Monday, July 14, 2008

Panfried Grouper with "Pecans"

I've been waiting to make this recipe for so long. I found it on the food network website. Believe it or not, it's not as easy to come across fresh fish as you'd think with us living near the gulf. I went to 2 fish markets today with no luck, but the third one was a charm. This original recipe uses almonds. That's why I put "pecans" in quotations for the title. I had extra pecans on hand, so instead of using almonds, I decided to help clean out my kitchen. The pecans turned out just perfectly, and this is surely a recipe that I'll keep around. I made 1 and 1/2 pounds of fish with this recipe, and I used up all of the pecan crusting. If you make the whole 3 pounds, I'd double the recipe for the dredging ingredients.


Ingredients:
3 pounds boneless, skinless grouper fillet, or substitute snapper or orange roughly
1/2 cup unpeeled slivered almonds or pecans
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 small bunch flatleaf parsley, coarse stems removed (I used thyme)
Lemon wedges, for garnish


Directions:
Rinse the fillets and pat them dry with paper towels. Check the fish for bones and remove with tweezers, if necessary. In a food processor, combine the almonds, allspice, salt, pepper, cayenne, cumin, and paprika. Pulse until finely ground, but do not overprocess or the nuts can become oily. In a shallow baking dish, spread out the nutspice mixture. Dredge the fillets in the mixture, one at a time, shaking off the excess.
In a large heavy skillet, heat the olive oil over mediumhigh heat. Fry the fillets for about 3 minutes on each side, until light brown. With a slotted spatula, remove the fish to a warm platter or individual serving plates and scatter with the parsley sprigs. Serve with wedges of lemon.

4 comments:

What's Cookin Chicago said...

Wow... this looks so good! I don't cook much grouper, but the pairing with a pecan crust is a great idea!

Court Cooks said...

I love grouper!! That recipe looks delicious!

Meg said...

This sounds great! I'll bet the pecans were good. You can try it again with almonds and have a different recipe. :-)
Illu mucho.

Anonymous said...

oh yum! There's just something about fried fish that is just SO yummy!