Grouper Fingers

This is such a simple recipe, it's hardly worthy of a "foodie" blog post. But I wanted to give a shout-out to the freshest seafood market I've found - Carawan's Seafood Market in Kitty Hawk, NC, as well as every Southerner's best friend when cooking fish - House-Autry seafood breader. (We're not paid bloggers here, this is just good stuff.)

The Wife and I just returned from a long weekend on Carova Beach, NC. If you've never been, it's beautiful - and isolated. To get there, you head to Nags Head, and turn North on Rt. 12. Drive until to road ends and put it in four wheel drive. The proceed 7 miles up the beach to a small cluster of houses. No roads anywhere, but there are wild mustangs (descendants from a Spanish shipwreck in the 1500's). There's also fresh seafood.

In Kitty Hawk, there's a family run seafood market, Carawan's Seafood, that's been in business for decades. It always has the freshest local fish, and only serves what is straight off the boat. We've been stopping in there ever since I can remember. Growing up in Chesapeake, VA, my dad would occasionally make the one hour drive down, because of the quality of the fish.

The wife and I stopped in yesterday on our way back and picked up some grouper.

We were late getting home last night, so I kept it simple - fried grouper fingers. (The Wife is getting creative tonight though, using the remaining for an almondine type dish.)

Ingredients:

Fresh Grouper

Milk

House-Autry Seafood Breader

Directions:

Turn a deep fryer on 350 degrees.

While oil is heating up, cut grouper in the 3-4 inch fingers and soak in milk - the milk will help to take away any fishiness. Of course if your grouper is fresh, it won't be fishy, but I still always soak my fish and chicken in milk before cooking.

Once oil is heated, shake fish in House-Autry seasoning to coat and drop in fryer. Keep an eye on it, it will float when it's ready - and become a golden brown, about 4 minutes.

Drain the grease and place on a paper towel covered plate. I seasoned with salt and Emeril's Essence.

So Simple, but oh-so-good.

I served with a simple salt/pepper/garlic crusted baked potato. And that's Srirachi on it, not ketchup.