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Fryin’ Up a Mess O’ Catfish (Well, Oven-Fried Anyway)

I made it over to Adams Fairacre Farms in Newburgh today (if you live in this area, go there, it’s worth the trip) and they did have the catfish I wanted today, and at a very reasonable price I might add. I also ended up picking up a whole cut-up fryer chicken for $3.00 (which could be great for stock, or a few meals, I haven’t decided yet) and some slab bacon that they make themselves that I can cut and freeze and will probably last a long time in this house, and only cost $6.00 for a 2 1/2 pound slab, so it’s worth the effort to cut it yourself at that price. Anyway, now I can make the recipe I wanted to, which is Oven-Fried Catfish.

Oven-Fried Catfish

3/4 cup dried breadcrumbs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 skinless catfish fillets (6 to 8 ounces each)

Salt and pepper

Lemon wedges (for serving)

Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 450 degrees. Spread the bread crumbs in a shallow dish. Mix the eggs, mustard, thyme, basil, garlic powder and cayenne together in a separate shallow dish. Pat the catfish dry with paper towels then season with salt and pepper. Working with one piece of fish at a time, dip it into the egg mixture, then coat with the bread crumbs. Press on the crumbs to make sure they adhere to the fish. Lay the coated fish on a wire rack set over a foil lined baking sheet.

Bake the fish on the wire rack until the coating is golden and the fish flakes apart when gently prodded with a paring knife, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve with the lemon wedges.

A couple of keys when oven frying not just fish, but poultry as well. Using a dried breadcrumbs does seem to help over the traditional flour, egg and fresh bread crumbs. The dried bread crumbs make it a little crisper and since they are pre-cooked it helps ensure that you won’t overcook the fish to get a crunchy coating. Second, using the wire rack in the baking sheet is important with oven frying. You want to be sure that air can circulate all the way around so you get crisp on all sides and not just crisp on top and soggy on the bottom.

I was going to make just plain white rice tonight, which is fine, but I thought I would mix things up a bit and mae a simple Rice Pilaf instead. This is an easy version, with few ingredients to it, but just as tasty.

Rice Pilaf

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, minced

Salt

1 1/2 cups long-grain white rice, rinsed and drained

2 1/4 cups water

Pepper

Rinse the rice in a colander under cold running water until the water runs clear. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and 1 teaspoon of salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the drained rice. Saute until the edges if the rice begin to turn translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in the water and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 17 minutes. Transfer the pot to a cold burner or trivet and let the rice stand for 10 minutes. Fluff the rice with a fork. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Rinsing the rice before cooking it removes some of the excess starch to help make the rice a little fluffier, and toasting it for the 3 minutes helps to bring out some of the nuttiness of the rice, which is great for a pilaf. This recipe also uses a little less water than the standard 2:1 ratio usually called for when making rice, but this also helps to make the rice fluffier, more tender and not mushy and sticky.

Tonight’s vegetable dish is a Green Herb Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette. It’s something different and refreshing, and only has a few ingredients to it, but the taste and smell of the fresh herbs is wonderful. This would be great in the spring and summer if you grow your own herbs and can use them, but I think it will work just as well now. If you can’t find Champagne vinegar, (and I had trouble finding it around here) you can always use rice vinegar instead.

Green Herb Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon minced shallot

2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1 head butter lettuce, leaves separated and torn into bite-size pieces (you could really use whatever type of lettuce you like here)

1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1/2 cup fresh chervil sprigs

In the bottom of a salad bowl, combine the olive oil and shallot. Add the vinegar, salt and pepper and mix well with a fork. Top with the lettuce, parsley, cilantro and chervil. When ready to serve, toss well.

You could use arugula, spinach or romaine in this salad, or add other green herbs like mint, or in smaller quantities oregano or thyme or maybe add a cheese like Gorgonzola or Stilton or blue cheese.

That covers tonight’s meal. We didn’t get go over next week’s meal plan yet, but I hope to do that tonight so I can get started on that. I am thinking of adding a slow cooker meal to our routine so we could have at least one of those meals each week. This would allow me to set things up in the slow cooker and just let it go for the day. What do you think? I know lots of people use slow cookers pretty regularly. Is there a slow cooker recipe you would like to see or one that you use that would be good? Just let me know. Tomorrow night is Pot Roast, Mashed Potatoes and Carrots for dinner, so tune in for that recipe (which I have done in the slow cooker before, and it comes out nice). Until then, enjoy your day!

2 Comments

Posted by MikeG on February 16, 2012 in Cooking, Dinner, Rice, Salad, Seafood

Tags: adams fairacre farms, bread crumbs, catfish, champagne vinaigrette, fried catfish, green herb salad, oven-fried catfish, rice pilaf

Making Some Homemade Staples (No, Not the Metal Kind…)

10 Feb

Since we’re going to be heading out to the Winter Carnival in Saranac Lake today, I won’t be cooking any dinner. I thought today might be a good day to show a couple of simple recipes to make some of the homemade ingredients I use on a regular basis, like breadcrumbs and broth. None of these recipes are hard to make, and while the broth can take a little time to accomplish, it is absolutely worth it to have around and tastes so much better than store-bought. Making your own chicken broth can be accomplished in a couple of ways. One method uses a left over chicken carcass from a whole roasted chicken. This method can take hours and I do this when I know I have the time to let it sit on the stove. The second method I use is much quicker and tastes just as good. For this method I use some drumsticks for making the stock.We’ll just cover the quick one today.

Chicken Broth

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

4 pounds chicken legs

1 onion, quartered

1 carrot, cut into chunks

1 rib celery, cut into chunks

2 quarts water

2 teaspoons salt

2 bay leaves

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until smoking. Brown half of the chicken on both sides, about 10 minutes total. Transfer to a large bowl. Repeat with the remaining chicken and transfer to the bowl. Pour off the fat from the pot. Return all the chicken to the pot and stir in the onion, carrot and celery. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook until the chicken releases its juices, about 20 minutes. Stir in the water, salt and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the broth is rich and flavorful, about 20 minutes. Strain the broth into a large container, and let stand for 10 minutes before skimming the fat. Remove the meat from the bones and reserve separately.

Chicken legs are relatively inexpensive and great for using to make some stock if you don’t have the chicken carcass. They also give the broth, a nice, rich, meaty flavor and you can save the meat off the bones to use for soup if you like. This broth can be easily frozen and will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The next stock to make would be some shrimp stock. This is probably the easiest stock to make out of something you would normally throw away without thinking twice. You can use this as a good substitute when recipes call for a fish stock.

Shrimp Stock

Shells from 1 to 2 pounds shrimp

1/2 onion, sliced

1/2 carrot, sliced

1/2 celery stalk, sliced

Combine all the ingredients and add 4 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to very low, cover and cook for 15 minutes.. Cool slightly, then strain, pressing on the shells to extract as much juice as possible. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to a few weeks.

After chicken and shrimp, you can always make some vegetable broth. Again, it’s a very simple process using what you already have in the house and doesn’t take long to complete.

Vegetable Stock

4 large carrots, sliced

2 large onions, chopped

1 large potato, sliced

2 celery stalks, chopped

5 or 6 cloves of garlic

10 to medium button mushrooms, trimmed and sliced (optional)

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

Freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients and add 14 cups of water and some pepper. Bring to a boil and adjust the heat so the mixture simmers steadily but gently and cook for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are very tender (Longer is better if you have the time). Cool slightly, then strain, pressing on the vegetables to extract as much juice as possible. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Finally, I do occasionally make my own beef stock. If you have any meat bones to use, or scraps or inexpensive cuts of meat, you can do this at home. I find store-bought beef broth is okay, as long as you get the lower sodium, but if you can make it, then why not?

Beef Stock

3 to 4 pounds meaty beef bones, like shank, shin, tail or short ribs

2 medium onions, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon salt, plus more to taste

3 cloves

10 peppercorns

Rinse the bones well under cold running water. then transfer to a large stockpot and add the remaining ingredients. Add about 16 cups of water, enough to cover by a couple of inches. Bring just about to a boil, then partially cover and adjust the heat so the mixture sends up a few bubbles at a time. Cook, skimming off any foam that accumulates at the top, until the meat falls from the bones and the bones separate from one another, 2 to 3 hours. Cool slightly, then strain, pressing on the vegetables and meat to extract as much juice as possible. Taste and add salt if necessary. Use immediately or refrigerate (skim off any hardened fat from the surface) and use within 4 to 5 days or freeze up to 3 months.

Other than stock, the other staple I make at home is breadcrumbs. I use breadcrumbs a lot for coating, binding or as a crunchy topping. They are really simple to make and the only work on your part is pulling out the food processor. I prefer to use white bread for breadcrumbs; it seems to have the best texture.

Homemade Breadcrumbs

Tear pieces of sandwich bread into quarters and pulse in a food processor to coarse crumbs, about 8 pulses. One slice of bread should yield about 1 cup.

If you want dried breadcrumbs, you can either just use some stale bread in the food processor, or take the fresh breadcrumbs you made, sprinkle them on a baking sheet and bake in a 300 degree oven until dry, about 15 to 30 minutes.

Dried breadcrumbs can be stored in a zip-lock bag or container at room temperature for about 1 month, while fresh can be stored for about 1 week. You could freeze either one for about 3 months, just allow about 30 minutes of thawing at room temperature before you use them.

So that’s it for the staples for today. They are quick ways to get some fresh, homemade ingredients that you’ll find yourself using quite often. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my Chicken Corn Chowder recipe that we brought for Winter Carnival, and good thing since it’s about 10 degrees up here! See you tomorrow!