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- [Announcer] The following episode of "Charlotte Cooks" is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you.

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(bright upbeat music) - Welcome to this edition of "Charlotte Cooks".

I'm Chef Pamela Roberts, and we are so glad you're joining us.

This season on "Charlotte Cooks", we are bringing people to the table.

And we're bringing people to the table through the enjoyment of Southern cuisine.

And so today, what we're gonna teach you all about are hushpupies and fried fish.

Everybody knows that a hush puppy is one of those things that brings people out.

It goes with fried fish, it goes with barbecue.

In most restaurants, you can usually find hushpupies in some way, shape, or form as an appetizer.

And they aren't just plain, people are getting really, really creative with hushpupies.

And so today, I'm gonna show you how to make a very basic hush puppy recipe.

We're going to fry 'em up.

I'm gonna show you how to make some fried catfish, how to prepare that catfish, and how we're gonna bread it up, and we're gonna fry it, and then we're gonna plate it up and make an irresistible fish fry style dinner for you.

So to get started, we're gonna start with our hushpupies.

And so, to make hushpupies, the first couple of things we need are some cornmeal.

Now, cornmeal comes in both yellow and in white.

It depends on your personal preference, both have the same flavor.

I like the yellow because I like the color, and I think it's a lot of fun to have a nice, yellow hush puppy instead of just a plain, old white hush puppy.

So, we're gonna add cornmeal.

We're gonna add some flour.

We're gonna add some seasonings to this, with our diced onions.

We have some beautiful, little minced onions here.

Now, this is just gonna be a plain onion hush puppy.

Now, instead of using just plain onions, you can add jalapenos, you can add some pineapple.

I know, pineapple hushpupies, really?

Don't throw pineapple out the window, guys.

Pineapple is an amazing fruit.

We're gonna add a little bit of baking powder.

And the baking powder is just could give a little bit of rise to our hush puppy.

And we're just using a little bit here.

We're also gonna use a pinch of salt.

Everything needs salt to bring out the flavors.

Just a little bit.

I'm gonna add some white pepper.

Now, you can add the dark pepper if you want to, but just keep in mind that if you use the dark pepper, you are gonna see those dark pepper flakes in your mix.

So before I add any of my wet pieces to this, I'm just gonna mix it up.

I've got my cornmeal, my flour, my onions, and that's the lumps you're seeing in here.

My baking powder, a little bit of salt, a little bit of white pepper.

And next, I'm going to add some buttermilk.

And next, I'm gonna crack an egg into this mixture.

And mix it all up, okay?

So, I can take this and mix this with my spatula.

I can take it and I can mix it with my whisk over here if I wanted.

But, you know, I don't really need to use a whisk 'cause it doesn't really need to be that fine.

So mix all of this together, okay?

Where did hushpupies come from?

Why are they called hushpupies?

Well, it's a really simple mix.

Now, if you notice that the things that are in here are also going to be the things that we're pretty much gonna be breading our fish with.

Flour and cornmeal.

And so, typically, the hushpupies were made at fish fries, fish camps.

So here in the South, we have places called fish camps, where you go and you catch the fish, and you bring 'em up, and they serve them with hushpupies, and coleslaw, and all kinds of french fries and stuff like that.

So, what they would do at the fish camps is the dogs would be barking, and howling, and all kinds of things, wanting the fried fish too.

So the cooks would take the batter, and they'd mix it up, and they'd fry it up, and they'd throw these balls of fried dough at the dogs, "Hushpupies, hushpupies."

And they'd throw these to the dogs to make them quiet while everybody else ate fish.

And that's where they came from.

And so, they decided that they were gonna actually start putting them into flavors and makin' 'em taste good because, you know, people like fried cornmeal.

So there you go.

So I'm not gonna fry these right now, but what I am going to do is let this sit and let it rest for a couple of minutes before I go ahead and fry it, okay?

So next, I'm gonna show you how we're gonna prepare the catfish.

Catfish is a very typical Southern fish.

You can buy catfish farmed, which is what I really prefer.

Because catfish really is a bottom feeder, and if you go out and you actually catch them out of a river they will taste a little bit like the bottom of the river because they're bottom-feeding fish.

And this is why when we're doing a lot of commercial fish production, when we are doing catfish, we'll use farm-raised catfish.

And that's because they're not gonna be tasting so much like dirt, like a regular wild catfish would.

And so, we've got our beautiful catfish filet.

You can get them from the fish shop and you can have them take the skin off.

And this is really what a big old fish fillet looks like.

And so, this is really too much to actually deal with just like it is.

And so, we are gonna wanna cut this up and get this ready to be going into the fryer.

So if you look at this fish, you could see there's some things here, some fat along here.

You've got the spine right here, and you got a little bit of more fat here.

There is no skin on the back, so you don't have to worry about it.

So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut it right down the center here, to make it into two smaller fillets.

There you go.

You've got two small fillets now.

So from here, you wanna just clean it up a little bit.

If you see any of this stuff in the middle, just trim it up.

Anything that looks super white or fatty, you might wanna trim that off.

Just a little bit here on the side.

Trim this off.

And the reason I trim this off is because sometimes these little striations along the side might harbor little bitty bones, and you don't want those bones when you're taking a big, old bite of catfish.

Catfish are notorious for having big bones, but they also have a lot of little bitty bones in them.

And so, once it's fabricated correctly, you're not gonna have to worry about bones.

So from here, I wanna take it and I wanna cut it again.

And I'm gonna cut it on an angle, but I'm gonna keep the angle the same as the angle on this point, so it doesn't look weird, okay?

I'm just gonna take this and cut this like this.

And this piece down here, I'm gonna cut it just a little bit more.

I could save that for a catfish stew or something.

But this is what I really wanna have for my fried catfish.

We have a hush puppy batter made, and we are letting it rest for a few minutes.

What we wanna do is make a tartar sauce, because the tartar sauce is gonna let the flavors marry it if it sits just a little bit.

So we're gonna let it sit for a little bit.

So, we're gonna take a little bit of mayonnaise and put it in a big bowl.

Any kind of commercial mayonnaise you want is fine.

If you wanna make your own mayonnaise, that's fine too.

We're going to take a little bit of dill pickle relish.

Now, you can chop up some dill pickles if you want.

You can also use sweet pickle relish if you don't like the sour.

But I really like the flavor of the sour pickle in with the tartar sauce, and it goes so well with fish.

Put a couple of spoonfuls of that in there.

Now, of course, you can put this pickle relish in according to taste.

We're gonna put some onions in here.

Some beautiful minced onions.

Once again, according to taste.

I'm gonna use 'em all, 'cause I like onions.

If you wanted to use shallots, shallots are an excellent thing over here.

We're gonna use a little bit of lemon juice.

Just a little bit, a couple of drops.

And that's just to add a little bit of acidity.

It's not for a whole lot.

If you don't have it, you can leave it out.

We're also gonna put a little bit of chopped dill in here.

Fresh dill.

Or you can use dried dill if you prefer.

And we're just gonna mix all that up.

And just mix it up in a bowl.

And you're gonna taste it.

If you think it needs a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, put it in there and there you go.

So that's all it takes to make a tartar sauce.

Now, of course, you can go and you could buy a tartar sauce, but when it's easy and you already have all the ingredients that you need for it in your refrigerator, voila, there you go.

Next, we're gonna make our fried fish.

And so, with our fried fish, we have to make something called the standard breading procedure.

You know when you have breaded products, sometimes you wanna make sure that breading is gonna stick to the product, and you don't want that breading floating off, either when it's cooked or either when you pick it up or bite it.

And there is an actual procedure for making that breading stick.

And so, I'm gonna show you the simple procedure to do.

But also, if you didn't want to go through the process of doing it this way, you can buy the fish fry mix already made in the store.

There's several varieties, it's made by several different companies.

They're all pretty much the same, but they just have seasonings, and flour, and some crumbs in there to make it crispy.

And on the back, they will also suggest, if you wanted to make it even crispier, to follow this procedure that I'm about to show you.

So what you need for this is some regular old, everyday flour.

And so, in the first container, you're gonna add your flour.

And you wanna go ahead and do this in a flat dish because we wanna be able to shake it back and forth so that the fish can actually get nice and coated.

So what the flour actually does is it absorbs all the moisture that's on the fish surface, so that then when we take it and we mix it into our egg wash, which is a combination of eggs and water.

And here's the thing, you wanna make sure you have enough water in your egg wash so that it's not all eggy like, eggy, like, eggy.

You wanna make sure it's like liquid eggs, so don't be afraid of adding water.

You could also use a little bit of milk in there if you wanted to.

A little bit of buttermilk in there would be nice as well.

That's your second step.

You've got your flour, you've got your egg, and then your third step is your breadcrumb.

Now the breadcrumbs, we're gonna use panko today.

And panko, because they're just yummy, delicious and big, and fluffy, and crunchy, and just marvelous.

I really, really, really like panko.

But you could certainly use, like, a seasoned breadcrumb.

You can use corn flakes.

You can use ground nuts.

You can use just about anything you want to be on the outside of your fish in this procedure, okay?

I wanna start with frying up a couple of hushpupies before we start with the fish.

So with the hushpupies, 'cause the show is about hushpupies.

The hush puppy batter has been sitting here for a few minutes.

And as you let it sit, if you feel that it is not thick enough, you can certainly add more of your flour mixture.

Let me show you what I added to this to make this just a little bit thicker.

I added some of the self-rising cornmeal mix.

And this already has all the seasonings in it, so you don't have to worry about messing up your baking soda ratio or anything like that.

Just take a little bit of this, mix it in there.

Can you do this straight for your hush puppy?

Yeah, you sure can.

There's directions even on the bag.

So you don't have to invent all of this stuff from scratch, just go to your store, read some labels, and you can get exactly what you need.

So you want your batter to be kind of on the thick side, like a thick pancake batter.

And it's gonna be lumpy because cornmeal's lumpy.

And it's also got the onions in it, so we're gonna have a little bit of that mixture in there too.

You notice I've got, like, a little ice cream scoop here.

A little scoop.

Go to your store and buy one of these, guys.

These things are great for scooping out cookies.

They're great for scooping out hushpupies, which we're gonna do right now.

Let's talk about oil safety.

I'm using a little home-style deep fryer.

Whenever you do any kind of frying, guys, you don't turn this thing on and leave the kitchen.

You wanna stay and pay attention to your oil, because oil can catch on fire if it gets too hot.

And so, if you leave it on your range, and you're doing this on a range top, and you leave it on a range, and you go answer the phone call or take a bathroom break, or go see what's happening on the news, you're gonna come back and you're gonna find that oil can be too hot, it can combust into flames before you know it.

A lotta house fires happen by using deep frying in the kitchen incorrectly, so pay attention to what you're doing, all right?

So we're gonna heat our oil to 350 degrees.

And you can use a thermometer to test that temperature.

It's really important in order to get them really crispy, and really good, and really delicious.

Because if your oil isn't hot enough, what happens when you put your product in there is that it absorbs the oil rather than gets cooked by the oil.

But I've got a basket here.

Now, I don't wanna put the things in the basket and drop it in the oil.

For the hushpupies, I'm gonna drop them down into the oil itself.

So I'm gonna take this, I'm just gonna drop 'em in.

Spoonful by spoonful.

Take this little scoop and drop it underneath the surface of the oil and release it.

The reason I'm using a scoop is because that's gonna give me a uniform size.

I'm not gonna have different sizes.

Now, if I did this by the spoonful, I'm gonna have big hushpupies, I'm gonna have little hushpupies, I'm gonna have big dogs and little dogs.

But we want puppies here, so we want them to be little.

And you're gonna notice they're gonna start steaming and all kinds of little things, and then they'll start floating.

You wanna make sure that you have enough oil for your hushpupies to float as they cook.

One of the reasons we wanna make 'em small is because we wanna make sure the hushpupies are cooked on the inside, because sometimes they'll get nice and golden brown on the outside and they'll still be raw in the middle.

And so, there's a couple of things you can do to make sure that they are cooked all the way.

And one of them is to simply take one, and lift it up, and take a little knife, and put a little hole in it, and then drop it back into the oil.

But I actually think these are gonna be small enough that we're not gonna need to do that.

And they're not gonna stay in little balls, they're gonna turn into all kinds of lovely little shapes, and that's okay, that's totally okay.

But the whole thing about the hush puppy is that they will be absolutely delicious.

So once their pups are golden brown, you can take 'em out, shake 'em around, drain that excess oil off, and then we're just gonna put 'em on a rack that is on a sheet pan.

You wanna make sure they're not gonna be sitting in a bowl, all piled up on top of each other, because if they do, they're gonna make each other soggy, okay?

So we're gonna push these off to the back and let 'em cool down.

We're gonna season 'em with a little bit of salt.

And now we're gonna fry our fish.

So we have our fish cut and it's all ready to go into our standard breading procedure.

But there's one step we've gotta do first, and that is to season our fish.

You noticed I didn't season my flour.

You can season your flour.

A little salt, a little pepper in there if you like, and that's okay.

But the reason is I'd rather salt my product and make sure that my fish actually has salt and pepper on either side before I go ahead and start putting the breading procedure on there.

And that's gonna let me know that this fish has got seasonings on it on both sides.

And I don't have to guess where the seasoning is in the flour to make sure that all my pieces get nice and seasoned.

So next, I'm gonna take it.

And you don't wanna have a whole lot of flour on here.

Pick 'em up, give 'em a nice little shake, and make sure everything's coated nice and evenly.

Remember, this is absorbing all of the moisture that is on top of the fish, okay?

So you wanna make sure, not a whole lot of flour, it's just absorbing the liquid that's on top of the fish, and that's gonna make that breading stick to the fish, okay?

So, there we go.

I'm gonna put a few more in here.

But that's all that's gonna fit in the fryer.

Okay, so, shake your pan back and forth very carefully.

And you don't have to stick your fingers in there a whole lot, okay?

Pull this out, shake it out, and I'm gonna put it into the breadcrumbs.

And you wanna make sure you get your breadcrumbs nice and coated.

My fryer is ready.

I'm gonna have my basket, lay it down into the oil, and lay my fish into the fat.

Now, when I'm laying it into the fat, guys, you wanna make sure you're laying it in so it splashes away from you.

Don't put it in so it's gonna splash towards you.

And that's gonna help keep you from getting burned by the hot fat if it has a tendency to splash at all.

Okay, so this is only gonna take about four minutes, depending on how thick your fish is.

You're just gonna drop it in there, get it nice and frying, and it's gonna be so delicious 'cause it's just catfish.

There we go.

I got one more to go.

But my fryer is full right now, so that's all I'm gonna put in there.

Don't overcrowd your fryer.

If you're doing it in a sauté pan, don't overcrowd.

Let everything have room to swim around in that oil.

It's the oil doing the cooking, and so you want everything to get around that oil so it gets nice and golden brown.

Don't be afraid of just moving your basket around in your oil a little bit just to make sure that that stuff is not sticking to the bottom.

Always let your fryer drain before you put it on your rack.

Look at these babies, aren't they beautiful?

Nice and golden and brown.

Now, I would always use a spatula to pick these up rather than a pair of tongs, simply because the tongs can scratch that breading and tear that breading up.

And look how pretty they are.

Aren't they gorgeous?

That looks like fried fish, doesn't it?

That just looks like fried fish.

I'm on my last batch of fish.

Now remember, do it in batches, don't crowd.

You're gonna have the best results that way, and people are gonna think, whoa, you're such a fish fryer.

And it really is good.

I love fried fish.

I like fried chicken.

I like just about anything fried.

Fried okra.

Fried peanuts.

Like it.

Just like it.

So, when we're choosing to do our fryer, couple things that you wanna think about.

First of all, what kind of oil do you normally use?

You wanna use just regular... Peanut oil is a good oil because it's got a very high smoke point.

However, a lotta times you're gonna find people that have peanut allergies.

I usually avoid using peanuts because there are a lot of people out there that have peanut allergies.

So another oil to choose would be soybean oil.

Regular old, everyday vegetable oil is also good.

You just wanna make sure it's got a high smoke point.

Olive oil is not a good oil to fry in because it'll burn before you can even get your oil hot enough to cook your fish.

And so, you wanna get something that's pretty much clear.

A vegetable oil is a great way to go.

You can usually go and find large containers of oil around Thanksgiving, 'cause people used to do a lot of fried turkeys, and so they have a lot of these large containers of oil around.

That's always a good one to use for your fryer oil.

If it's in a small container, that's usually an indication that's not a good reason to use that and that's not a good oil to use for frying, because that oil would be somewhat of a special oil for salad dressings or something like that.

Oils do have different flavors, and so you wanna make sure that the oil that you're using for your fryer is going to be something that is very simple.

How do you tell when your fish is done?

Okay, first of all, if your fish is thin and small like this, by the time it is nice and golden brown, and you're cooking it at 350, 355 degrees, it's gonna be done in about four minutes.

You can tell by the golden brown on the fish.

You wanna listen for it.

Usually, you'll hear it simmering all the way through.

It's just something you have to get used to hearing.

But, you know, sometimes you hear it, and just that simmer doesn't keep going.

Also, if you've got a thermometer, take a thermometer and stick it in that fish, and it needs to reach 145 degrees Fahrenheit in order for it to be done.

Typically, with your catfish, it doesn't take very long.

Can you see all that bubble action stuff going on here?

And you can hear it.

That is a good sign that it's nice and done.

If you really wanna be sure, stick your thermometer in there and make sure that it reaches 145 degrees.

So something else I need to mention if you're frying multiple things.

Now, if you're doing a fish fry, you'll probably do hushpupies, you'll probably do some french fries.

And if you're doing different things that aren't fish, then you wanna make sure you fry those things first so that they don't end up tasting like the fish that you're frying, okay?

So when you are done with your fryer oil, you make sure you turn it off, cover it up, so that it can sit there and cool down, all right?

Don't seal it up, like, solid, you just wanna cover it up so that they're not gonna slip or nothing's gonna come out of it, but you also don't want condensation forming on it and falling in there and causing some kind of, (imitates water dripping in hot oil) lots of water in oil.

And you know water and oil just don't mix.

I hear you asking, what do you do with that oil when it's all done?

Well, you can take it and you could strain it, and you could use it once or twice.

If you're gonna save it to use again, save it in your refrigerator.

And then, after you use it maybe twice, I would not use it again, just because it's just not gonna taste good, and the oil does start breaking down the more you heat it up.

Okay, so next we're gonna start plating our guys up.

So we've got our hushpupies, we're gonna put a little bit of salt on these.

Just a little bit, not a lot, just a little bit for flavor.

So, in order to plate, what do you need with fish?

Lemons.

So to do your lemons, what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut the top and bottom off.

And we're just gonna make a pretty wedge.

Cut it in half.

Now, if any of you have been buying lemons lately, you know sometimes they can have a lotta seeds in them.

And so, one thing that you're gonna do to get rid of the seeds is cut down through the middle here, and cut it into your wedge, and you're gonna be able to see all the seeds in here.

So then, you can just take your knife and just take those seeds right on out with the edge of your knife, okay?

And that way you can squeeze these lemons all over your fish without having to get- Look at all those seeds!

You know, sometimes they get a lot of seeds, sometimes they get a few seeds.

We never know what you're gonna get until you cut that lemon open.

I wish there was a way of being able to tell.

So for our plates, we're gonna grab a plate.

I like to havin' a little bit of lettuce on the plate.

We are going to add our coleslaw.

We're going to add some tartar sauce.

Remember, we made our beautiful tartar sauce.

You can make this up a day ahead of time and it'll last as long as your mayonnaise does, so don't have to worry about it going bad on you.

And then, I'm gonna grab my fish.

Put some pretty fish on here.

I'm gonna put this piece on here.

I'm gonna put this piece on here.

And what the show is all about, pup pups.

Then we're gonna add some hushpupies on here, because people love hushpupies.

And yes, they're brown, they're supposed to be.

And that's why we have to add a lot of lovely, little color to our plate by using some fresh cole slaw, and some nice lettuce, and...

Here we go.

A pretty wedge of lemon.

So here we go, guys.

Hushpupies.

They're not hard to make.

When you make them, go ahead and eat them fresh, and make them adventurous, and put some stuff in there, like jalapeno and cheddar.

You could make some shrimp and corn.

You could put some caramelized onion and bacon in them.

Now I hear bacon.

Yes, I like bacon.

And so, we're all gonna be looking at these dishes and saying, how in the world did you make these hushpupies from scratch?

And you're gonna know the secret.

Nice, hot oil.

Nice, fresh fish.

And we're gonna add a nice piece of fresh lemon.

And our tartar sauce.

Piece of lemon.

And there you are.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Charlotte Cooks".

Ha, there we are, our fried fish.

This is fried catfish, and our hushpupies, our tartar sauce, and then we have coleslaw on the side.

Now, coming up on the next episode, we have chef Oscar Johnson coming from Virginia, he's coming from the Tidewater area of Virginia, and he's gonna be making a very special dish for us that is traditional in Virginia.

But also, he took it down to the Charleston Food and Wine Festival and wowed the crowds with it down there.

What is it gonna be?

Tune in next time and find out.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Send me an email at pamela.roberts@cpcc.edu.

You can watch this show and past episodes on PBS Charlotte Passport, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And thanks for watching this episode of "Charlotte Cooks", and we'll catch you next time.

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