Home Cooking, Frying Mackerel: Batter or Dry Flour? Here's What You Need to Know
On days at home, every meal needs to be taken care of, and it's found that the ingredients at home quickly decrease. Today, when I opened the freezer, there was only one package of mackerel left. The family loves fish, especially fried mackerel. Just fried mackerel is crispy and tender, paired with buns and porridge, a very satisfying meal. Previously, when frying fish, I always coated it with a layer of batter to fry. The family said they preferred the dry-fried method, the taste was better, and they felt that it reduced the amount of hot oil. So I changed my home-style method, and it's very popular every time.
You can use either dry flour or batter, and you also need to consider people's tastes. There are different methods and advantages to both methods.
Dry-fried mackerel Method: My method is to mix cornstarch and flour in a 1:1 ratio, then directly roll the marinated mackerel in the powder, then fry it in oil. Advantages: The mackerel is crispy and less oily, and it can also avoid the situation of hot oil splashing during frying mackerel. And it won't become soft if it's left to cool.
Mackerel with batter Method: Mix starch and low-gluten flour according to a 1:1 ratio and add water to make a wet batter. Coat the fish with batter, then fry it in oil. Disadvantages: If the batter is not sticky enough, it will not make the oil cloudy during frying. However, the fish meat is easy to shed batter during frying, and if you don't grasp it well, it's easy to become thick, oily, and greasy when eaten. And it's easy for the batter to become soft when it's left to cool.
So, looking closely, I feel that dry-fried mackerel is more preferred.
Dry-fried mackerel:
First, prepare a whole mackerel. At this time, the mackerel has not been cleaned and has a strong fishy smell, so it needs to be pre-processed, remove the head and tail of the mackerel, then tear off its finsHere is a little trick, tear from the tail towards the head, it's easy to tear off
Prepare a sharp knife, cut open the belly of the mackerel to remove the internal organs, and also remove the blood line close to the bone, clean it up. When cleaning the mackerel, use warm water to rinse it, and it must be cleaned, because the blood line will cause the mackerel to have a very strong fishy smell.
After cleaning the mackerel, cut it into segments. If the mackerel is thick, cut several knives on the mackerel body, then the mackerel will be more flavorful when marinated. Put the mackerel into a large basin, add (liáo jiǔ – liquor), soy sauce, salt, scallions, ginger, and pepper, and stir evenly. Marinate the mackerel for half an hour.
Mix cornstarch and flour in a 1:1 ratio, then roll the marinated mackerel in the powder, start the pot and heat the oil, because it's frying fragrant spices, the oil needs to be more, the extra fragrant oil can be saved for later use when making cold dishes or stir-fries. When the oil is hot, add ginger slices and scallion segments, fry until golden brown, then turn off the heat and remove the spices,
When the oil temperature reaches 5~6 parts full, put the marinated mackerel segments one by one into the pot. At this time, shake the pot to distribute the hot oil evenly, prevent the mackerel from sticking to the pot. When the mackerel's skin becomes firm, gently move the mackerel with a spatula to ensure uniform heating. About 3~5 minutes, the mackerel will turn golden yellow. Then drain the mackerel and take it out.
Raise the oil temperature again to 6~7 parts full, then put the fried mackerel into the pot for a second fry, only frying for 12-20 seconds, drain the mackerel and pat dry, this step cannot be missed. After the second frying, the fish spines will become more fragrant and crispy, and it will be even more delicious.
