Crispy Friend Catfish & Shrimp with Creamy Grits!

Hey everyone! Welcome to Making Meals with Mika. Now before we begin, please like and subscribe to my page. That way we can spend more time together. So today I am making fried catfish and my famous cheddar cheese grits. I'm also going to do some fried shrimp as well. I particularly don't care for shrimp. My husband loves shrimp. He loves my shrimp so I'm going to show you guys how to make my fried catfish as well as my fried shrimp and my famous cheddar cheese grits. Now it is actually pretty late. I got home from work today, took my wig off, put on my good house my house dress and I was like, hmm, I might as well just, you know, film me making one of my favorite meals, you know, for everyone out there. So I am going to show you, um, will tell you everything you need to make, you know, this meal. Now it's just my husband and I so what I'm going the recipe I'm going to share you can use up to a pound of catfish and a pound of shrimp. Right now I'm only using a half a pound of catfish and a half a pound of shrimp. I like my catfish extra extra crispy. So we're actually going to do a breading station today. So all the ingredients you need to make this meal is you're going to need some regular cornmeal. Don't use the self-rising cornmeal. Don't use jiffy. Now I do love jiffy. I put it in my dressing. If you haven't seen that video, go check out the jiffy dressing video, but use regular cornmeal and I like to use this, um, seafood breading mix. There's really a lot of different, um, companies that make this. I get the one that's not seasoned. I do not like the added salt to my food, but this does have a little lemon in it. So I use that. You're going to need some oil to fry your fish in. Um, and then these are all the seasonings that I use in my food. What makes good food is the seasoning. It doesn't matter the brand name of your seasoning. Like I said, don't let people, uh, brand names, brand names shame you with your seasoning. If you want to use great value, use great value. If you want to use Kroger bread, use Kroger bread. If you want to use McCormick, use McCormick. Just make sure you have a lot of seasoning. So I have, um, parsley. Now parsley flakes, it makes your food look fancy. I'm going to tell you about that. So I use parsley. We're going to use some onion powder. This is ground red pepper. This should be my garlic powder. And this is a black pepper. And this is sea salt. Sea salt comes in a real big container. I just put it in this little container. So sea salt, that's all my seasoning. You're also going to need some eggs. So two eggs for your breading station and also some milk. Um, yes, this is lactose free milk. We can't use the regular milk. It would mess me and my husband's stomach up. So the lactose free does not change the flavor or the texture of your food. Um, of course you're going to need some grits for your, for your good, um, cheddar grits. I like the old fashioned take all day to cook grits. And I do got the cook, the quick grits that cooks for five minutes. You can use those. Um, I'm not in a hurry. So I'm going to use these good old fashioned grits. Um, and you're going to need, um, about a cup of cheddar cheese. This is medium cheddar, or you can use sharp cheddar. You guys, I always grade my own cheese. I do. I know it's more convenient to get the already shredded cheese, but the already shredded cheese, it has some type of wax that's on the, you know, the, the shreds of cheese. So it won't melt together. Now this is naturally shredded and you see some of these are already melting together. This is where all your flavor come from. What else is, is needed that's not up here is some chicken stock or chicken broth. We're going to cook the grits in chicken stock and chicken broth. Um, I'll list that in the recipe. Whenever I make, and here's just a little secret. Whenever I make rice, if I make grits, instead of using water, I use chicken stock. It adds a lot more flavor. So we're also going to use the chicken stock to make our grits. And that's everything you're going to need to prepare this meal. So let's get ready to make this meal with Mika. You're going to begin by seasoning your fish and your shrimp. When you're cooking, you have one hand for the seasoning, one hand to mix it all together. Okay. So we're going to season front and back with some sea salt. This is our garlic powder, pepper. This adds that little kick. Ground red pepper. I love spicy food. Onion powder. Okay. Rub that in, get that good. Make sure you get all, make sure you get all of that. Make sure you get it all right. Turn it over and do the same thing. Do the same thing. If your fish and shrimp do not look like this, before you start frying it, it's not going to be delicious. Your fish should be seasoned and your shrimp should be seasoned. This is all the flavor. If it doesn't look like this, don't, don't cook it yet. It ain't ready. It will not be delicious if it doesn't look like this. While the catfish is resting, let's start preparing the grits. So I follow the directions that's on the back of the grits. I'm making two servings. So it's about one fourth a cup of grits to every one cup of liquid for your serving. So this is at a boil. This is two cups of stock that I brought to a boil, and this is one half a cup of grits. All right. Now you're going to whisk those in there. Make sure they're whisked in all good. And all you're going to do is just turn your heat down to medium low. And I never cover the top completely because somehow it bubbles up, even though I have a little hole in here. So I'm just going to slightly leave a little air in here. So when it does bubble up, it won't overflow. And you're going to let this cook, stirring occasionally for about 20 to 25 minutes. You know, you want to come stir. You guys, I got new, I got new pots. My sister saw one of my videos, called me and got me together. She said, I need you to get some new pots and don't use any metal on your, on your good pots. So I do have this nice rubber whisk, which you need, you know, messing up your pots, but you want to come and check on these every five or 10 minutes. So that's going to be semi-covered. I'm going to let it do what it do. And I'll come back and show you guys what else to add to these delicious grits. All right, it's time to make our grits delicious. They've been cooking for about 20 minutes. I am going to add about two tablespoons of butter to this pot. And it's time to season them. I put garlic powder, about two or three, four or five shakes of garlic powder, the same amount of pepper, about two or three shakes of pepper. I put my parsley flakes in here, makes them look fancy. Stir all that up. It smells absolutely delicious. Oh my goodness. This smells delicious. Now I am going to add, I'm very cautious about adding a lot of salt because my bouillon, my stock already has salt. I'm going to add this lovely hand shredded cheddar cheese. And then to help it melt, you don't need a lot, just a couple of splashes, just a couple of splashes of milk. Okay. That's going to help your cheese melt. And it's also going to add an extra level and layer of creaminess to your grits. Now this whole entire time, you want to make sure that you're stirring so they won't stick. Okay. And look at that. Look at that. Ooh, that looks good. And this is the consistency that you want. You know, making a really good pot of grits is all about consistency and taste. Let me go get a, get my spoon, see what we're tasting like. You ain't going to be able to see me tasting it, but see, see that? That's the consistency you want of your grits. You want that consistency. And these are absolutely delicious. Perfect. I don't need to add anything else. You notice I didn't add any salt because my bouillon has salt. You see that? That is the, look at that. That's deliciousness right there. So what I'm going to do is turn this down just to keep it warm and get ready to fry my fish. My fish isn't going to take that long so we can eat. The grits are simmering. So it's time to prepare the fish. I was going to zoom in on the, the breading station, but I actually want to do it from this angle so you guys can see how I do it. So my very first part of the breading station is, this is just a container that has the cornmeal and the fish, the fish coating batter. That's right here. Just plain cornmeal and the fish coating. Right here, this is my two eggs with some milk and I have, I have this seasoned as well. So this doesn't have any salt, but I did season this with a little garlic powder, onion powder, a little of the cayenne and some pepper. Remember I said flavor is everything. And then this is the ending part of my, my breading station. This is the same mixture. So it's just a cornmeal with the fish batter, but I also put my garlic powder, pepper, red pepper, and also onion powder in here because everything has to be flavored. No salt though. You don't want to oversalt it. So there's no salt in, in any of my breading stations, but there is, of course, my seasonings on the fish and the shrimp. So all you're going to do, look at that. This is nice and beautifully seasoned. You are going to get this nice and coated in the very first, at the very first station. Now this is for that extra crispy catfish. Okay. This is for that. When you bite into it, you hear that crunch. Okay. So see that nice and coated. Then you're going to come over to this good egg bath. See, you can let it, let it move around in there. Get all that goodness on there. Okay. Look at that. And then you're just going to bring it right on over to this second station. Don't be afraid to get your hands. You know, your hands going to have to get messy. This is cooking. So if you haven't gotten over the part, the fact that your hands going to get messy, cooking is not for you. Okay. So then you could just smell the seasoning on this. This is ridiculous. Now I like to turn it over a couple of times and then you shake off the excess, the excess, and there you go. Lay it down. Okay. Now I'm going to do the second one like this. Go ahead. Feel, feel like you fast forwarded if you want to, but if you want to see it again in real time, just watch me. So I just covered this nice and all covered. Okay. With that good mix, bring it on over to the egg wash. Okay. Flip it over. Now allow that the excess to kind of drain off. Go ahead and throw it in that big, in the big tub. All right. Now this is, like I said, if you want that extra crispy catfish and this can also work for any other type of fish. If you're not a catfish person and you know, you want to do some purge or you want to do some fried cod, you can use the same, um, breading station. Don't shake that extra off. Now the shrimp to me is a I'm picking them all up. Okay. Pick them all up at a time. Anybody got time to be doing one, two shrimp by itself? Pick them all up. All right. Take them from the first to the second. I'm going to put them all in there. Make sure they're all covered. Right. Then now, you know, I'm going to take a couple at a time and dump them in here. Right. I can't dump the whole container over in here and that would be a catastrophe. Now this is the fun part. Okay. You can do this with your fish if you want to. It might not be as fun. After you get all of your shrimp in there, put your top on them. Make sure you got a good top though. You don't want to start shaking and your top ain't right. I'm just going to shake them up. Shake, shake, shake, nice. Okay. And then look at that. Ooh, look at those. Beautiful. Now I lay mine out like this because I'm going to take this whole entire sheet of food over to my deep fryer and I am deep frying these. Now you can pan fry, shallow fry, however you want to, but tonight we're going to deep fry these. I'm not putting them in my air fryer. Yes, I do have an air fryer. I know the air fryer is healthier. I just did some chicken fingers in there last night, but tonight we want some good fried hard catfish with my grit. So these are going into the deep fryer, not the air fryer. Okay. Oh, there's one more in there. All right. I'll see y'all in a second at that good deep fryer. Here's a deep fryer that has our oil in it. Let me show you a great way to test whether or not your oil is ready and hot. Just take a little bit of this coating off your fish, put it in the oil. You see what it just did? You want to see it again? That lets you know it's done. Now this is nice and hot. I'm going to cook these one at a time because it's just my husband and I put that in there. Have some tongs and just let it do its thing. You want it nice and bubbly like that. Actually, I do have room for two. I'm going to put my second one in there, but you don't want to overcrowd your pot though. If it's too much in there, it's not going to cook right. So I'm just going to put those two in there. Let them do their thing. They're going to take about five minutes, five, six minutes, and they're going to come out nice, crispy, and delicious. Let me show you what you want your fish to look like. Your fish will let you know when it's done because it will start to float. When your fish starts to float, you know it's done. Look at that. Look at that. That is golden brown, crispy, and you know it's going to be delicious. You know it's going to be delicious. He's going to take that, put it on a nice plate to drain that oil, but that's going to be delicious. Time to drop the shrimp. Now shrimp, these take about three minutes to cook. You definitely don't want to cook them too long. Drop all those in there, three minutes, they're done. I'm going to take the shrimp out. Look at those, beautiful golden brown. These are beautiful. And then we sprinkle a little lemon pepper on top. Here's the finished meal. We have our cheese grits, we have our crispy catfish, and I just sauteed some spinach and onions on the side. Now let's just do this taste test. So I want you to hear this crisp. You hear that crisp from the fish? That's what you want to hear. This don't even need any hot sauce, that's how good it is. I'm going to try these grits. See that texture? See that steam? That's delicious. Now this meal is going to take you about 15 minutes to prep it, about 30 minutes to cook it. I hope that you had a good time making meals with Mika, and I'll see you later.