Fried White Perch

The last two summers, I’ve spent a short week farm & dog sitting for our friends, the Latanes, at their organic farm on the Northern Neck. It’s a beautiful place to spend a few days with limited reception, gorgeous sunsets and some of the best produce I’ve ever had. Rachel will join me over the weekend and we pick wild berries, play with the dogs, look for shark teeth on the shores of the Potomac, and fish for white perch. 

The white perch fishing has become a midsummer tradition for us. We launch our tiny boat and work up the creeks and along the cliffs and rock piles with tiny strips of squid on bottom rigs or throw beetle spins with ultra light rods. It’s a lot of fun catching a lot of delicious fish, but more than anything else, there's no stress. As much as I love the heart pounding anticipation and stress of fighting a giant cobia or snakehead, waiting for that perfect shot on a whitetail, or trying to see that gobbling tom that is in gun range but out of sight, it's nice to do something that is high yield and low stress once in a while. We drift around with the current and pick up some fish for dinner- sometimes you can’t not catch a perch, sometimes it takes a little more time, but either way, it's simply a nice day on the water that usually includes bringing home dinner.

White perch are a lot of fun to fish for and some of the best table fare there is. They're abundant and aggressive, and once you find them, you can pile them up. Their only drawback is their size- there is the occasional “monster” that is bigger than my hand, but for the most part, these fish tend to be in the “too small to fillet” category. So we like to scale and fry the fish whole.

We make an incision along both sides of the dorsal fin, down to the spine towards the tail, like we're going to fillet the fish before breading. This method, which we picked up from Jesse Griffiths, allows the fillets to be pulled off the fish after frying with ease, as well as aiding in even cooking. It’s been a game changing technique that we employ on a lot of the small fish we cook.

Our fish fry breading mix uses all purpose flour, masa harina, and cornstarch. These three differently textured flours and starches produce a crispy crust with varied texture. We add some Old Bay to lightly season the mix. We also season the fish before breading.

Fried White Perch Recipe

Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

4-6 white perch per person, scaled, gutted, head off, split along spine

2 tbsp spicy mustard

1/2 cup milk

Fish Fry Breading:

1 cup AP flour

1 cup masa harina

1 cup corn starch

3 tbsp Old Bay

Mix ingredients in bowl with fork.

Method

Preheat frying oil to 350-375F, at least an inch of oil.

Mix milk and mustard together in a bowl. Mix the fish fry breading ingredients in a separate bowl.

Season perch with Old Bay or salt and pepper

Dredge perch through the dry breading mix and shake off excess. One at a time, dip the coated perch into the milk-mustard wash, shake off excess, and dredge again in the breading. 

Fry in small batches for about 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Flip halfway through if not fully submerged. 

Allow to drain on a wire rack or paper towel lined pan. Serve with hot sauce and lemon.