The delectable Catfish
Catfish has been and will always remain to be one of my favorite fish to eat. I find its one of the easiest to get my hands on in one way or another. I have been fishing for these fish most all of my life, and as such have learned to cook them, and do so well.
Catfish typically have a bad rap with persons looking to eat fish, typically having complaints that they taste muddy or fishy. Well, this can be avoided with a little extra work up front in the cleaning process. With out putting a bunch of graphic photos on this post the best and fastest way that i can inform you on how to avoid these complaints from your next fish cookout would be to cut out the red meat from the catfish. this is the meat that is typically found along the center line of the fish. In my experience this is the cause to the muddy fishy taste that some mention when eating catfish.
Now that you have only the white flaky meat that we all crave when snapping open a piece of freshly fried fish we can move forward. The next important step to improving the quality of taste of a catfish is to rinse the meat very thoroughly in cold water while massaging the meat to work out any residual blood spots.
Once the meat has been rinsed you can move the meat to bags for storage, or prep for cooking. If you make the choice to start cooking then i have a few pointers that will make for some of the best tasting fish i have ever made. there are a few products that you will need to purchase to have a similar experience to what i explain.
take the fresh catfish meat and cut to the desired sizes, whether you want to enjoy a nice large fillet or catfish nuggets, the important part here is make sure that the size of the cut of meat is uniform. this will ensure equal cooking throughout the meat.
Drain the meat. i like to let the meat sit in a strainer in a sink to drain while i work through batches of meat. you can also pat the meat dry to remove excess moisture from the meat.
These products, "Andy's Fish breading (Red)", "Traeger Fin and Feather Rub", and "Tony Chachere's creole seasoning (original)". These seasonings combined will make some of the best earthy tasting fish you could ever imagine. i will tell you know that a little goes along ways for the seasonings. The "Traeger Fin and Feather Rub", and "Tony Chachere's creole seasoning (original)" can be applied to the meat after you set it out and have it cut up to preferable size and dried.
The next step will be to crack a couple eggs into a bowl and mix with about a half cup of milk. mix thoroughly as if making scrambled eggs.
Dip each piece of meat individually into the egg wash then to the Andy's breading. Roll the meat around until all sides are covered, gently shake off excess. Go straight from here to a frying pan of canola oil at cooking at around 350 degrees
Cook until browned, and floating takes a couple minutes.
Lastly ENJOY!
Please let me know if you decide to try this recipe and how you liked it. It sure makes a Blue cat taste delicious but i bet it will work on most any fish.