Grilled Trout

Kathleen (and Barry, Duane and Pete) came up this weekend. We're having a fabulous time, but I wanted to share a technique Kathleen showed me for grilling fish. So you take your fish, you brush it with EVOO, salt and pepper. Then you take a folded up paper towel and dip it in olive oil and rub it on the grill. Be thorough. Put the fish on the grill (skinless side down). When it releases easily, flip it and grill the other side until it releases (Kathleen put the lid on for both sides). I think she had about 5 minutes per side. And then it's done! We used the steelhead trout, but she said it would work with a number of fishes. The key is to be patient until it releases easily. It was very very tasty, I highly recommend.

Seafood successes

Our favorite coffee shop also does fresh seafood. On Tuesday we get an email asking if we want one of the items they are offering that week, and on Thursday we get to pick it up. Last week I made Steelhead Trout, which, to me, was almost identical to salmon in every way expect it's much cheaper. Highly recommend. And yesterday we got two pounds of PEI mussels, which I thought turned out fantastically, although 2 lbs was too much for two people along with artichokes, cheese, and bread.

What I've been liking about these is that the seafood is really easy to cook. For the trout I just marinated it for less than an hour in olive oil, salt and pepper, and then I broiled it in a cast iron skillet. The mussels were even easier. I just had to clean them and then steam them in a dutch oven with garlic, some wine and some beer. I felt like a real chef, even though both of those were probably easier than half the pasta dishes I make.

Fried Mississippi Catfish

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• ¾ cup cornmeal
• ½ flour mixed with ¼ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• Catfish fillets (allow at least one 7-9 oz fillet/person)
• Vegetable oil—Enough to put 3 inches in a dutch oven type pan.

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients together. The fish should be moist to capture the batter—do not towel dry. Coat the fish evenly in the dry ingredients and drop in the hot oil (360 degrees). Do not overcrowd the pan. The fish will turn golden brown and float to the top when done. Remove and place on absorbent paper—a brown grocery bag topped with paper towels works great. Serve with hush puppies, cornbread and or sweet potato fries!!!

Results
This was my FIRST deep-frying experiment, and turned out pretty well. Chris and I both liked the catfish, but we also bought really fresh catfish from our local coffee shop (this is an AWESOME coffee shop). It wasn't fishy at all. In fact, one might say that the catfish itself didn't have much flavor. It was all in the batter. It was really moist and the texture was excellent.

One challenge I found was that it was really hard to maintain the oil at a constant temperature. It got hot really fast, but then the temperature plummeted when I put the catfish in it. I did them in two batches, and the first batch took about 5-8 minutes to cook, but the second batch took about 2 minutes to cook. It was pretty confusing. Also, my eyes are still burning from the cayenne vaporizing into the air.