Perfectly Fried Catfish & Dirty Rice (Easy Weeknight Dinner!)

Today we are pairing up two heavy hitters within the Southern Cuisine food genre and making a flavorful and quick weeknight dinner. This perfectly fried catfish and dirty rice is guaranteed to please your house guests. Let’s #makeithappen

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Shopping List:

Dirty Rice:
1 lb pork sausage (I use jimmy dean mild or original) – If you do not eat pork, feel free to find an alternative that suits you
1 onion
3 stalks celery
1 bell pepper (red or green or both)
Cajun Seasoning
smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, oregano
fresh thyme
AP Seasoning
1tbsp Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base (found in the chicken stock section) or powder
2 cups long grain rice
4 cups chicken stock/broth
green onions
Fresh Parsley

Catfish:
1.5 lbs catfish
2 cups buttermilk
2 cups Mr. Make It Happen Seasoned Flour
oil for frying

Sauce:
1/2 cup mayo
1 tbsp creole mustard
2 tbsps ketchup
1 tsp sriracha or hot sauce
cajun seasoning to taste

all right people today we’re making two of the South’s greatest dishes I’ll be showing you how to make perfectly fried catfish and a side of dirty rice meet me in the kitchen let’s make it happen I’m a perous you got to have it sprw up first the rice is crazy try that catfish it’s your favorite fish right that’s right all right guys first things first let’s talk about the fish we have catfish here today rather large slab but it’s fresh you can usually find catfish for a reasonable price uh what I’m going to do now is cut these into nuggets or cut the catfish down into nuggets I like to separate the thinner side of the catfish first because that’s going to be our larger pieces in terms of diameter because it’s going to be thinner so by weight it’ll be about the same uh size next we’re going to cut it down into filets basically and this is the size we’re going for right here rather large nuggets I like for my catfish nuggets that way they can uh get nice and crispy but still have a little meat on there I don’t want it to be all flour and all breading that’s my probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to catfish nuggets a lot of times you get it and it’s like all corn meal so we’re going to go with larger catfish nuggets today cuz we’re also pairing this up with some rice so I wanted to be you know plate nicely so that’s kind of what I have in mind if you look at the fish too it has some of these natural you know l lines of fat and whatnot in there that you can kind of use as uh almost like a guide when you’re trying to slice these up next up it’s time to get the fish into some buttermilk we’re not really going to marinate it for too long fish doesn’t really need that uh but we do want that buttermilk to help the uh seasoned flour adhere to the catfish so we’re going to get a little flavor in there as well we got the catfish nuggets we got the buttermilk we’re using some Louisiana hot sauce here and then just a little bit of oasian seasoning just to make sure that we cover all of our flavor bases oasian seasoning let me know in the comments what your favorite hot sauce is today we got Crystal about a tablespoon of that just to add a little heat to the party totally optional though if you are adverse to spice then no big deal just get in there with your hand and massage that in make sure that the seasoning and the hot sauce is evenly distributed the buttermilk should turn almost like a orange-ish color after everything’s mixed nicely and just let that sit for about 30 minutes while your oil comes up to Temp and you prep your flour and all that good stuff next up let’s talk about the Cajun Trinity this is kind of the Crux of pretty much every Cajun or Creole recipe uh very common in in pretty much everything similar to like the frenches mirp it’s a Bas it’s a basic combination of onion celery and bell pepper it’s going to give it a nice fine dice you throw it in a food processor if you’re feeling lazy but just make sure you get it in there if you hate one of these ingredients you can leave it out or tell me about it in the comments but for anything like a gumbo a dirty rice a jumbalaya uh etu anything like that all of those recipes tend to start with what they call the Cajun Trinity which again is onion bell pepper and celery now going to comes to the bell pepper this is how I like to prep mine want to chop the top off put it face down like so and then cut around the core where all the uh seeds and whatnot are those seeds are sticky and if you get them all over your cutting board pain in the ass to clean up so going to go ahead and dice up the bell pepper I like to use red and green for the color contrast but feel free to use whatever’s on sale or whatever’s already in the fridge now you guys see me do this 100 times but with the onion I like to leave the root intact make yourself a couple slices slice through the middle and then rough chop dice whatever you want to call it just try to make sure the onions and the peppers and the celery are all about the same size that way they get tender at the same rate using one medium to small onion here this dirty rice recipe is probably enough for six to eight servings depend on how greedy you are now one thing that I will go ahead and call out early is the traditional way to make dirty rice is with uh chicken livers and I’m not a fan of that so today we’re using pork sausage I recommend you do the same but if you’re a big fan of chicken livers then that is the authentic way or the old school way to make dirty rice today we’re not doing that all right guys so for foolproof dirty rice I like to make the rice separately it’s easier less likely to screw it up so you can make it you know the authentic way and kind of mix everything together and bring it together but you might end up with risotto so what I like to do is make it separate make our uh meat and veggie mixture and then combine everything together so we’re going to cook the rice till about 80% of the way done then we’re going to uh strain it off and then add it to the other Skillet we’re going to cook the rice in chicken broth as well so four cups of chicken broth two cups of clean uh long grain rice all right so the key with the sausage guys is you want to make sure it gets a good crust that’s going to give you color texture and flavor like to flatten it out make sure it’s making good surface area contact with the skillet and just use your spatula to break everything up like to cook the sausage first so the fat can render that’s going to act as the foundation of flavor for the rest of the dish here pork sausage but for the pork Patrol feel free to use turkey or chicken or beef so once your one PB of pork sausage has a nice Head Start we’re going in with that Cajun Trinity which again is onion bell pepper and celery you don’t learn anything else today you know what the Cajun Trinity is give that a mix immediately your house could be smelling amazing let the veggies get a head start and then you’re going in with the garlic shortly after that then begin to season The Taste bring all this together once the rice is almost done we’ll fold that in you got yourself some quick and easy foolproof dirty rice next up we’re going in with the garlic we need at least 1 tblspoon Maybe too if you’re a garlic junkie like myself we’re using garlic paste you use fresh if you like but again we’re trying to keep this one super simple today because we want this to be a quick and easy week night meal and that’s what we’re going for so next we’re going in with about 2 tablespoons of paprika I like to do like one and a half of regular paprika and a half of smoked that’s going to give it the color that you’re you know you’re used to seeing now honestly the good thing about using the chicken liers is it does give that nice dark color just doesn’t tastes very good in my opinion or not as good so again I like the pork sausage instead that’s what we’re going with today but feel free to do your thing if you think otherwise smoked paprika regular paprika teaspoon of dried thyme then we’re going to add some chili powder a little bit of my AP seasoning and some chicken bouan before adding the rice I like to add about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of chicken broth just to help ensure that all of the seasoning is evenly distributed basically the same kind of logic behind how you make you know uh ground beef for tacos we’re going to let this evaporate but it it will allow you to get the fond off the bottom of the skillet to ensure all the flavor is well Incorporated here so scrape the edges scrape the sides crank the heat up just a little bit so that all that steam you know begins to or the liquid begins to evaporate I should say and then this is looking just about perfect once the rice is ready we’re going to add that fold it in taste and season again as needed cuz obviously the rice is going to be a little Bland with that low sodium chicken broth that we Ed but it will have a little bit of that flavor from the chicken broth so make sure you taste as you go adjust the flavor to your preference as always and we’re almost done all right guys so the rice is about 75 80% of the way cooked to go ahead and fold that in if there’s a little bit of liquid in there it’s no big deal cuz that’s going to evaporate uh during the final bit of cooking it’s also going to help the rice finish cooking so fold all of that in together we going to leave the lid off so all the liquid can evaporate and then we’re going to reason this and in about 5 to 7 minutes you’re going to have yourself some delicious dirty rice all right guys next up we’re going to make a nice sauce to pair beautifully with the fried catfish and the uh dirty rice so we have about a/2 cup of mayo in here to that we’re going to add a heaping tablespoon of Creole mustard two 2 tablespoons of ketchup about a teaspoon of your favorite hot sauce Louis Louisiana hot sauce obviously would be preferred for this particular recipe it’s going to give it a nice little vinegar bite a little heat and then whatever your favorite uh Cajun or Creole seasoning is we’re going to add that as well break out the Whisk and mix to combine we’re going to add that to a squirt bottle for the final presentation give a little bit of that to our plate now you can also serve it on the side I’ll probably do both today just to dunk your catfish nuggets in but that’s what you’re looking for right there if you want to add a pinch of sugar to kind of balance the acidity you can but that my friends is going to be great with the catfish nuggets so far we have the dirty rice done we got the sauce done and last but not least it’s time to fry some beautiful catfish so out of the buttermilk bath into the seasoned flour goes the catfish fish nuggets these are going to fry up faster than me on Singo Deo we’re going to go ahead and make sure they’re coated up nicely no bald spots you can get get my seasoned flour right now on sale just use the code Down Below in the description box or go ahead and season it up yourself I like to use a combination of things like salt pepper garlic onion powder little Cajun seasoning especially if you you know you’re pairing it with dirty rice can’t go wrong with that but season it up if you you know however you like if there’s a particular Seafood Breer at the store that you enjoy then go ahead and use that too but if you haven’t tried mine I would highly recommend it quite delicious if I do say so myself obviously might be a little biased but hey we’re going to get the oil up to 350° make sure that these are breaded nicely not too thick with the catfish to kind of shine a little bit but once the oil hits 350 and these are breaded we’re going to go ahead and fry them up takes about about four maybe 5 minutes max probably not even that long and then we’ll plate this up once the oil is up to 350° we’re going to go ahead and gently place our catfish nuggets on into the oil you can use whatever oil you like guys peanut oil vegetable oil whatever you like you use a deep fryer today we’re going to kind of shallow fry these so we don’t use up too much oil and waste it but they’ll get nice and crispy golden brown and beautiful and again the beauty of this is all of this comes together pretty quick so a couple things you can look for when you’re frying anything especially fish when you hear the loud noise is usually in the early stages of The Frying process as the oil starts to get a little bit more quiet you’ll notice that it’s just about done it’ll also start to float you know your uncle wasn’t wrong or drunk at the cookout when he told you when the chicken floats it’s done there’s actually some real science behind that so as the protein begins to float a little bit and it starts to get more quiet that’s good indications that it’s done the best way to know for sure though is with a digital food thermometer you want your fish to be about 140 to 145° internal temperature you know chicken you want it to be about 165 but as you can see we’re looking good great color on the fish we’re just about done all right guys we’re going to go ahead and plate this up with a bound of that dirty rice three or four pieces of our catfish nuggets a little bit of that sauce this is the part why I say brace yourself for a trademark money shot say it with me guys looking good the only thing left to do is digging for the taste test but before we do that please take a quick second to subscribe to the channel make sure you hit that Bell to name with notifications as well all right people we got a little charred lemon action cuz why the hell not little fresh lemon juice I’m going to get us a piece of that okay here how crispy it is get us a good piece of that catfish with a nice big bite a dirty rice looks a little too hot but hey that’s what I do for you people [Music]