After a week of eating out, I was in a mood to cook on Thursday night. Menu I came up with:

Caramelized Catfish

Blog pics photoSeason 1 lb Catfish filets with some salt, ground black pepper, red chili powder and some curry powder, keep for 30 minutes.

Make Caramel sauce - Add 1 cup of sugar and 3/4th cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and then simmer till the water evaporates. Sugar crystallizes first and then starts melting. Keep stirring till it becomes a thick dark brown liquid. Remove from stove and add some table spoons of boiling hot water, so that it doesn’t thicken too much and turn into sugar candy sheets. This whole process will take about 15-20 minutes.

In a pan, pour oil and fry some chopped shallots, minced garlic and some hot Thai green chilies. Add some red chili powder and coriander powder to this and fry till the spices are cooked. Then add the seasoned catfish filets and cook till the fish pieces turn translucent.

Add three tbsps of the caramel sauce and cook till almost all the sauce is absorbed by the fish pieces.

Add 3 tbsps of fish sauce and 1 cup of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Garnish with green onions and serve hot.

I made this dish first and by the time I was ready to serve, all the sauce was dried out, as you can see from the picture. So either make just before serving, or add some extra chicken stock and keep the dish thin, it will thicken in the pan.

Pan-Fried Oysters with Horseradish cream sauce

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_33356,00.html?rsrc=search

I followed Emeril’s recipe, but made a lot of substitutions and omissions. Emeril used big oysters, but I used the small variety that comes in a jar. Instead of Emeril’s essence, I used some Indian spices for marinating and wasabi powder instead of horseradish. I made a quick and easy rustic mango salsa instead of tomato corn salsa. The end result didn’t look anything like Emeril’s, but it did taste pretty good.



Comments

3 Responses to “Caramelized Catfish and Pan fried Oysters”

  1. Lanka on April 14th, 2007 8:33 am

    Your Cat Fish recipe was so good that I cooked it 2 days in a row !

  2. Sig on April 14th, 2007 7:28 pm

    Lanka, I am so happy to hear that you liked it! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment…

  3. Manju on October 23rd, 2007 7:34 pm

    Catfish has always seemed such a bland fish, I never know what to do with it so I never buy it. I will try your recipe soon, though, it sounds fantastic.

    I love catfish, marinated with spices and pan-fried too… but carmelized catfish is my favorite catfish preparation, must try. :)

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