Creating the Ultimate Fried Catfish Nuggets

Fresh fish is the best fish, at least in my estimation. It doesn’t matter what kind of fish either. If you can measure the time from when it was swimming, to when it was sizzling in minutes, not days, it’s going to be good. With a few little tricks, it takes the leap to amazing.

Catching your own meal ensures you know every part of how it was taken care of. This allows you to maximize taste and create a meal your friends and family will be talking about for years.

The first steps are the most important, and that involves bleeding out the fish and keeping it cold. If you have a stringer or livewell to keep your catch alive and healthy, you can take these steps whenever you want. If you don’t, your best bet is to immediately bleed them out and put them on ice. The most efficient way to bleed out a catfish is to completely remove the tail. The downfall is, without the tale attached, filleting your catch is more difficult.

Another option is to make an incision where the gills meet on the underside of the fish’s head. While this doesn’t remove all the blood as well as cutting the tail off, it gets the job done and allows you to use the tail as a handle while filleting the meat from the skin. Once the fish has been bled out, cover the fish in ice in a cooler.

Ice is super important. As soon as the fish expires, the flesh begins to break down. By reducing the temperature of the fish as much as possible, you maintain the fresh fish taste as much as possible.

These steps are not essential, but a fish that has been bled out and kept cool is going to yield the highest quality fillets. The next part is equally important. Most larger predatory fish have red flesh around the lateral line. The “red meat” or “mud line” as many call it, is the fatty tissue that not only holds the majority of fishy taste that some fillets have, but it also holds the highest level of contaminants collected that may be present in the waterways you’re fishing.

To remove the red meat, I make a cut lengthwise on the fillet, following the lateral line, creating two pieces. From here, I run my knife at an angle to trim the fat off. You will lose a little bit of the good stuff, but if done correctly, it is very minimal and creates a much better tasting, healthier product.

Now that the work is done, it's time for the fun part. Well, maybe not as fun as the eating, but right up there. There’s all kinds of ways to cook fish, but no doubt frying is the classic. For small cats with thin fillets, there’s no need to chunk them once the red meat has been trimmed. However, for cats larger than 1 or 2 pounds, it’s important to chunk the fillets. As a general rule, I like each piece to be approximately the same diameter as a 50 cent piece. These smaller pieces crisp up much nicer and prevent soggy fish.

Cornmeal based breadings tend to produce the most satisfying crunch in my opinion, and that’s where Whisker Seeker Breading really shines. I’ve never been one to leave things well enough alone, so adding a little garlic powder and cayenne pepper to the batter gives it the little extra flavor to send it over the top. I’m a fan of bold, robust flavors, so doing that, as well as letting your fish sit in Frank’s Red Hot or horseradish mustard adds a whole new layer of flavor.

Of course, you could always just dip your fish in egg, or dare I say, follow the directions on the package and soak it in milk. That’s entirely your call though.