Help the newbie fish fryer (fish taco content).

Cafe Society
1

Let me start by saying I am a horrible cook.

What I am trying to do is learn to fry fish in a cast iron skillet over a camp fire. The ultimate goal is to do fish tacos on camping trips. I just bought my first ever cast iron skillet. I think the idea is to have a high temp in the pan with the oil boiling pretty good, toss the fish in the pan and have it seared and cooked pretty quick. What is the secret of frying fish without the fish soaking up oil ? I did some experimental fish frying over an open fire this weekend and it turned out pretty good, but I am open to suggestions. One problem I had was determining when it was done. Also the breading didn’t stick to the fish very well when I was turning it in the pan. I used some store brand breading and dipped the fish in an egg-milk mix before frying.
Any tips on pan frying fish or fish taco recipes are welcome!

2

The key to getting bread crumbs to stick is dredge the fish in flour, then dip in beaten egg, then cover with bread crumbs. See “bound breading” in any general cookbook, or on foodnetwork.com.

3

I used safflour oil, BTW.

4

If your oil is too hot, it’ll blast the breading right off of a piece of fish or chicken or whatever it is you’re frying. To test for temperature, just toss a piece of bread into the oil and it should brown fairly quickly; if it just sits in the oil, your oil isn’t yet hot enough. Also a wooden spoon handle dipped into oil will bubble around the edges @ 350° (or thereabouts.) And oil should not be boiling BEFORE adding any edibles.

Have fun.

5

Don’t overload the pan. it makes it really hard to keep you oil within a good temperature range.

Cook in smaller batches, the benefit of that is that you don’t have freshly fried fish standing around.

If you can’t be arsed to do the flour-egg-coating thing (which works really well but can be a chore when camping) you can get a crispy coating with a simple cornflour/soda water batter. Thin and crispy, more like a tempura but it keeps the fish together and if you keep your fish pieces fairly thin (strips of 1-2 cm thickness are best) then you can cook them very quickly and so get cripsiness without burning or overcooking the fish.

Also, the smaller fish strips make loading a fish taco easier.

6

I would ditch the bread crumbs and just go with a dredging in flour. Fry hot, but not blast furnace. Fish is delicate, so unless you’re using a batter, forget the high heat.

7

Ok, you have 2 choices here, frying and deep frying. I’d say deep frying isn’t worth it over a camp fire, you’ll never be able to keep the oil at a good temperature, and you’re more likely to end up with a flaming pan of oil than properly cooked fish. It’s not really deep frying if you don’t have enough oil to completely immerse the fish anyway, it’s just frying with too much oil if you don’t have enough.

So for regular frying make an egg wash, 1 egg stirred will into 1 cup of cold water. Pour the wash over the fish in a bowl or in a plastic bag, make sure all the fish is well coated and sits in the wash for a few minutes. Make a breading mix out of 1 cup flour, 1 cup fine bread crumbs, and 1 tsp of baking powder. You can add a couple of tablespoons of corn flour for more flavor and crispness. Put just enough oil in a hot pan to fry with. Take the fish and roll and press into the breading, then lay pieces of fish in the pan. Add small amounts of oil as needed. Cook 1 - 2 minutes on a side, then turn and cook through, pulling pan off the fire to reduce the heat if takes more than another 1 - 2 minutes. Cut the fish thin to reduce the cooking time.

If you absolutely insist on deep frying, make a batter using 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1 tbsp corn flour, you’ll need mix up several times this amount. Keep the fish moist in a covered bowl or plastic bag. Mix a batter out of the dry ingredients and cold water that’s slightly thinner than pancake batter. Dredge pieces of fish in the dry mix, then holding with your fingers, dip into the wet batter, then lay the batter fish into the oil holding one end and moving the fish for a few seconds to keep it from sticking to the bottom. Lots of bits of batter will seperate and float up on the oil, remove those with a skimmer or slotted spoon. The fish will float up in a minute or so, turn to cook evenly.

You can’t do anything about coated fish absorbing oil, but keeping the oil hot enough will reduce it. You can mix your dry ingredients ahead of time, just keep them dry. For dry coating make sure all the ingredients are well mixed.

I’ll make an appeal to authority here, my own, I’ve fried over 20,000 pounds of fish, I have some knowledge of this subject.

8

^ Can’t argue with that! :slight_smile:

Also, if you do go the battered/deep-fried route, you can use a carbonated liquid like beer or seltzer water instead of baking powder + water. It essentially does the same thing and helps lighten the coating.

That said, I’d avoid deep frying in a campfire situation unless you know you have an easy, safe way of doing it. But I have to say, I like my fish tacos battered vs. breaded, so I’d find a way. :slight_smile: You can actually get a reasonable result shallow-frying it such that the oil goes half-way or a little bit more up the thickness of the fish. Most of the time when I do fish tacos at home, I just go the shallow-frying route. And you gotta save those bits of batter that float up to nom on.

9

I actually prefer fish tacos that are just pan fried in butter with no breading.

(I am sitting right now in front of an empty beach on the Sea of Cortez. I will be having flounder tacos and cerveza very shortly).

I just season the fish, fry it in some butter, break the filets up to pile into tortillas, top with cabbage/cilantro/salsa/lime/ and guac or crema.

10

Holy carp do I want some fish tacos now.

11

Thanks for the info! I definitely do not want to deep fry. I’ve had deep fried fish and it is fantastic but doing it over a camp fire in the vicinity of people drinking alchohol would be asking for trouble.

12

Tartar sauce mixed to taste with chopped jalapeno peppers is a tasty sauce for fish tacos.

13

I used to camp with a Mexican country boy and his wife who could deep fry anything you’d like over a campfire, they just filled a copper kettle with lard, set it in the fire till it was rolling and drop in hunks of pork or venison or battered fish or cooked meats rolled in corn tortillas. Doesn’t fry up greasy, boy it’s good, especially with the devil’s own green sauce, and when the lard cools it’s a lot easier to carry round than oil. You might want a pack mule for your copper kettle, though…