What’s the difference between meat and fish? If you beat your fish it will die.
Right. In another thread silenus posted links to fish taco recipes. Some versions of Baja-style fish tacos have fish with batter, and some don’t. I like them both, but I do like battered fish.
So I made fish tacos yesterday, despite that I’m out of cilantro and lime juice. I tried to batter the fish, but I ended up with something similar to Yorkshire pudding that wouldn’t stick to the fish. It tasted good, but it wasn’t what I was after. (I’ve used the fish fry stuff in the box when I’ve had fried fish, which is good but not the same as batter.)
So how do you make a proper fish batter? Or fried chicken batter, for that matter?
Did you flour the fish before battering it? That helps the batter to stick.
I don’t batter fish or chicken. The pieces go into three dips – one with flour, one with a mixture of beaten egg and vegetable oil, and one with cracker crumbs, in that order.
If you are putting a dry flavoring on to the fish, then it needs to be wet.
If you are putting a wet flavoring or whatever) on to the fish, then it needs to be dry.
So, for example, if you just want to dredge your fish in a flour/cornmeal coating with a some salt and pepper added, you want the fish to be wet. You could accomplish this by several methods. You could leave it, if it is wet, as is and dredge it into the flour/cornmeal mix.
Or, you could pat the fish dry, then dredge it in whippped egg wash, then dip into your mix.
Just remember, wet to dry, and dry to wet, to get proper adesion.
Alternatively, I’d suggest getting fish fillets large enough to just marinate them in Italian dresing and grill them. (this advice does not apply to pan fish. only proper way to cook these is to fry them in deep oil)
Yeah, what you said. Dredge the fish in flour, shake off the excess, drop it in the batter, remove and let any excess batter drip back into the bowl. Then fry.
Beer Batter
2 cups flour
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp baking powder
3-1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP sugar
3-1/2 tsp cayenne
1 12 oz bottle beer
1 large egg white, whipped until frothy
1 pound of shrimp or fish (cut into pieces)
Combine one cup of the flour with the paprika, baking powder, 1 tsp salt, sugar, and 1-1/2 tsp cayenne. Add the beer, mixing with a fork, then stir in the egg white. Set aside.
Mix remaining flour with remaining salt and cayenne. Dredge the fish in the flour, shake off excess. Add to the bowl of batter. Remove one piece at a time, shake off excess batter and drop into hot oil.
I had to get rid of some mozzarella in a hurry (it was a couple of days past its eat-by date), so I tried the flour/egg/flour thing and fried it. It worked well.
Tuesday I scored some wild-caught Alaskan true cod at the market. Unfortunately I don’t have any milk, so I just used some Cajun-style fish fry. Turned out perfectly. I mixed some taco seasoning with sour cream (from a link in silenus’s post in the other thread), heated a couple of corn tortillas, chopped some cabbage, and got the chopped onions and cilantro I made yesterday out of the fridge. A nice dousing of lime juice, and I had fish tacos.
I thought the sauce could be toned down a little, and I think it would be good without the Cajun flavouring. But they were better than any fish tacos I’ve had locally. I’ll try the flour/egg/flour coating another time.