Seared crispy fish

Anyone have any tips/secrets for maintaining fish with a crisp skin?

Questions Im interested in:
1) At which point do you salt the fish? Just before searing?
2) To score the skin or not to score the skin?
3) Should the Pan be ripping hot?(Oil just starting to smoke)
4) Do you shift the fish around once it hits the pan? Or go with the "no touching until its time to be flipped"
5) How long does fish need to be rested after searing?
6) For a skinless fish, if you're using a dusting of some kind of flour/starch. Is Wondra the way to go?

So far my preferred method of choice is to score the fish(I usually do salmon), temper it at room temperature. Into a really hot pan with a high smoke point oil, I press the fish down to make sure the skin makes even contact with the pan, I usually let it cook about 85-90% of the way though, then I flip the fish, pull the pan off the heat. Cold butter goes in with some thyme, baste the fish, add a squeeze of lemon juice to the mix, continue basting the fish. Seems to work pretty well but Im interested to hear how you guys do it

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Theo_9282

A few tips I have seen around are to:

Pat the skin dry

Scrape the fish skin gently with a knife in from the front to the back of the fish (removing more moisture)

Salt skin just before placing in the pan

Place a gentle weight on the fish/hold it gently with a clean kitchen cloth for the first few seconds of cooking to stop the fish curling.

Mostly leave it alone till flipping

I usually use a mix of oil and butter to sear fish.

Random photo of crispy fish I made:

Matt_67991

Well, it looks like the new course might cover a little bit of this.

But I will second your curiosity about the starch that should be dusted on skinless fish. I've seen Wondra recommended by Eric Ripert, but I'm not sure why. Like, I'm not sure why if a flour like wondra is an improvement over flour, something like cornstarch wouldn't be an even greater improvement? Maybe a specially modified starch could work a bit better? I'm interested in what properties of the starch are important for that sort of thing.

ren_74229

I salt the fish just before searing, but I don't salt the skin. Prior to cooking, I also let the fish temper on paper towels, skin side down. If you've got a plancha...definitely use that, but if not, a med-hot pan works too. Roughly 350F. Yes it will be easier on non-stick. I oil the cooking surface, put the fish skin side down, then kind of massage the flesh and press down with my fingers until I know that the skin has stabilized....but not so much that it compromises the flesh. I then oil the fish and wait until the skin is crispy. Depending on the fish, you can see this as browning on the edges and see how the "cook" moves up the flesh. On a plancha, the fish won't release easily unless the skin is crispy, on a non-stick pan, you just have to get a feel for when it's done. I usually remove the fish, flip, oil, and finish under the broiler until a cake tester just goes through the flesh without resistance. Season the skin.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I think a lot of people use Wondra 1) because it's pretty ubiquitous in american kitchens, 2) it's pre-cooked and less prone to clumping and dusts on easily

I personally think constarch creates too thin of a crust which may or may not be what you want in a particular application.

Samuel_68313

My personal answers:

1. I tend to season the flesh before and then the skin afterwards.

2. I don't score it personally, I prefer the look of unscored and notice no difference in crispiness.

3. Yes, my pan is just starting to smoke.

4. No touching until flipping, just a little pressure early on keep it flat. Once I flip it I normally remove from the pan after about a minute.

5. I never rest, I just serve it. But I've never tried resting it so don't know if I should be. I've always thought you were supposed to serve fish immediately.

6. I like potato flour, but have never really compared different flours in any reasonable manner (like I've tried different flours but normally in different applications with different fish so hard to really compare)

Lennard__34626

Ah I was going through my cookbooks today and Blumenthal recommends placing a ramekin on the fish once it hits the pan instead of pressing it down with your fingers

Brendan_Lee_56950

The other thing I just thought about is the technique of placing a piece of parchment down between the fish and the pan and cooking on top of that. Prevents sticking but will still get it crisp, I've done it a few times with fish with good success, I just always forget the technique exists.

Lennard__34626

Oil the parchment? I've never heard of that technique before... Sounds quite interesting

Brendan_Lee_56950

yeah, oil it like you would the pan, it just guarantees a nonstick surface

Lennard__34626

This just happened over the weekend. I had a gigantic piece of frozen cod, thawed it, tempered it to room temperature, it was resting on a bed of paper towels to absorb moisture. I patted it try at least 5 times after that before it went into a Mauviel pan with quite a good amount of oil(I wanted to get a really nice thick crust) to essentially very shallow fry it. After about 4-5 mins it went into an oven to cook through

The crust was absolutely beautiful, at least the bits of it that didnt stick to the pan. What went wrong here?
Too much moisture?
Frozen fish?

trev_teich

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.561521667211037.139248.191755180854356&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.492693224093882.124288.191755180854356&type=3

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Trevor, I get an error message when I try to open those pages ...

trev_teich

Weird. Copy and paste them into your browser.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

@Lennard, I had the same thing happen to me with frozen cod about a month or so ago. Incredibly frustrating.

Regarding Wondra in fish cookery.... I don't know the science behind it, but I do know that Wondra has already been cooked. Might that be a reason it's so effective?

Brandon_34695

It's "pre-gelatinized" so it doesn't immediately start to get gummy when it comes into contact with your moist protein.

Eric obviously knows his way around a fish fry, but I've done that for years and I sadly don't have LB's staff of porters to wipe the oil splatters off of every surface. Consider this a plug for Grant Criley's method in the new course - I am preferring it to sous vide fish so far, and it doesn't make a mess. Since they mentioned it before in prior videos, I am not giving away the farm by saying oil the product, not the pan.

I'm not really speaking to Lennard's pan scab because I've certainly done the same thing and I don't know the answer. More for anyone out there following along. I switched to non-stick for fish for ease of use, lately I'm using non-stick-ish enameled cast iron fry pan and oiling the fish. Loving life this way. I couldn't love caring for Lodge pans.