The school year’s coming to a close, the work week’s wrapped up, and the sunlight sticks around until half-past-Eight in the evening. Summer has arrived, & it’s time to unwind outdoors! Out of the many activities my kids and I enjoy thanks to warmer weather, fishing remains my go-to pick for when I want to relax. I’m not an expert angler by any means, but set me up with a rod and reel next to a pond or river & I’ll be at ease. As a kid, I cut my teeth on catching small panfish like bluegill and bringing them back to my grandparents’ place for a fast fry at home. However, most of my time nowadays is spent setting my kids’ hooks and untangling their lines rather than casting!
Either way, there’s nothing quite like the excitement of getting a bite, setting your hook, and reeling it in for a successful catch. Except, of course, for getting a different kind of bite—that first juicy taste of golden-brown fried fish back at home!
Today, I’m aiming to share the love with some of my neighbors with a backyard fish fry. Whether you’re gathering up a bucket of bluegill or just defrosting some tilapia from the store, let’s break out our FryDaddy® deep fryer and get this started.
One Rad FryDaddy
For starters, let’s take a look at our tools for the evening. I’ve had a FryDaddy deep fryer for years, and it’s amazing how useful this compact tub can be at frying up pretty much anything I’ve thrown at it. Favorites in the past include homemade chicken nuggets, crab rangoon wontons, and bulk orders of french fries and onion rings for a graduation party. It just goes to show how versatile the FryDaddy can be! Since it automatically heats up and regulates the oil temperature inside, without needing to set any controls, we can simply pick which oil we want to use, plug the deep fryer in, and get to assembling our ingredients.
Let’s be clear: you don’t need to use fresh-caught fish for any of these recipes, either. Store-bought or frozen packaged filets work just as well, especially if you don’t have the time to head to your local fishing spot. But no matter how we batter our fish, be it homemade or a store-bought mix, we’ll need something to help the coating stick. Enter our simple Crispy Coating Recipe, which acts as a perfect adhesive mix for anything we wish for our fish dish. (Eat your heart out, Dr. Seuss.)
Anyways, coating. You can use your favorite coating as a base before applying a batter, be it a homemade recipe, boxed mix, or even the Crispy Coating mix found in the instruction booklet of the FryDaddy. Once mixed up, use either tongs or a clean, dry hand to dip your fish in the mixture, then transfer it over to a bowl with your breading of choice.
Batter Up
Speaking of breading, let’s go over some batter recipes. For our fresh-caught panfish, we’re staying nice and simple with a slight alteration to our crispy coating. Use cornmeal and a lemon pepper seasoning to make a sweet, crispy seasoning with a hint of tangy flavor! Plus, each piece only takes about 5 minutes to fully fry, and depending on the size, you can have up to 4 in the pot of the FryDaddy at a time. Use peanut oil to really capture that crispy, delicious flavor in every bite, then serve with lemon wedges or a cocktail sauce on the side.
Next, let’s try something a little leaner with a recipe for Italian herb-fried tilapia. I recommend using a lighter oil such as vegetable or avocado oil, to let more of the zesty seasonings shine through. Defrost a 2-pound bag of frozen tilapia filets, then pat dry with a paper towel. Then, cut each in half longways to make thin, easy-to-fry fritters. Roll each of these in our Crispy Coating recipe, then cover each with a mix of Italian seasoned panko breadcrumbs, garlic powder, and grated Parmesan cheese. Fry the fish 3 at a time for 4 minutes, and in a few batches, you’ll have a beautiful array of crunchy, savory fish strips.
Lastly, for a wilder flavor, I whipped up a crispy coconut-crusted swai fry. Swai fish usually tastes pretty bland, but the long, thin filets make excellent pieces for frying. The secret to frying this fish comes from our choice of cooking oil: coconut oil. Being a lighter nut oil with a high smoke point, we can maximize the coconut flavor of our fish this way. Bear in mind that coconut oil usually sits solid at room temperature. You’ll want to warm it up so that you have roughly 2 cups of liquefied oil prior to pouring it into the FryDaddy for use. My seasoning mix consisted of shredded coconut, combined with ginger and garlic powder, and a dash of cinnamon for extra zest. After thoroughly turning the seasonings together, dip your swai filets in the coating mix from before, then roll them in the coconut-spice bowl before immersing them in the FryDaddy. Since they tend to be a lot longer than panfish or tilapia, only fry one or two at a time to avoid any loose spots in the breading. The result is a sweet and slightly spicy fish filet with a satisfying crunch.
Delightfully Fried Sides
Now that we’ve showcased a few entrée options, let’s diversifry for our side dish offerings. Obviously, french fries are a no-brainer, as the counterpart to classic fish & chips. FryDaddy handles these easily, with a fairly efficient oil-to-serving ratio: up to 4 servings of fries for every 4 cups of oil used! You can also try fresh crispy homemade onion rings, such as this recipe with buttermilk, cornmeal, chili powder and sweet Vidalia onions. But there’s more we can make to take our neighbors’ taste buds even further.
Still fried, but full of nautical flavor, these Seafood Pinwheels are excellent hors d’oeuvres. Just dice up your choice of crab, shrimp, or both, then mix it with lemon juice, cream cheese, diced green onion and water chestnuts. We can then stuff wonton wraps with our filling, pinch the corners in to make a diamond shape, then lower them into our FryDaddy 4 at a time for a salty, creamy, and crunchy treat.
Lastly, try this Fish Tacos with Corn Salsa recipe for a more portable entrée. This one uses the same crispy coating mix as above, but works best if you halve your filets first, similar to the Parmesan crusted tilapia recipe. Make a breading mixture with cornmeal, flour, salt and pepper, then roll the already-coated fish in the mixture before frying to a light golden brown, or about 3 minutes. Make sure you drain the fish afterwards on a bed of paper towels—no one wants to bite into a taco and be met with a splash of hot oil! These salty fish strips sit perfectly in a tortilla alongside a spicy corn salsa, flavored with red and jalapeno peppers, red onion, cilantro, and lime juice. Add a wedge or two of lime for extra zest and you’ll have a hot meal for those warm summer afternoons all ready to go.
With these recipes and more available online, you can turn your catch-of-the-day into a classic summer fish fry at home.