusted Sea Bass

• One or two whole filets of striped bass (0r blue fish), cut into portions.
• As much flour as you need for dredging (probably about a cup per 2 lb of fish). I initially used all purpose flour, but I've recently found that whole wheat flour works better.
• Pick your favorite spice or spice mix and get about 1-2 tsp of it. I've used cajun blend, smoked paprika and chinese five-spice so far. Mix it in well with the flour.
• One egg per pound of filet, beaten.
• One cup of panko bread crumbs per filet.
• (optional) A small bunch of flat leaf italian parsley, stemmed and chopped fine, mixed in with the panko.

In three seperate bowls, prepare your flour and spice dredge, your beaten eggs and your panko, with our without herbs (Figure 17.x). Start some olive oil (or cooking spray) in a flat skillet on medium heat. Dredge your fish portions in flour, then egg, then panko in that order. Make sure every surface of the fish is coated at each step. Toss into the pan, and cook for about 5-10 minutes per side, depending on thickness. Flip only once, when the fish releases easily from the bottom of the pan (Figure 17.z). Enjoy!

Figure 17.x - Flour, then egg, then panko.

Figure 17.z - Fish in action!

Next update (hopefully next week once I get my computer fixed... Geek Squad here I come) will be another fish dish... a little more fresh and a little less wild. The fish, I mean. Not the dish.