Folks...I've been frying fish for a lot of years. My old standby for breading is egg wash then Ritz cracker crumbs. I have bought many different type breadings just for variety sake. I have both pan fried and deepfried fish following the instructions on the breading mix. Latest breading is Zatarain's Fish Fri Crispy Southern. I recently made perch and bluegills. Though the batter says "crispy" the fish came out just plain mushy. I used canola oil at 375 degrees. What the heck am I doing wrong? Thanks.
Recipies & Cooking
Mushy fish
3/2/17 @ 10:37 AM
Displaying 1 to 15 of 16 posts
usually it's temp. I fry mine at 375 as well. It is plenty hot to get them crispy. Many batters will not get crisp, I hate that. Most have commented on things to do though. I dry all fillets first as noted earlier. milk and egg, put it in the mix.
I found that mixing stuff together makes the best fish. If you use shore lunch dry, it NEVER get's crusty, don't matter how long you leave it in. So what i do, and I have tried pretty much every darn batter you can get at Gander, Fleet, walmart, pick n save...and the best is shorelunch.
what i do with it is key to a nice hard crust. I run original and mix it with the cornmeal. I LOVE the cornmeal shorelunch. It gets the best crust ever. SO I mix everything i run with cornmeal or Panko. If you like a breading mix, mix it with panko or top it off with panko.
I'll run corn meal shorelunch alone and it's some of the best stuff you'll ever taste and you get a great crispy fish.
I'd say your oil may say it's 375, but it's not unless you are using a real thermometer. I bought a new fry daddy recently, I took it back. the temp said it was at 375 but it took almost 30 minutes for the fish just to get semi brown. Junk!! a good breading and good heat makes the fish fry!!!
make sure the oil is popping before you put the first batch in
You dont say if you are coating them in flour before the egg. I dont dry them off, if they are wet, the flour sticks to the fish better, and the egg sticks better to the flour That is essential to seal off the oil from the fish. When I do batter is when I dry the fillets because if they are wet the batter just slides off. Temp wise I would go higher, oil just doesnt cook as hot as good lard or fat. just my 2 cents worth. have a nice day
Oil temp and dry fillets are important variables as mentioned. I haven't had much success with egg wash or beer batter so I don't use either. When I used to pan fry that was always hit and miss so I always use a dryer of some sort now and they always come out crispy regardless of which coating I use. Think I'll take some fillets out tonight now that I think of it.
Sometimes I fry my fish using just a flour and seasoning mix somtimes with some corn meal if I have any. You have to start with very dry fillets or the light coating just cooks away. I use a plastic bowl with a two chamber grate in it to dust the fillets real good.
I'll cook the fish just a bit after they start to float. Once they turn brown they have been cooked too long for my liking, especially panfish, so just a light brown and they are done. Lately I've been using Frying Magic mixed with Panco. I'll season the mix with just about anything within arm's reach, salt, pepper and Tony C's most of the time. I rarely use an egg wash as I don't like a lot of breading.
I just wanted to point out that I place the fish fillets in the fridge with paper towels on bottom and on top the morning of the day that I am going to fry them. I have never used cold egg wash however. I will try that next time and see if that helps. I only fry about 4 perch or gill fillets at a time and I have waited for the oil to get back to temperature before I throw in the next batch. When a batch is done I take them and put them in a bowl lined with paper towel and, as someone mentioned, put them in the oven at 175 degrees to keep warm. Not having much luck with this so if all fails I can go back to the ol' Ritz cracker recipe. Thanks for all the suggestions folks!
All good suggestions so far but I don't believe anyone mentioned the temperature of your fillets and egg wash. I dry my fillets well before I'm going to fry them and put them on the bottom shelf of the frig. I also make up the egg wash ahead of time and refrigerate that too to keep it cold. I bread my fish minutes before frying so they're not sitting out getting warm. They come out crispy every time. Even my beer battered fish are crispy. Just gotta keep everything cold.
Start with filets being dry. Dredge in flour and shake off excess. 50/50 egg milk wash. Coat with whatever breading. Do all of that within a few mins of frying so that breading is dry when you place in fryer.
Lay them out on a wire rack when you remove from fryer, pat dry with paper towels but do not cover. Place uncovered in an oven set to 175* to keep warm while cooking more batches. Try frying smaller batches at a time.
Was the breading crispy and just the fish mush or was the whole works mush? The only times I've had issue with mushy fish or breading is when:
A. The grease was not hot enough.
B. I put too much fish in at one time.
C. I did not dry the fish well enough or used old breading.
D. The grease was old or burnt.
E. A combination of above.
I'm kind of a tight wad and sometimes I stretch the capabilities of the oil too far. Starting with good quality components I've had no issues.
Displaying 1 to 15 of 16 posts
