Deep-Fried Southern Catfish

Melt-in-your-mouth fried catfish is a veritable birthright if you’re from the Deep South, where family-style restaurants called catfish houses are fixtures of the rural landscape. This dish doesn’t call for any dressing up, aside from a big spoonful of tangy tartar sauce and an ice-cold beer.

Canola or peanut oil, for frying

2 cups yellow cornmeal

1¹/₃ cups flour

¼ cup seasoned salt, such as Lawry’s

2 tbsp. baking powder

1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper

4 3- to 5-oz. boneless, skinless catfish filets or bone-in, skinless catfish steaks

½ lemon, cut into wedges, for serving Tartar sauce, for serving

Serves 2

1. Pour oil into an 8-qt. pot to a depth of 3 inches and heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 350°F.

2. Meanwhile, combine the cornmeal, flour, seasoned salt, baking powder, and pepper in a large bowl. Add the catfish and toss to coat. Gently shake off the excess cornmeal mixture and transfer the catfish to a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet.

3. Working in 2 batches, fry the catfish in the hot oil until golden brown and cooked through, about 6 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the catfish to a wire cooling rack set over a rimmed baking sheet to drain. Transfer the fish to 2 plates and serve with a lemon wedge and tartar sauce.

Pride of the Delta

On a Saturday night in Mississippi, there’s always a wait at the local catfish houses, those family-style fried-fish restaurants that serve cornmeal-dusted filets piled on a plate with lemon wedges, tartar sauce, and a mound of fries and hush puppies. “Catfish is to Mississippi what crawfish is to Louisiana,” says Brandon Hughes, a fry cook at Taylor Grocery, a popular catfish house in Oxford, Mississippi. There are 28 North American species of catfish (so named because of its whiskers, or barbels, which the fish uses to search for food), and many others that are native to parts of Asia, where catfish is also prized, but it is Ictalurus punctatus, commonly called channel catfish, that is favored across the American South. The fish fried at places like Taylor’s and Carmack aren’t wild: they are sustainably farmed in the Mississippi Delta. Catfish may be the world’s only widely consumed fish that tastes better farmed than wild. Wild catfish feed on the pond bed, which gives them a muddy flavor, but farm-raised fish have a sweet, clean, and nutty taste that lends itself to even more than frying; it’s also a perfect canvas for everything from rémoulade-smothered po’boys to fiery curries. Catfish has long been considered a trash fish, a misconception that a single bite of farmed catfish will instantly erase. “The catfish,” wrote Mark Twain, “is good enough fish for anybody.” You don’t have to tell that to the folks in Mississippi, where catfish is king.

—Hunter Lewis