Perfect Fish Fry with Crunchy and Light Breading
An excellent fish fry should be crispy, light, and delicious. Here's how to cook a perfect mixed fry with calamari, anchovies, red mullets, hakes, and whole shrimps.
Doses for 4 servings
Calorie per porzione1016kcal
Cost High
Other details
- Difficulty: medium
Ingredients
- 4 Red mullets
- 4 Hakes
- 350 g Calamari (cut into rings) (12.3 oz)
- 16 Anchovies
- 16 Shrimp (to be fried whole)
- 250 g Durum wheat semolina (8.8 oz)
- To taste Salt
- To taste Lemon
For frying
- As needed Vegetable oil (a lot)
Instructions
First, clean the fish
- Clean the fish starting with the red mullets, anchovies, and hakes: make a cut on the belly of the small fish using a pair of scissors and remove the innards by rinsing them under running water to eliminate any residue. Rinse and set aside.
- To clean the calamari, start by removing the mantle from the head, then eliminate the internal cartilaginous pen. Rinse and make a light incision to remove the skin by pulling it away with a small knife. Cut the fins to separate them from the mantle and cut the head of the squid into rings. Take the tentacle part and use a knife to cut off the eyes, push away the squid's teeth with your fingers, and keep the tentacles for frying (if they are very long, you can also cut them).
- The shrimps only need to be rinsed under running water since they will be fried whole.
How to prepare the perfect fish fry
- Once the fish is cleaned, we can proceed to prepare our perfect fish fry. First, cut the squid's head into rings and pour the semolina into a wide and shallow dish to easily bread the fish for frying.
- Heat the frying pan and pour a generous amount of vegetable oil. The ideal temperature for frying is between 175°C and 185°C (345°F and 365°F). If the oil gets hotter than this, the fish will burn, while if it's lower, it won't cook well and won't become crispy as we like. If you don't have a kitchen thermometer, you can use this method: cut a potato cube, and when it fries, it's at the right temperature.
- Proceed as follows: take a few small fish, bread them for a few seconds, shake off the excess semolina, and fry them in the hot oil. Fry the red mullets and hakes together first; they will be ready in about 4 minutes. Take them out of the fryer and place them on a sheet of parchment paper (dark frying paper, like bread wrapping).
- Next, fry the calamari rings with the tentacles and fins. Coat them with semolina and place them in the frying pan. Do not bread all the fish at once, or the semolina will become moist, and the fried breading will be soft. Proceed little by little; it's quick. The fried calamari will cook in just a few minutes; 3-4 minutes are enough for perfect cooking. When they are golden, transfer them to the tray together with the other fried fish.
- Bread and fry the anchovies as well; they will be ready to be removed from the pan and placed on the tray with the parchment paper in about 2 minutes. Finally, bread and fry the whole red shrimps; they will be ready in just 3 minutes.
- Transfer these small fish to the same tray, garnish with lemon wedges, and sprinkle some salt from above without overdoing it. Serve the mixed fry while it's still hot.