Florida Fish Recipes
Dateline: 11/1/99
Check out the recipes for Florida fish below and then head to the other About.com sites listed to collect more recipes from the Sunshine State. You can cook your way through the winter, dreaming about warm sun, or head to Florida and enjoy your meals there!
About.com sites for Florida Cuisine recipes:
Miami - Fabulous Miami Recipes
Jacksonville - NE Florida's Food is Shrimply Delicious
Orlando - Cookin' Up a Florida Feast
Cocktails - Florida Drinks
Southern Food - The Many Flavors of Florida
West Palm Beach - Florida Cuisine
Fort Lauderdale - Smoked Mullet
Tallahassee - Cookin' in Tallahassee
Fish Recipes from Freshwater Fishing:
Baked Hybrid Bass
Hybrid striper/white bass are called Sunshine Bass in Florida. They are a freshwater species that have a dark, oily strip of meat on filets. This recipe is good for all strong flavored freshwater fish like stripers and white bass, and would be excellent for strong saltwater fish like bluefish. And it is easy!
Ingredients:
Hybrid filets - the two filets from a three pound fish will feed two people
Four strips of bacon
Onion
Spray a baking pan with a no-stick oil, then lay the skinless filets in the pan. Put two strips of bacon on each filet to cover as much of it as possible. Slice the onion and place onion slices on top of the bacon. Cover the pan with foil and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 1 hour, until the meat is flaky and white throughout. Uncover and place under the broiler for a few minutes if you like it browned on top.
Creamy Fish Chowder
I have never met a fish stew or chowder I didn't like. One of my favorites is a milk based stew. It is very mild and is best with a white meat fish. Bass or crappie from freshwater and flounder, grouper or sea bass from the ocean work well.
Ingredients:
Fish - make it as thick with fish as you want I usually use four 2-pound
bass for a six quart pot of stew.
Bacon - three strips
Onion - one large mild onion
Potatoes or rice- again, make it as thick as you want
butter - 1/4 poujnd stick - but make it as rich as you want
milk - up to one gallon
Boil your fish and remove the bones. Fry up the bacon and crumble
it up Sautee diced onion in bacon grease. Flake the fish into a pot,
add the bacon, onions and butter, cover with milk and simmer until the
potatoes are tender. Add some salt and pepper while cooking. Add
diced potatoes or rice to make a heartier stew, or more milk for a soup.
It is almost as good as New England clam chowder. I use rice milk
since I am allergic to real milk, and although not as good as the real
thing, it ain't bad.
Tomato Fish Stew
Another strong fish stew is made with tomatoes. It is strong even with a mild fish so stick with the same ones as used in the cream basis stew.
Ingredients:
Fish - four 2-pound bass for a six quart stew
tomatoes - six cans of diced tomatoes - use the ones with garlic or basil
and oregano for a spicier stew
Hot sauce - how hot do you like it?
Onion - one large white onion, diced
potatoes or rice
I filet my bass but keep the bones and any attached meat. The bones are covered with water, salt and a couple of bay leaves and boiled. The broth is strained and kept. Add the filets and any meat you can pull off the bones back to the broth. Add diced canned tomatoes, hot sauce like Tabasco, salt and chopped onions. Simmer about an hour. For a more hearty stew, add diced potatoes or rice. Make it as hot as you like. It is great on a cold winter day.
Hope you enjoy these fish recipes and all the others from Florida! Let me know what you think.
Do you cook fish? What is your favorite recipe? Tell me about it. Also, you can also post information about it for others on my message board - you must register to post but can read the board as a guest. Also, if you have thoughts you want to share about this topic, let me know about it at fishing.guide@about.com. for a "Fishtale" or discuss it in the chat room on every night at 8:00 EDT. Tell others what you like.
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Check out Coming Next Week - Next week's column topic, contest prize and new additions to the resources lists.
