Kitchen Sojourn » panko

Burning questions: what to consider when cooking fish

Greg Turner — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:27:16 +0000

Q: How to pan fry fish without it flaking apart or burning?

Pan-seared tilapia with bacon and shallots (links to a previous post)

A: We’re all scared of fish. Undercooked, fish of any but the best quality ends up cold, clammy and unappetizing. Overcooked, it falls apart or ends up chewy. Overcooked fish also tends to extrude its fishiest chemicals, which is one of the reasons reheating fish can be so difficult. But a pan-fried fish can be a wonderful thing. Simple, delicate, delicious. To successfully pan-fry fish, it’s important to consider the following: method, variety, fat, heat, hardware.

Method
I’m going to make the assumption that when you ask about pan-frying a fish, you’re talking about frying fish in a skillet with a little bit of oil, like you might sear tuna. The considerations I talk about here will work for any kind of frying, but fish usually doesn’t stick if you go with a traditional pan-fry method: a quarter to half an inch of oil in a heavy skillet, battered fish fried on one side, then the other. Fish you might find at the local southern diner comes to mind. If you ARE talking about a traditional pan fry, I’ve included some batter recipes at the bottom and some simple techniques you can use to pan fry or deep fry your fish to perfection.

Variety
Fish come in all shapes and sizes. It’s a no-brainer, I know, but it has a lot do with how well it will stand up to searing in a skillet.

In general, fish have much less connective tissue than other animals, and many fish have much less connective tissue than others. Connective tissue helps hold muscle fibers together and it melts away under high heat. Your fish probably flakes apart in the pan because you’ve cooked it too long, or it didn’t have much connective tissue to begin with.

The amount of connective tissue a fish has depends largely on the life it leads beneath the waves. Fish that move a lot, like tuna and salmon, have a great deal of connective tissue because their muscles are highly developed and are in constant or near-constant use. Fish that don’t have to move very often have less connective tissue, and fish that rarely move at all have almost none, relatively speaking. So, take a moment and think about the grouper spending its days moving gently to and fro among the coral reefs in shallow waters. It’s going to have less connective tissue than the tuna or mahi-mahi, but will probably have more than, say, bass, who spend ninety-percent of their time floating still beneath downed logs or rock ledges.

Fish with a high amount of connective tissue are going to stand up well to pan searing. Fish with little connective tissue are better suited to grilling (using a fish basket), poaching, steaming or baking.

Fat
No one likes to talk about fat. It’s become an ugly word, but if you’re pan searing, whether it be fish or steak or vegetables, you’re going to need some fat. White fish like cod work marvelously with butter, but butter has a very low smoke point. Olive oil, too, has a fairly low smoke point, but the flavor it can impart to certain fish is fantastic. What I would recommend is mixing an equal part canola or other high-heat, low-flavor oil with the butter or olive oil to help raise the overall smoke point. Raising the smoke point will allow you to work at higher temperatures which might be a key to your sticky problem.

Heat
The challenge with cooking any protein is managing heat. Specifically, getting the middle heated through without burning the exterior. They key? Let the meat or fish spend a little time outside the fridge, right there on the counter. I always try to allow any protein I’m cooking to come as close to room temperature as I feel comfortable. I’ll let steaks rest, salted, for about 15 minutes on the counter. I wait the same time with chicken. Fish, depending on the thickness, might not need as much time, but certainly five or ten minutes will help immensely.

When searing fish, you’re going to work hot and fast. I would suggest searing at about medium-high (it will vary some, depending on your oven), and for no more than a couple minutes on each side, depending on how thick the fish is and the variety you have. I’d say no more than a minute per side on thin fillets of delicate fish.

Hardware
Turning fish is next to impossible without a fish spatula, especially if the fish is delicate, like the grouper I mentioned above. If you cook fish a lot, I’d recommend buying one. They’re long and thin and designed to be able to support the whole fillet. If you’re like me, and don’t cook a lot of fish, then just keep two spatulas on hand and use them in tandem when you want to turn the fillet.

I’d also invest in a good, even-heating pan. You can get incredible deals on cookware at Amazon.com.

So now you’re ready to cook

Ingredients

Two thick grouper fillets
Kosher salt
fresh black pepper
Sliced lemon
One clove of garlic

Put about 1/2 a tablespoon butter and 1/2 a tablespoon canola oil in a medium-sized skillet (it’ll need to be big enough to hold both fillets). Set the skillet over medium-high heat.
While the oil heats, mince the garlic and sprinkle the fillets with salt.
Add the garlic to the oil and let it sizzle a few seconds, then place the fillets into the oil, skin side up.
- (Note: by placing the fillets in the skillet flesh-side down, you’re allowing some of the naturally occuring fat in the fish to mingle with the oil in the pan, bringing some extra flavor to it. You’re also going to cook the most fragile side of the fish while its connective tissue is strongest)
After a couple minutes, use your fish spatula to flip the fillets, and cook them the same amount of time on the other side
Plate, sprinkle with pepper and hit them with a dash of lemon juice

The traditional fry
There are two variations on the traditional fried fish I’m familiar with: catfish, because I’m from the south, and shrimp, because shrimp tastes good.

Fried catfish:
Two catfish fillets

batter:
12 oz beer
1.5 cups flour + 1 cup flour
.5 tsp salt

Put one cup flour in a shallow dish. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining flour, the salt, and the beer. Heat about 1/2 inch oil in a heavy skillet. Pull out the catfish fillets, pat them dry, then dredge them through the flour. Dunk them briefly in the batter, and lay them into the hot oil. Cook about 90 seconds per side, serve with lemon and tartar sauce, corn bread with honey and cole slaw.

Fried shrimp
About a dozen large shrimp, peeled and deveined

breading and batter
.5 cup buttermilk
1.5 cups panko breadcrumbs
.5 tsp paprika
.5 tbl garlic powder (or less, to taste)
.5 tsp ground ginger
.5 tsp salt
black pepper to taste

Heat .5 inches of oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Pat the shrimp dry and dunk them in the buttermilk before dredging them through the dry ingredient mix. Toss them in the oil, and let them fry for no more than 90 seconds on each side. Drain on paper towels a couple moments, then enjoy.

Do you have a question about food or cooking? Drop me a line and I’ll do my best to answer it in a future edition of Burning Questions.

How to cook vegetarian

Greg Turner — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:15:58 +0000

On the way back from my in-laws Christmas day, my daughter announced she was officially a vegetarian. My wife and I weren’t surprised. We knew it was coming the day she disavowed bacon, and I’ve been encouraging her since reading Michael Pollan’s “Farmer In Chief,” which includes striking information on environmental impact of the US food industry. Still, it throws a wrench in my overall plan of learning again how to cook.

To mark the occasion of my daughter’s vegetarian transformation, I wanted to do something special. An appetizer. In the past, we’ve enjoyed the frozen spinach artichoke dip produced by T.G.I. McGuilicutty’s (and yes, I’ve hated myself for it). Why not do something similar? Luckily, I’d seen a close recipe in Rocco’s 5 Minute Flavor. Did I mention how I already hated myself a bit? Don’t judge. It was heavily discounted, and there must be some merit, some universal truth in spending $7.95 on a book that lists at $26.95 by a former chef (he’s just a cook now) who enjoyed one of the most well-publicized and precipitous falls from favor in the public cooking world.

And I tell you this: if there is no other recipe in the whole book, the artichoke dip alone is worth the price of admission.

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, finely chopped (I’m a fan of Virgo. They’re organicish and inexpensive, which is much more than I can say for Progresso)
3/4 cup mayonnaise (the original recipe suggested low-fat or reduced fat, but that doesn’t quite have the same wonderful unctuous mouth feel as the real stuff)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated fine
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped fine (yes, fresh counts here. I wouldn’t dare use the dry stuff for this recipe)
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs (this is my addition, for color and some texture)
1 fine French baguette

Technique
Mince
Chop, fine

Method
Bake

To make the dip, simply combine the artichoke hearts, mayonnaise, garlic, parmesan cheese, and basil in a 8” * 8” baking dish. Stir them all together then sprinkle the top with the bread crumbs. Cut the baguette on a bias and arrange the slices on a baking sheet. Put the sliced bread and the artichoke dip in a 425(degree F) oven for about 5 minutes. The bread will crisp up and the dip will get nice and bubbly. Right at the end, zap the dip under the broiler for about 30 seconds to brown the bread crumbs and give them some additional crunch.

For the main course, I went with an old standby, spaghetti and tomato sauce with garlic bread.

Ingredients (serves 4, without being piggish)
For the sauce
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, mostly drained
1 8oz can tomato sauce
four garlic cloves, crushed and copped fine
kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano (or more, to taste)
1/4 cup grated parmesan + 1/4 cup grated parmesan held in reserve

For the pasta
1 16 oz package of dried spaghetti (duh)
2 level tablespoons kosher salt

For the garlic bread
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 loaf of crusty Italian or cu ban bread, cut in half lengthwise

Technique
Chop, fine
Mince

Method
Boil
Simmer
Broil

Fill a 6 qt stock pot with four quarts of water. Add two level tablespoons of kosher salt and set the water over high heat

While the water is coming to a boil, set a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil. The pan is at temperature when it feels warm to a hand that’s several inches above it. Add the garlic and let it soften and turn translucent at the edges. Make sure to keep it moving so it doesn’t burn.

note: burned garlic is very bitter and gives a hard, sometimes unpleasant edge to sauces and soups.

When the garlic has softened some, add the diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce and stir it all together. Let the mix come to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low (low-medium), and allow the sauce to simmer. Give it a taste and add a little salt, if necessary.

Without any extra ingredients, the sauce will taste very bright and acidic, like a slightly under-ripe tomato. Add the oregano, stir it in, and taste. The sauce should taste more mellow now. Gone is the tannic edge and in its place is a rounder, deeper flavor. If the sauce still tastes tart, try adding a bit more oregano or a couple grinds of black pepper. As a last resort, you could add a trace of sugar, but then you might as well have saved yourself the trouble and just bought the jarred stuff at the store, savored its cloying sweetness.

When the sauce tastes good (tasting along the way is the secret to an excellent tomato sauce), slowly stir in 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese and then leave it alone. From here on out, the sauce will take care of itself.

Your water should be boiling now, so go ahead and carefully place your pasta in the pot, give it a stir, and let it go. Set the timer as directed on the box (I usually go for the lowest suggested time so I don’t inadvertently cook my pasta to mush), and give it a good stir about two minutes into the cooking time. That’s when the pasta will release most of its starch into the water and thus will be most likely to stick together into a giant spaghetti rope. Looks cool, but is pretty inedible.
After you’ve given the pasta the second stir, It’s time to toast the garlic bread. Set a small sauce pan on one of your remaining burners (sorry, Bittman) and bring it to medium-high. Add the olive oil and butter. When the butter has melted, add the minced garlic. Don’t let it sit in the pan. Stir, keep the pan moving and heat the garlic until it begins to go translucent, then use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pan. Get a brush (or you could just pour it over the bread) and brush the bread with the butter mixture.

Note: If you want an extra garlicy touch, reserve the minced garlic to spread on the bread once it’s out of the oven.

Stick the bread in the oven under the broiler for about a minute (check it at 45 seconds, just to be safe). When the bread begins to brown on the edges, take it out.
When the beeper beeps, drain the pasta.

Plate the pasta, cover with a couple spoonfuls of the sauce, and serve with the garlic bread, sliced. Put the remaining Parmesan cheese on the table so guests can adjust the sauce’s cheesiness to their liking.

A good spaghetti sauce is easy to make. Cook it slow, taste along the way, and add nothing in huge quantities. Use the best ingredients you can (don’t you dare use off-season tomatoes; go for canned), and keep it simple. It’s a formula that’s served me well for a long time, evidenced by this exchange:

Daughter: What are we having for dinner?
Me: Spaghetti and tomato sauce.
Daughter: The stuff you make, or the stuff from a jar?
Me: The stuff I make.
Daughter: Good.

That vote of confidence from a picky eater? It’s a wonder I don’t make the stuff every night.