A good old fish fry is as much an Ozarks tradition as float trips and mushroom hunting. Fire up the deep fryer, coat the filets in breading or batter and a fresh-fish banquet will soon be on the table.
Frying a mess of fish is a way to celebrate when family or friends get together. For a quick dinner, or when cooking for one or two, baking fish is an easy and healthy way to enjoy the catch of the day. Filets of crappie, catfish, walleye and black bass are all delicious hot out of the oven.
We've baked more fish than we've fried this spring and summer. Because baking is so fast and easy, we've enjoyed more healthy fish dinners than if we'd dragged out the deep fryer and oil to satisfy a fish craving.
Baking can be as easy as placing a few filets on a cookie sheet and popping them in the oven for 10 or 15 minutes. Ramping up the flavor is a snap with an easy recipe found in a cook book or online. One that we've really taken a shine to this year is oven baked fish with mayo. Mix together a few ingredients and you're chowing down in about 20 minutes. There's no oil or fryer to mess with. No batter or breading, just easy cooking and cleanup. Here's the recipe:
Four to six fish filets, about a pound.
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
¼ cup parmesan cheese or grated Romano cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup bread crumbs
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place filets in a lightly greased 9-by-13 baking pan. In a bowl, combine all ingredients except the bread crumbs and mix until a thick sauce forms. Spread sauce evenly over fish filets. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of the fish.
Bake 15 minutes. To finish cooking, turn on broiler for two to three minutes until fish is golden brown.
We've used this recipe with about every kind of fish that swims in Beaver Lake, including crappie, walleye, black bass and catfish. Each time the fish has turned out superb. Cleanup can be even easier by placing aluminum foil in the baking pan. Just throw away the foil after cooking and the baking dish is clean as a whistle.
Recipes are made for tweaking, and we've used other seasonings in place of Old Bay. We've also found that if you put all the sauce on just a few filets, the sauce overpowers the fish. A thin coating of sauce on each filet is enough.
Or, try boiling. Once on vacation we attended a community fish boil in Trempealeau, Wis. Fish boils are to the Great Lakes region what fish fries are to the Ozarks. This was a big affair for the whole town, but doing a fish boil at home is easy as baking fish. You just need a big pot, some fish, potatoes, onions, seasonings and away you go. A computer search reveals fish-boil recipes
The neighbors are coming over for fish this weekend. We'll be firing up the Fry Daddy for that shindig. When it comes to a quick and easy dinner, baking gets the nod.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 07/19/2016