Pan Frying Fish!!

Lately been playing around with Pan frying fish:

This is Salmon with a Cashew crust and Blue-Berry sauce… ( oh Turnip Mash is healthy too )

So Flour, egg wash, Nut crust-- I started my pan to hot here

This is Halibut with a pistachio crust with a Mango guacamole sauce.

Gonna do a macadamia next… any ideas for panny fish frys

I like a panko crust for extra crunch. I tend not to top with sauces, however.

Using a cornmeal for your crust also adds a bit of extra flavor.

If you use a plain flour crust, you can make fish piccata – after you fry the fish, make a sauce in the same pan (the flour will thicken the sauce) with white wine, lemon and capers.

Corey,

I do add 50% Panko, with nut mix!!

Paul

Looks good. You using cast iron?

Wood suggested the CIA Clad pan awhile ago… Works well!! I do have Cast Iron also.

I found that when cooking a nut topping, you would rather have a cooler pan to start, other wise the nuts burn real easy. I’m just coloring and getting a nice crust, then flip to skin side to finish in 400 F oven to about 125.

Draw back, I’m not getting crispy skin. I might try and do it all in a pan on the skin side first , then flip?

Paul

Interesting Paul, let me know how that turns out. I have All-Clad as well as some old cast iron skillets, and I have much better luck with the cast iron for this kind of stuff. Although I haven’t tried nuts so I’m usually going in with a very hot pan.

Took the kids trout fishing yesterday and pan fried the fish tonight. Used an Anne Burrell recipe with a lemon butter sauce. Paired with a 1070 Green sauvignon blanc made by Mike Smith. Great stuff!

Paul, my favorite way to pan fry fish is one of the first recipes I ever came up with during my bass fishing days back in the early 1970s. Fillet bass. Roll in corn meal and then season with Malabar pepper and Lawry’s garlic salt on the outside of the fish - do not include in the corn meal. Cut up white mushrooms lengthwise. Add a stick of butter to a frying pan and cook the mushrooms over high heat stirring constantly until they are caramelized with a mahogany brown color. Move them to the edges of the pan and fry fish in the butter/mushroom remains over medium heat until done.

Place fish on plate and cover with the mushrooms/butter. Substitute any flaky, white fleshed fish for the bass, but large/smallmouth/kentucky bass is the best. If you have liked any of my other recipes, you will love this.

Thanks Tom…

Always appreciated your stuff, best Paul!!

I’m a big pan fryer, Paul. (Just had some great pan fried softshell crabs last night, inspired by a recipe in yesterday’s NY Times). But, I have a question: salmon is a fish I’d never think of pan frying…or frying (though I guess sauteeing is something I might do with salmon)…am I alone in this reaction?

By pan frying I take it that you really mean sautéing?

I’ve always understood there to be a difference between pan frying and sautéing.
Along the lines explained here: http://rouxbe.com/community/forums/7-cooking-school/topics/645-what-is-the-difference-between-pan-frying-and-sauteeing
And here: What's the difference between pan frying, sauteing, and shallow frying? - Seasoned Advice

No, I think of pan frying as more of a “sear and flip” technique. Sautéing IMO involves moving the food around. I’m not a culinary grad, just my impression.

Oh I know the difference, it just doesn’t look like his fish has been pan fried, which generally involves a full batter coating and more oil. I’ve also never heard of frying with nuts in a coating as the nuts will burn. Sauteing, yes.

When I “pan fry” I heat enough oil in the pan to come up about 1/2 the thickness of what I’m going to be frying I tend to error toward the 1/4 up the side… I use the heaviest pan with low sides I have (cast iron) most thing fry nice at 350 to 375 though, I’ve never done a nut crust like this.

I always equate a “pan fry” with a “shallow fry”. There is a flip involved, but it is pretty darned close to deep frying in terms of the end result.

Sautee or sear just uses enough fat to insulate things. That is what it looks like here. I think about “stir fry” as a version of “saute” where stuff is getting moved around alot. Saute and sear the protein is stationary with the goal of getting a nice crust.

Exactly.

Well…

I probably learned something>> But Brad is correct!

What my learning process has taught me about a nut crust sautee or what ever, I needed to start with a cooler pan, if not a cold pan . You cant do the high heat to start. But, I think the results turned out pretty good with the pistachios… and I know my wife and kid gobbled it up!!

Yes…I think of “pan frying” as like any other frying, i.e., coated and cooked in oil. As distinguished from “deep frying” the it is done in a pan of oil, rather than enough for it the food to swim in. I coudn’t tell what you did, so I assumed that you described it correctly…and had coated it with nuts and really fried it up in a pan with a good amount of oil. That’s why I commented that making salmon that way didn’t appeal to me, though I do really “pan” fry fish reasonably often.

That first link , Bob, really confuses the issue even more. I’ve always thought of the distinction just as the “CIA” defines “pan frying” ,as one poster states: swimming in the oil.

Sauteeing is quicker, higher heat…the name based on the oil or butter’s “jumping” ( based on the French verb “sauter” ) as that process is going on.

I think now I realize that “pan frying” really is an imprecise term.