Panko-Breaded Catfish

Our neighbor goes fishing a lot and usually ends up with more catfish than he and his wife can handle. Luckily, he is a very nice man and will bring us a big bag of filleted catfish every so often. There is usually enough fish in each bag to feed us twice, so this week I planned out two meals with a bag. First up is fried catfish! We do own a deep fryer and have cooked the fish that way before but since we didn't have enough oil this time, I just made it in a skillet on the stove. I had my personal photographer (Raley) take the pictures and the most excellent sous chefs (Pattie and Clay) you could ever ask for helped me every step of the way.

The Ingredients:
Lovely fillets of fish
Panko crumbs
Flour (I use Kentucky Kernel Seasoned Flour)
2 eggs

Set up a little assembly line for yourself. Take a piece of the fish

Dredge it in the flour.

Then the egg.

And finally the panko crumbs.

Place in a skillet with about a half-inch of hot canola oil (or whatever you like to fry things in). There are loads of ways to see if your oil is hot enough. You may even have a thermometer for the job. I use the old trick of throwing a panko crumb or two in the skillet and if they sizzle, you're ready to rock; or cook, as it were.

When they are lovely and brown on one side, turn them over to cook on the other side. The time this takes will depend on the size of the piece of fish. the smaller pieces took just a minute or two but we had a couple larger pieces that took a while longer. nobody wants to bite into a fried piece of fish and get sushi, so take your time and don't let the oil get too hot.