# Southern fried catfish



## Saltygreasybacon (Jan 4, 2006)

I keep hearing about this dish from the southern united states and would like to try it.  Does anyone have a good recipe?


----------



## Constance (Jan 4, 2006)

If I were you, I'd stick with the coldwater fish you get up there. Lots of people love catfish, and I can eat it, but it's a soft-fleshed fish that to me has an aftertaste of motor oil. The farm-raised is better than the wild, as it is grain-fed. 
I'm sure you'll get lots of wonderful recipes here, though, if you want to try it.

Now, don't you catfish lovers get mad at me!


----------



## Dove (Jan 4, 2006)

I don't really care for Cat Fish. First of all I don't like fish. When we go to my husbands home in North Carolina he loves to go to Harbor House and have their Cat Fish. I really do like their Flounder. They corn meal/flour it and deep fry. Yummmmmm


----------



## marmalady (Jan 4, 2006)

A simple fried catfish is to put some milk in a shallow dish, add s/p and cayenne to taste; 'marinate' the catfish in this for at least a couple of hours (i've done it overnight!).  Then make a mixture of 1 part flour, 2 parts cornmeal, salt/pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a little cayenne.  

Take the catfish out of the milk, and dredge it in the dry mixture.  Sometimes, time willing, I"ll then set the catfish on a rack to 'dry' a little.  Or you can fry it right away if you have no time.

Heat an inch or so of vegetable oil in a deep skillet (cast iron is traditional) to med. high, add the catfish, and cook til golden brown on one side, turn and cook the other side.

A neat variation on this is to add some finely chopped pecans to the dry mixture.


----------



## Robo410 (Jan 4, 2006)

catfish is a low fat, sweet fish.  It fries well in crumbs, flour, or beer batter.  It also sautes well in butter and even tastes fine with a california treatment of onion orange and rosemary!  

It responds well to hot spice, and works in a fish chowder.  very versatile, and because it responds well to aquaculture, it is plentiful and not too expensive.

yes I like it.

traditional southern method is buttermilk soak (with hot suace mixed right in) egg dip, mixture of soft flour and course white cornmeal salt and pepper...fry it in fillets or in nuggets for dipping.  serve with hush puppies (oniony corn meal fritters) and sauces...your choice tartar, chili, cocktail...or even Thai peanut!


----------



## AllenOK (Jan 4, 2006)

Since I'm originally from OK, I was raised on fried catfish.  I love it.  However, I still have yet to perfect a recipe for frying it.

Catfish can have a "muddy" taste to it, depending on if it's wild (species, habitat, forage, etc.), or farm-raised.  I prefer the farm-raised, although I've heard that wild flat-head catfish is some of the tastiest stuff on the planet (FYI, flat-heads do not eat carrion, but rather go for live sunfish).

You might want to try blackening some catfish fillets.  This is how I prefer to cook them.  With a side of Jambalaya and some cornbread, it's heaven!


----------



## purrfectlydevine (Jan 4, 2006)

You can try this--
http://www.copycat-recipes.net/recipes/Red_Lobster's_Deep-Fried_Catfish_With_Hush_Puppies.html

I hope it works as a link.  I went to the site and did a copy and paste.


----------



## mudbug (Jan 5, 2006)

Constance said:
			
		

> If I were you, I'd stick with the coldwater fish you get up there. Lots of people love catfish, and I can eat it, but it's a soft-fleshed fish that to me has an aftertaste of motor oil. The farm-raised is better than the wild, as it is grain-fed.
> I'm sure you'll get lots of wonderful recipes here, though, if you want to try it.
> 
> Now, don't you catfish lovers get mad at me!


 
I'm with you, Connie.  Never did learn to love this fish that I served to eager customers every Friday night while waitressing thru school.


----------



## auntdot (Jan 5, 2006)

Grew up on cold water fish and agree they have a cleaner taste, at least to me.

But I learned to love fingerling catfish, which have seemed to disappear from Southern menus for many years.

Find the farm raised catfish have very little flavor but can even eat larger natural catfish, although I agree the quality can vary quite a bit.

Smelt are great, but every once in a while I still would love a mess of those fingerlings.


----------



## jrsjunecleaver (Jan 5, 2006)

I grew up on a Catfish farm (in Texas), and we ate it at least 3 times a week.  Mama would mix mustard and milk; dip the fillets in, then coat with cornmeal, salt and pepper, and fry til golden.   It was great, but I burned out on fried fish!  
I ate halibut fried the same way in Alaska, and the only difference I noted was the halibut tasted cleaner.


----------



## Robo410 (Jan 5, 2006)

much of the oily/muddy taste of catfish is because it is a fresh not salt water critter.  If you season it well, be it cajun red or blackened, or just well salted etc, that taste is abated.  please do not take my statement to mean its inverse, that all freshwater fish taste oily.  They don't.


----------



## Constance (Jan 5, 2006)

I think it's the big river cats that I don't care for. They say that under the dam at Kentucky Lake, there are some that are bigger than a man. 
If you have ever cleaned a live catfish, I hope you knew what you were doing. They don't have scales. You have to skin them, and their whiskers will give you a painful sting. They must be nailed through the head to a tree or board, the skin slit around the head, and then pulled off with pliers. 
Some neighbors gave me a mess of catfish when I was very young, and told me how to clean them. But I had no hammer, nails, or pliers, so I tried to do it in the kitchen. Those fish flopped out of my hands and all over the floor. It would have made an "I Love Lucy" episode. 
I did finally get the job accomplished, but the meat was pretty much in shreds by the time I got it done.


----------



## AllenOK (Jan 6, 2006)

Hey Constance, try these for large cats:

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/catfishball.html
A story about a flathead cat that tried to swallow a small basketball.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/noodling.asp
Why you don't want to go "noodling" for cats.


----------



## marmalady (Jan 6, 2006)

OMG, Allen - it's the catfish that ate Cincinnati, lol!

I remember when I was little, we used to go to Lake Erie for vacations; there was a causeway or something where we could stand out over the water and throw bread to the catfish - I had nightmares when the water would literally start churning with hundreds of catfish mouths!


----------



## AllenOK (Jan 6, 2006)

Like I said, I'm originally from OK.  All the lakes there are man-made.  Usually, there is a hydro-electric plant at the damsite.  When they turn the generators on, and the flow comes out the downstream side, all the fish that got sucked into the intake from the lake get chopped up.  The water is literally teeming with catfish.  There are "urban legends" floating around about divers that go down to work on something underwater, and will suddenly resurface, white as a ghost, and say they just saw a catfish that could swallow a man whole.


----------

