Whole Fried Bream

Bream are the best.  The are delicious. They are fun to catch and they are plentiful.  Often times they are a person's first experience with success when learning to fish.  They were with me. I still remember catching a little green eared sunfish while visiting a timeshare in the Lake of the Ozarks as a young boy.  My mom acted like I had harpooned a whale. I was so proud. She filleted that little sucker and fried up two bite sized fish nuggets for me to eat.  They were amazing and the sense of accomplishment and pride I felt still resonates with me as I now raise children of my own.

As an adult, fishing for bream is still a favorite way to put protein of the aquatic variety into the freezer.  A cheap Zebco rod and reel, a bobber, and a cricket or worm dug out of the garden can get you into a certified mess.  That’s what happened the other day when my in-laws gifted us with an ice chest full of nice sized bream they had caught during an afternoon excursion....I knew just what to do with them.

I’m a firm believer that the BEST way to prepare bream is also one of the simplest.  Scale them, gut them, dredge them in yellow cornmeal and fry them up. They present beautifully this way, but it also is a method that lets the unassuming fish shine.  The meat is flaky and buttery and as you eat (with your hands of course) there is always the anticipation of biting into that crispy tail. It’s like a cross between a potato chip and a pork rind except that it tastes even better.  The bones are easy to work around and it doesn't take long to eat a pile of these sumptuous little buggers. If eating a whole fish is a bit out of your comfort zone I suggest you put on your grown up drawers and give it a try. It’s one of the most common ways globally to consume fish and there is a reason for it...it tastes good.

Scaling is as simple as using a spoon and dragging it across the fish in the direction opposite of how the scales lay.  Be quick and be thorough and don’t worry about being too delicate with it. Once you've cleaned several the process speeds up.  I’d guess I’m only spending ten seconds or so to scale each fish. Then all you’ve got to do is make an incision along the belly of the fish and pull everything on the inside to the outside.  Some folks worry with cutting off the dorsal and pectoral fins, but I don’t bother. After your fish are scaled and gutted, give them a good rinse inside and out with cold water. Now it's time to fry!

Ingredients

scaled and cleaned whole bream

yellow cornmeal (seasoned as you like it)

peanut oil

1. Heat approximately 3/4 of an inch of peanut oil up to 350 degrees in a cast iron skillet. It’s worth it to invest in a frying/candy thermometer for just this purpose. If your oil is too cool and you’ll end up with a soggy, greasy mess, if it’s too hot you’ll have unpleasantly burned breading and the crispy bits won’t be as delicious.

2. Lightly score the fish with a sharp knife several times on each side. While the bream is still wet from it’s final cold water rinse, dredge the entire fish in your seasoned cornmeal. Personally, when frying fish I use Slap Yo Mama seasoning, but feel free to just use salt and pepper or any other seasoning blend that you like. Just make sure to season the cornmeal sufficiently. Don’t be afraid to use your hands and manually pat the cornmeal into the nooks and crannies of the fish. The interior cavity doesn’t need to be coated, but try to get an even and consistent coating on the entire exterior.

3. Slowly lower your cornmeal covered fish into the hot grease. Don’t crowd your pan and monitor your cooking temp, trying to keep it as close to 350 as possible. After 2-3 minutes on one side gently turn the fish over with a pair of tongs and allow the other side to cook for 2-3 additional minutes. If you want a little bit of a more golden fry on the fish give it another flip and another minute or two in the hot oil.

4. Remove the fish and allow it to cool on a wire rack or a paper towel for a couple of minutes. You are going to eat this with your bare hands so you don’t want straight out of the fryer scalding, but you do want it to be hot and crispy when you tear into it.

Enjoy with hot sauce, a bit of fresh squeezed lemon or completely on their own. I’m usually a glutton for tatar sauce when eating fried fish, but not when it comes to bream. I’m telling you, these are so buttery and delicious you won’t need to slather them in anything at all. Simply flake the meat off with your fingers or a fork and enjoy. In the words of my two year old, “This good fish!”