The way to Put together Checkerboard Model Fried Flounder

I’ll admit that fishermen are spoiled right here in South Louisiana. On any given day we will head out on the water and catch speckled trout, then after reaching our restrict of 25 fish, fully change gears and catch a restrict of redfish. With so many several types of species of fish to select from, it typically comes all the way down to catching no matter species of fish you’re within the temper to eat. That brings me to my favourite kind of fish to eat: Southern Flounder. Right here in South Louisiana, it’s generally known as a lagniappe fish. Lagniappe is French for “An sudden bonus” and that’s the good description for flounder within the south. Whether or not it’s a field of speckled trout or redfish, there’s an excellent likelihood that the common angler alongside the Gulf Coast has a flounder blended in. However what do you do with that flounder when it’s on the cleansing desk together with the opposite fish that you simply’ve caught?

The preferred factor to do is the usual broiling technique within the over. Or perhaps stuff it with shrimp and stuffing. Whereas these are the 2 hottest methods to organize a flounder, I used to be just lately launched to a different method to cook dinner it and that’s to fry it.

I just lately made a fishing journey with Forrest Inexperienced of Lacombe, LA. Inexperienced and made a fishing journey to the marsh and caught a field of speckled trout. Through the journey, he pulled up a 14-inch flounder. “That is the proper measurement for frying,” He stated. Remember that I’ve by no means eaten fried flounder and albeit didn’t understand how you’d be capable to fillet a fish of that measurement being that it’s flat wasn’t very lengthy.

After we returned from the journey we laid all of the fish out on the cleansing desk and began filleting the speckled trout. After we have been executed with the trout the final fish within the ice chest was the flounder. I handed him the fish and stated, “Okay, present me the way it’s executed, Mr. Inexperienced.”
Inexperienced began by scaling the fish on either side. He then de-headed the flounder which was commonplace working process for baked flounder. Then he did one thing that I’d by no means seen earlier than. He ran the fillet knife lengthwise down the fish making a half-inch slice straight down into the physique of the flounder. He made a complete of 5 slices from the pinnacle to the tail and repeated it on the opposite aspect. He then made perpendicular slices on the fish. When he was completed, the flounder was sliced right into a checkerboard sample.

Inexperienced then dipped it in an egg wash and coated it with barbeque. “Typically you must bend the fish and open up these cuts in order that the barbeque will get into the physique of the fish,” he stated. After coating the fish in barbeque he slid it right into a pan of sizzling oil and it got here to a golden brown shade inside 5 minutes.
Inexperienced scooped the fish out, let it drip for just a few seconds, then slid it onto a aircraft the place he proceeded to say, “Watch this!” The native Louisianan reached all the way down to the fish, grabbed certainly one of

the cubed sections of the floor of the flounder, and pulled it off the fish. The crispy meat pulled proper off of the bone. “How ya like dat,” Inexperienced stated. I attempted a bit of the flounder and the meat pulled proper off of the bone with no downside. Then I tasted it and all I can say is that fried flounder checkerboard type is a few of the finest fried fish I’ve ever tasted. I’ll positively be incorporating this recipe into my repertoire of South Louisiana Classics. The following time you catch a flounder, give the checkerboard technique a attempt to consider Mr. Inexperienced asking, “How ya like dat?” I’m certain I do know what your reply shall be!

Keith Lusher

Keith Lusher is an award profitable outside journalist that resides in Covington, Louisiana. He owns and operates NorthshoreFishingReport.com and writes a weekly outside column for the Slidell Impartial Newspaper. He additionally writes for the St.Tammany Parish Tourism Fee’s LouisianaNorthshore.com and Louisiana Northshore Discover Journal. He’s the previous host of The Northshore Fishing Report Radio Present and is on the board of the Louisiana Outside Writers Affiliation. Keith contributes to quite a few publications each on-line and in print and prides himself on selling South Louisiana’s distinctive fishery.