My 7y.o. has recently gotten into fishing, and he’s LOVING it. My husband has been taking him to small lakes in our area to catch panfish (soon enough we will be into dipsy-divers and lake trout, but I love pan fish)!

Problem is, it’s been a long time since I’ve prepped it.
My basic recipe is flour, beaten eggs, and crushed saltines.
We just came home with about 10 bluegills yesterday, and I’m going to fry them up as apps tonight.
Any simple breading recipes you can recommend?

Thanks for any ideas!

We used to treat our customers to fish fry events where we used a 50/50 mix of Tony Chachere and Zatarain seasonings mixed in with corn meal, then deep fried the catfish. Was always a hit.

Ok, I’ve got cornmeal, so that’s a start. I might be a bit of a heathen, because I don’t recognize those seasoning names, but I’ll look it up. Thanks!

Simple is sometimes the best. Coat with flour seasoned with salt and pepper and fry in Crisco.Even better is to clean the fish (gut and remove head)and fry whole.

My mom always coated them in mayo (Dukes), and then in cornmeal with salt and pepper and then fry them in bacon grease. Simple but tasty.

This is a recipe that I have. It makes an amazing breading and stays crispy for a long time. It’s quite fantastic.

quote:

Originally posted by BigWhup:
We used to treat our customers to fish fry events where we used a 50/50 mix of Tony Chachere and Zatarain seasonings mixed in with corn meal, then deep fried the catfish. Was always a hit.

This, use leftover batter for hush puppies and big tip, put a quarter of an onion in your oil, this prevents the dropped corn meal from burning and giving your later batches a burned flavor. Instead the onion will burn before the bits on the bottom of the pan!

Whatever you do, do not fillet them, I’ve seen people try, just gut, scale, de-head and fry.

wife loves fish, and is gluten free,

so we use Zatarian's GF breader,

filet and wash fish
pat dry

dip in a beaten egg,
then put in a large zip lock bag with a bunch of breader,

shake around a bit and either fry (oil) or put in a non stick skillet and sautee, or place in the oven on a rack

all work well, and all taste delicious,

Thank you guys for all your responses. Keep em coming- I believe I have enough fish that I could try a few variations.

ETA: per the gut, cut off head and fry whole: should I be concerned about bones?

For fresh water fish, is bacon grease assumed? Or at least butter? All the coatings above sound good (I've used cornmeal the most) but I like bacon grease to fry fresh water fish.

But to be honest, I never knew you could eat blue gills. In college, used to catch and release a lot of them. Never once thought about eating them. Who knew?

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
For fresh water fish, is bacon grease assumed? Or at least butter? All the coatings above sound good (I've used cornmeal the most) but I like bacon grease to fry fresh water fish.

But to be honest, I never knew you could eat blue gills. In college, used to catch and release a lot of them. Never once thought about eating them. Who knew?

bluegill, shell crackers, etc (various names for similar species) are one of the best fish to eat,

Crappie (speckles, silvers, blackies etc ) are even better

Damn, guys, I’ve been saving my bacon grease forever, waiting for you southerners to tell me what to do with it ( besides pancakes and eggs, of course)! Never thought of that.. it’s on the menu.

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
Damn, guys, I’ve been saving my bacon grease forever, waiting for you southerners to tell me what to do with it ( besides pancakes and eggs, of course)! Never thought of that.. it’s on the menu.

Use bacon grease to pop your popcorn! Awesome!

Make a fish tortang aka torta.

Use the fish instead of corned beef. Simple to make, easy ingredients (fish / meat / veg, eggs, spices). You can also add onions and garlic which would be fried before dropping the patties into the pan.

I don't get fancy with it any more, I just run to the store and buy some Zatarain's Seasoned Fish Fri.

If you don't have it in your local grocery (our local Kroger has it, but I realize Kroger isn't everywhere), you can order online. I also like Louisiana Fish Fry but not quite as good to me....

I always filet panfish. They are good whole but picking around the bones is a pain.

I use yellow corn mean in a gallon ziplock bag. For a mess of 10 fish about 2 cups of cm should be plenty. Add 4 T seasoned salt, 2 T garlc powder, 2 T Everglades Seasoning or whatever special seasoning you may like, 1 t red pepper, 1 t bl pepper. Mix dry seasoning well.

Dip filets in an egg wash and then into the bag 4 or 5 filets at a time. Shake until well coated. Repeat until all are coated in cornmeal mix. Fry in hot oil, bacon grease, butter, peanut oil or a mix of all. Only takes about 3 minutes to get them potato chip crispy. When I do a large batch I put the cooked fish in a brown paper bag to keep warm and keep adding cooked fish until I'm finished. Probably cooked a thousand pounds or more using this basic recipe.

Sig Forum comes through again. I want to say thank you to everyone for offering ideas and recipes- I had enough fish to try a couple of different options- since I really didn’t have any time to run to the store I worked with what was in the house.

I made a mix of cornmeal and flour, added some paprika, did the egg wash, and then breaded with three different options: 1) saltines crushed, 2) potato chips crushed, 3)Pub mix (leftover) crushed. We gutted, cut their heads off, and pan fried them whole with a combo of bacon grease and Wesson.

They were fabulous. I held back 2 fish to modify the recipe and play with. My mom and I both liked the Pub mix seasoning best, my dad liked the saltines (old school). My husband said he he liked them all Son was a little concerned about bones but ate up.

Thanks for all the advice. I will play around with this a bit more, add and modify as soon as I get to the store to add to the ingredient stores. I suspect we have a few more opportunities to snack on them again this year, as my husband and son have found a honey hole for these guys.

This is exactly how I learned to do 'em growing up in Ohio, how I still do them today. Very little waste, the skin and fin pieces are amazing. Nothing beats frying the whole fish.

We used Zatarains a lot before moving to Florida in 1987, was introduced to Everglades seasoning and that is what I use on meat, fish and fowl!

The Rev shows how we did it in Ohio too. Except I remember cutting them all the way down past the poop hole. Then when cooked, split it open and removed bones. Came out in one piece. Not a better tasting fish than a bluegill or sunfish.