So, after falling in love with the Instant Pot – a logical, I guess, from a guy who does a lot of pressure cooking canning, my buddy Kevin said he was hooked on the air fryer. So, I found one for $20 on Craigslist. From my loan officer at our bank. Small town funny.
I watched America’s Test Kitchen yesterday and they made chicken sandwiches in the air fryer. I thought – that’s a good test for fried fish.
We had all the ingredients except Panko. My friend Ken used this often as I remember. I stopped at IGA downtown to buy some. I felt this would be a 5 minute in and out. Nope. Up and down the isles I shopped. I then checked the Asian isle. Didn’t see it. I asked one of the checkers. Both she and a customer directed me to the flour and bread crumb isle. So I back tracked there and scanned back and forth again. I’m 60 now. I know it could be right in front of me and I wouldn’t notice. Sort of like Sara coming home with a new hairdo. Nope. I could not see it.
I hit every isle in the store. I went a last time down the Asian isle. Then boom. There is was. On the top shelf. Hiding itself in plain site. Panko. And luckily only 2 choices. I grabbed one, along with an apple fritter as a reward, checked out, and was on my way.
We decided to do the fish the next day – today – as Sara had a long day at the legislature. I got the ingredients together and got air frying today.
First, I cut up 4 red potatoes into wedges, then dredged them in an olive oil, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and parsley dredge till they were all coated. I put these in the air fryer for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.
While these were cooking, I got the fish batter together. First I coated a cup of panko with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a bowl, then microwaved them for a minute at a time to brown the panko. While I was microwaving, I mixed an egg with a tablespoon of flour and 3 tablespoons of siracchi, some garlic powder and salt and pepper.
At 10 minutes, I shook the potatoes and cooked them another 5 minutes. When they were done, I put them in a bowl and into the toaster oven on warm. I cut the bomber rockfish fillets in half, dredged them in the egg mixture, then coated them in the panko, and put each piece in the air fryer. I used up all the egg mixture and panko on 5 pieces of bomber fillet. ‘
I cooked the fish for 5 minutes at 400 degrees, then flipped the fillets over, and cooked for 5 more minutes.
We had ketchup for the potato wedges, and I made kelp relish and mayonaise tartar sauce for the fish. Sara and I both approved. An easy meal and no guessing on oil type or temperature to cook the fish and the potato wedges (we could give a crap about whether it was “healthy” or not!).