Portuguese Fried Fish Fillets: Filé de Peixe Frito

It's not uncommon for the Portuguese to simply fry fish in hot oil: no flour, no egg, no batter, just fish with head on in oil. Others may dredge the fish in some seasoned flour (some use corn flour), and then there is this method, which at first glance, you may think old Randy has wrongly typed into the text. What do I mean? Well typically, fish or other food items that are breaded are dipped into beaten egg, THEN tossed or rolled in flour or breadcrumbs. The Portuguese reverse the process by putting the fish into flour, then dipping the floured fish into beaten egg. When I first saw this, I was positive the author had made a mistake, but then I saw other recipes with the same process. It's all quite easy, made easier if you have a deep fryer, which will make the frying much faster, but you can put enough oil into a skillet to cover the bottom with about 1/4 inch of oil (more is even better, of course) and fry the fish that way, turning them over a few times to be sure they cook evenly. The fried fish fillets are often, but not always, served with Portuguese Tomato Rice,* and it's my understanding that some Portuguese serve the fillets with fried potatoes, perhaps in imitation of British fish and chips. You can buy pre-cut fish fillets, or you can cut the fillets yourself, but try to keep the fillets at about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thickness. The time needed to cook thick fillets will likely result in the breading being too dark or even burned, and Portuguese fish fillets are a nice light golden color.

 

Ingredients (4 or 5 servings):

1 1/2 pounds fish fillets (cod, haddock, sea bass and halibut are all good for this)

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon sweet Spanish paprika (naturally Portuguese, if you have it)

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

3 eggs (might require another egg)

2 lemons, cut into wedges

oil for frying

 

Heat the oil over medium heat. While the oil is heating, the breading process is simple and you will only need two shallow dishes. Rinse the fish fillets and pat them dry with paper towels. In the first dish, add the flour, salt, sweet paprika, garlic powder and white pepper, then mix everything together well. In the second dish, add the eggs and whisk them briefly (we're not looking for frothy eggs!). Put a fillet into the seasoned flour and turn it to coat (don't forget the sides), shake lightly to remove excess flour and then dip the fillet into the beaten egg to completely coat it. Again, let the excess egg drip off. Put the fish fillet into the hot oil and quickly bread and add another fillet to the oil. Don't put too many fillets into the oil at any one time (I used a 10 inch cast iron skillet, and fried two fillets at a time). Turn the fillets a couple of times to be sure they are cooked through. The frying should take about 5 to 8 minutes for two fillets at a time, depending upon the thickness of the fillets and the temperature of the oil (if you use a deep fryer, it will likely take a couple minutes less time to cook them). Put the fried fillets on a platter lined with paper towels to absorb excess oil. Serve with tomato rice or fried potatoes and with a lemon wedge or two for each serving.    

 

* For the recipe for Portuguese Tomato Rice, here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2021/09/portuguese-tomato-rice-arroz-de-tomate.html

 

  

WORD HISTORY:

Program-This word is most commonly spelled "programme" in Britain. The main body of the word is distantly related to "carve," a word from the Germanic roots of English, and it is more closely related to the many words with the endings "gram" and "graph" ("gram" is not always a suffix), which are of Greek origin (examples: cardiogram, anagram, grammar, phonograph, photograph, pictograph). The "pro" part of the word goes back to Indo European "per," which meant "in front, in advance, before," and this gave transliterated Ancient Greek "per(i), which also meant "before." The "gram" (gramme) part of "program" goes back to Indo European "gerebh/gerbh," which meant "to scratch," which back a few thousand years ago had the further notion of "writing;" that is, "to scratch on stone or clay tablets with a sharp instrument." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "graphein," meaning "to scratch, to carve;" thus also, "to write." The two parts together gave transliterated Ancient Greek" "prographein," meaning "to set forth to the public." This gave Greek the noun "programma," meaning "a written notice to the public," which was borrowed by Latin as "programma," meaning "a proclamation," and French took it as "programme." English borrowed the word in the 1630s from French (especially in the spelling "programme"), but with heavy influence from Latin. Gradually, the meaning began to move much more toward "a written agenda or plan of events," frequently regarding music entertainment, which later came into use for a schedule of radio shows, then later still, for television. The use of the word for computers dates to the end of World War Two and the use of "(computer) programs" dedicated to carry out specific tasks. The verb form came from the noun in the 1890s meaning, "to arrange in some order to be followed," and the mid 1900s saw the verb applied to computers for "to cause a computer or computers to take some course of action in an automatic way."