Blackened Catfish with Hush Puppies | Southern Cajun Dinner Recipe

[Music] Okay, so look, this is what we're going to do. I want you guys to pay attention to these ingredients down here. Now, what you guys are seeing on your left side of the screen, these ingredients right here, this is everything for the hus puppies. Of course, we got to have the catfish. That's going to be a star. Right. And back here, these are ingredients to make it blackened. Right now, look, I'm going to do something I really don't do in all of my videos, which I think I should do. Right. Let's start talking about the tools that you going to need to be successful. Now, if you guys pay attention right here, in order for us to do our hush puppies, look, I got a Dutch oven. You guys can see it's deep. This is super deep. I can make anything in this right here. But this will be good for my hush puppies, right? So, we put that on the top. And if you guys didn't know, this is really just a cast iron, but it has a like a ceramic colored enamel on the outside. And then for this right here, if we going to do blacking, you going to have to have something to get hot. So, I can tell you right now that cast iron is the my tool of choice. This right here, look at that. Nice clean. And you to see the seasoning is ready to go. Now, I'm going to start off by just talking about this. We got bacon. I got to look at these. I love the colors. Okay, so we got powder here, and we got soda here. Don't get these confused cuz I got two different measurements for you. You want to get that right. Look, we got cornmeal, little bit of sugar, onion powder, we got flour. Then you over here on our wet ingredients, we got uh buttermilk, then we got a egg, and this right here. I'm going to show you guys how to get this. This is going to be re the real key to making any type of Dutch butter. Right. So, the way I did it was I separated everything and I got everything for dry. Right. So, now you want to get yourself a bowl and then you just want to add all of this in here cuz we want to get it mixed. All right. So, we just put it in just like this. [Music] Now we have all our dry ingredients in here. I'm not going to whisk this together yet. Fear me out, folks. We got to go ahead and put onion inside of our dry. Right. So, I'm going to go ahead and cut this down. Even though I'm cutting it like this, sometimes it don't come out the right way. You know what I mean? But I'mma just get it like this. I'mma take it and just run it, you know, along like this. All right. And then I'mma cut it. So what I'm doing is I'm going to attempt to get it small. If it doesn't, I'm going to do the Genzoo. You'll see what I'm talking about. You see how it is right there? That's kind of small. If I break this up, look, that's small already. But we going to come down this way. Right. So we only need about a/4 cup. But this right here gives us a minced look to it. Now you guys can see like I got a little fine mint going. Right. Right. And so, if you've been following me, you know I like to say the smaller the dice is for the flavor. And look how small this is. Yes, sir. So, we'll just set bring this back into play here. Now, I'm real crucial about this. When I make, you know, hus puppies, I like to measure, right? So, I need about a/4 cup. And this is my little 1/4 cup, right? So, I take this and we want to put it in here with the drop. I don't know. My mind always tell me every time I do these like this, even when I mince them, right? not mention them, but even when I go ahead and grate them, my mind tell me that go in the wet, but we going to put it right here like this. Now, you guys can see, you going to have some white and the yellow, right? You want to get all of this mixed together. And why I'm using a glass bowl is I'll show you in just one second. If you guys look right here, you see these streaks. I don't know, you might can see something there, but if you do, I'm able to lift this up and make sure that I got it completely, you know, incorporated. All right, so only thing left is the egg and our milk. Now, I'm going to set this here. So you guys can see, I don't want to take my egg, drop this in here in the milk and try to get it to be incorporated. I need these two, right? This is my buttermilk and my egg. I need them to be incorporated together. That's why we do it separately, right? So we just add this in here like that. And you know, buttermilk a little bit on the thick side, right? This why I usually use it. You got to have the right tool for the job, right? So you got to have spasters and you need to have them in all sizes, you guys. You know what I mean? But I tried to explain it to make it fun again to get in the kitchen so we can have some success. Right. And then over here to my left, which will be your right, I just dropped that in my hot soapy water. Now coming back to this right here. Look. Now we going to whisk. [Music] It makes sense to you as you see this. Look at my buttermilk. Now, this is what we want to have. You want to have it fully incorporated. You want to make sure that yolk is completely gone with no streaks. I know you guys are saying right now that's a lot for the hush puppies. But when you make these, let me know what you think. All right. Now that I'm pretty sure this is fully incorporated, now I'm going to go ahead and pour my wet in the inside, which again is just my buttermilk and my egg. Right now, look here. I'mma hurry up and get it in here cuz what I don't want to do is I don't want to over mix it. Right? So, I just want to make sure it's all wet. Just like this. Once I see I can pull this around and I don't have no issues or no dry in there, I'm done here. Not completely done, but I'mma take my whisk, put that off to the side. I'mma come back on my spatula. I'mma scrape the edges, folks. These things that I'm doing right now, if you guys are new, this is going to help you. You know what I mean? When you cooking, you know what I mean? Just doing a proper thing and having the right tools in your kitchen makes it fun. Now, look at this runner. I'm just kind of like folding this over. Really, I'm looking at the bottom of it, making sure I don't have any dry patches. And that right there is enough. If you overwork your your batter, you'll come out with dents. If you ever made it before and it was dense, now you know why you just like over work it. All right. Now, I'm going to give you guys a little bit of a heads up. Here's a little pro tip for you. I'm going to put some saran wrap in here. I'm going to put it in the refrigerator. Then when I'm done, I'm going to pull these out and I'm going to fry these. Okay. So, look, I took this out the refrigerator and to be honest with you, I don't know if you guys can tell, I had to like change my shirt and all of that. Why? Cuz I came in the next day. So, this been in the refrigerator overnight. But I'm telling you, just about an hour, you just want to chill it just so it can be firm. All right, now we getting ready to start. Let's just go ahead and make these uh these hut puppies. Right. So, I'm going to start. I got everything on high right now just to start. For me, I'm going to be using avocado oil, but any cooking oil you guys use, that's okay. Canola, uh vegetable oil. Uh you can use extra version, that'll be fine, but if you ask me, I rather use just a regular, you know, canola or vegetable. All right. So, I just put in some avocado oil, right? So, we good. I got myself a thermometer here cuz I want to check it. Right. So, I'm going to go ahead and let's just see where we at. We were somewhere right around 300. Okay. 337. 347. Oh boy. I'm good. Look at that right there. It's holding. Oh, 349. Let me get away from the center because that's where the, you know, the heat is. We come over here like this and we good, folks. All right. So, this is how we gonna do it. Listen, if you guys pay pay attention, check this out. I got myself this. And I keep these right here. A little bit of an ice cream. I call it a small ice cream scoop or we can call this like for making uh cookies, right? This will give you nice big size cookies. Now, I want you to see. Let me see if I can get it to show it to you guys. You want to look at the consistency here. Look at this. I'll just take this. We drop that down. You see how that is? It's almost doughy, but it's not. It's still pliable, right? Look. All right. So, move that over there. Now, I'm going to show you guys a trick. I'mma use some non-stick spray. I use avocado oil. All right. So, what I'm going to do is just spray this part in here. Make sure I don't have no pool of it. That's all I need. Look at it. Move it around. This is going to help us, folks. Trust me. Now, I'mma take this. We know our hole is good. We're going to take it. Let me get myself a spoon. I'mma try to make the best looking one that I can. It's something I call this just like the same thing as when you make your first pancake. It's always a little tricky, you know, mean. But we get this in here like this. Right. I'm going come in here now. I want you guys to look. I'mma put this right here on top. Drop this in like that. And there we go. Now, I'mma go ahead and get me another one. This doesn't take long, folks. If you got 350°, this will be ready in just about 2 or 3 minutes. Now, look, I want to show you something. You look at the color. I told you 2 or 3 minutes. I'm going to check my oil and see what my temperature is. Obviously, this is the first one that I put in there. Look at that one. So, that one's more. This one has a little bit more color to it. And this one right here will be the last one that I put in there. Right? I don't overcrowd it. You know what I mean? I'mma raise this temperature up anyway cuz don't forget this has been in the uh refrigerator overnight so it's nice cool and chilled. But you want your hush puppies to look like. Look at that. All right. So, I just cook them to color and they'll be ready, folks. Just trust me. You don't need to probe them or check them. You know what I mean? If you got 350°, even if it drop down to about 330, you'll be good. No worries. Once they become the color that you're looking for, we looking for that that uh it's a little bit more than golden brown. more of a brown size. But now you see when you use the right tools, I'mma just show you this one right here. When you use the right stools, look at how that look. Yes, sir. [Music] All right. So, look after you see them. Man, them are super good right there. It used to be some more of those, but trust me, everybody want to taste them, and I was able to salvage five, you know, just for the video, right? So now what you have is you got some ingredients left over. You know what I mean? This ain't nothing but a dumping go folks. We do have everything in here minus, you know, our butter. Right now I didn't have my brown sugar out. So I'm have to like break it up. You guys know about brown sugar. It'll dry out in a heartbeat. Right. Just add everything here. This is going to be the seasoning that we use to, you know, blacken with. Now I'm just going to go in here. We just whisk this together. Yeah. I don't know if he need really need a wish. I guess it really I could have used a uh a fork. Sometime I like to do it, you know, like old school way. Now I'm going bring in my catfish fillets. Now I'm going to do something that makes some people think like, well, why did he do that? I like to have mine patted dry. But listen, we want to get a good little, you know, hot sear on these. So on the back side, I still do them like this. And I know when I'm doing like this, you guys are going to say that won't nothing stick to it. It will. Don't forget this fish is real fleshy. All right. Now that I have everything, you know, patted dry, right? This is what we're getting ready to do. I'mma go ahead and give this just a, you know, a fine dusting, right, of salt. This is kosher salt. You know what I mean? It's a coarse grind. You guys can actually see it go on there. I don't want to add it to it to my seasoning cuz I want to control this part and see where I have it. Right now, I got some creole kick. You go ahead and give this just a little bit of a light dusting. And to be honest with you, you know what? We're going to change it up and do it like this. I'm going to take this here. We're going to add some in here like that. All right. We don't need a whole lot. I don't want to overpower it, but it complements everything that we put in there. If you don't have the Creole kick, which I don't know who out there on the planet that don't have it the way it's been moving. Right. So, we just put this in here. Get it all mixed up. That's fine. Right now, I just use my hands for this. Now, we just go ahead and do it just like this. Then, you want to control it. You know what I mean? So you put too much on one side, you'll see it when you cook it. It's like you want to get like a nice little blend. Right. And that right there is what we want. Now we just flip them over and do the exact same thing. All right. And then all we do is repeat. Remember, you want to control that salt. You don't want no whole lot of salt in one spot. You know what I mean? So, I like to be able to see it and they bite. Oh, yeah. That all go right there. All right. So, now is the time to go ahead and make this blacken. Right. Now, I got to tell you guys this. Listen, it goes it doesn't make a difference. I like catfish. My two uh tools of choice would be when it come to the cat when it comes to fish is catfish and I like mahi mahi. I want you guys to let me know down in the comment section below what's your favorite fish. And therefore, all my people that really know, I'mma see what you really know. Tell me how how many of y'all know about that orange ruffy. All right. So, look, I'm going explain this part. If you look right here, a lot of times I say the butter can burn, which it can, but you want to like kind of like once it becomes a little bit on the brown side, that's what you want to that tells you that's your telltale sign, right? So, we got our seasoning and everything on here. I'mma drop this in like this. I'm going put this one in here right next to it. Right now, listen, here's the key. You don't want to mess with it or do nothing. Right? Cuz listen, when you put it in there, it might want to like I want to say it almost like wants to stick, but when it's ready to be flipped, you'll know cuz it'll release itself. I do take the edge when I think it's ready, once it tell me it'll slide, I do look at the edge back. And then from you guys looking at this way, you can see it starts to cook up around this way, right? Just like it does with salmon, you see flesh. And then if you look down there on the bottom, it starts rising up. Once it gets halfway, then we flip it over. All right. So look, this is what I mean when I tell you it's ready to release. You see when I push it over like this, it has already released itself. Now I'm just getting ready to take it. You want to be careful. And then you want to flip it just like that. I hate that I did that cuz I don't want to mess up none of my, you know, none of my seasoning on the other side. We take it. Look at this here. Oo. Okay, so here we go. Look at that right there. If that don't say black in catfish, and actually I done it where it don't have all of the black all on one side. It's really about the way that I healed it up like this and I was able to sprinkle sprinkle it, you know, blacken the seasoning all over. And don't forget the full ingredient list is on my website, smokingwithab.com. And that's witab.com. I'm going to go ahead and let the bag uh the cat out of the bag. You guys can go there now. Uh I'm getting ready to launch a brand new website. It'll be uh next week. This one will be so much more functional. You know what I mean? They got everything. But listen, I don't want to like over talk that just letting the cat out the bag. Look, we going to get some of this. You know what I mean? Have you guys ever had black and capish? Oh, look at that. Oh, it's so buttery and and nice. Look at this. You know? Oh, it got a little crisp to it also. Let's go ahead and get this like this. Now, I want you guys to come on here and take a look at that. Now, I'm at the mercy of what I was able You know what? do this cuz this will have a little bit more of the body. Oh my goodness. Come on. Let's get close. Look at that. You see that right there? How many of y'all thinking that right now about putting a little tart sauce on your uh cover slices of bread and putting that on there and eating? You know what I'm about to do, y'all. Cheers. Okay. [Music] I'm going need somebody to come and pat me on the Now, with that being said, this is like, man, just try this. Do what you guys normally do. Come back, talk to me. You know what I mean? Tell me what else you would do. And if you didn't know, mixed vegetables is like my second favorite, but my favorite veggie that's that this regular broccoli. Now, with that being said, listen, if you're new to my channel, we need to take this time to say, "Thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to like, smash that subscribe button, and tell everybody out there, there's a channel out here, the simple honey recipes, and taking the mystery out of cooking. And don't forget, watch the video after this because we fa to do jumping alive, folks. And we fa to put this blacking on top. I'm out. Peace. [Music]