Best Pan-Fried Fish Ever

Submitted by Lynn on Tue, 09/19/2006 - 2:40pm

Summary

Yield
Source	The TNH Test Kitchen
Prep Time	15 minutes
Recipes	Seafood

Description

Ingredients

Firm white fish fillets--basa, halibut, etc.
Masa de harina, aka corn tortilla flour
lemon pepper
lemon pepper
Coconut oil
Firm white fish fillets--basa, halibut, etc.
Masa de harina, aka corn tortilla flour
lemon pepper
lemon pepper
Coconut oil

Instructions

Melt enough coconut oil in a big, preferably cast iron, skillet to give you about 1/4 inch's worth on the bottom. Yes, coconut oil! it's good for you, honest! Do not substitute!

Meanwhile, have one cake pan partially filled with buttermilk, one with masa de harina. Season the masa liberally with lemon pepper, and I mean LIBERALLY. Mix it in well.

Dredge the fillets first in the buttermilk--let them sit a little bit in the buttermilk, a minute or two at least--and then in the masa. Fry till golden on each side, drain, eat. Now wasn't that fabulous?

If you have a goodly amount of leftover masa, make fritters: Beat an egg and add it to the masa, and add enough buttermilk to make a paste. Fry in small balls in the oil. Feed to your clamoring children to keep them from peeling off all the breading on the fillets before you can get them to the table.

Notes

This will work for any firm-fleshed white fish fillet. We use basa because it's cheap. Dover sole, as an example, is too delicate; it'll fall apart in this treatment.

Seafood

This fish was really good

Submitted by Kay W on Sat, 12/16/2006 - 7:51pm.

Thanks for the recipe! It is part of our dinner "rotation" now. This was the first time I'd ever used coconut oil before. I LOVE it. I've been using it for oil in other recipes and the family really likes it. I friend of mine has been saying that it is good for me. Hard to believe because it seems so "lardy". But I'll take her word for it, anyway.