Since my husband grew up eating fried fish, I thought it would be appropriate to fry the trout he caught last weekend. Puo (grandmother) and I used Sichuan pepper also known as flower pepper (hua jiao) in Chinese to marinate the fish. Flower pepper is a unique mouth numbing pepper that can be used in meat and seafood dishes.
This simple dish turned out better than expected. My husband said it was the best fish I have ever prepared….perhaps because it is the only one I have ever fried?
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| Prepare fish |
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| Flower Pepper |
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons canola oil (Puo wanted me to use more oil, but I refused)
1 tablespoon flower pepper (see photo)
1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
1 whole fish – scaled, cleaned, skin intact (we used salt water trout)
Directions:
1. Rinse cleaned fish with cold water.
2. Score fish on both sides.
3. Liberally cover fish on both sides with flower pepper and sea salt. Include the cavity of the fish and areas where scored.
4. Place in Ziploc bag or covered container and refrigerate for 6-8 hours.
5. When ready to cook, quickly rinse fish under cold water removing all peppers from fish.
6. Pat fish completely dry with a paper towel. Be sure to include the cavity.
7. Heat canola oil on high in non-stick pan.
8. Place fish in pan for about 4-5 minutes. Constantly swirl the oil in pan so fish is evenly coated with oil at all times.
9. Flip the fish and let sit for another 4-5 minutes until thoroughly cooked. Continue to swirl oil.
10. Skin should be crisp when dish is ready.
Problems I encountered:
Puo insisted I cut the fish in half to fit in my pan; however I wanted to keep the fish intact. When we started cooking, the fish was slightly larger than my pan so I ended up cutting it in half anyway. Puo told me to keep in mind that the dish needs to taste good, not look good.
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