Homemade Breaded Fish, French Recipe

Name: Homemade Breaded Fish
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Ingredients: 900 gr white fish; 2 egg white; breadcrumbs; 1/2 bunch parsley (ideally flat leaves); 3 tablespoons sunflower oil (or a mix with olive oil); lemon (for garnish)

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A delicious way of eating fish, with a nice golden brown crunchy coating and silky fish filling. Kids love it! You can have fun seasoning breadcrumb, here with parsley

In France, there are all kid of frozen square breaded fishes. They are given to kids so that the would eat fish. But actually, they don’t really taste good, crumb is quite heavy and they are not that healthy. I tried this tasty and light recipe to show you that, homemade, it can be a real delight and that it’s not that complicated and long to prepare.

How to make breaded fish

But before sharing the recipe, let me explain the 3 different breaded cooking methods of traditional French cuisine.

1- First of all, “breaded the English way”

In French we say literally Pané à l’anglaise, which is actually the traditional recipe of many French moms who make breaded veal. Mothers or grandmothers often ask children to help, quite good memories for many of us.

The technique of breading the English way is relatively simple. 3 plates with each one 1 ingredient: 1/ flour, 2/ “anglaise” (this “English” is made of whole egg beaten with water and oil, salt and pepper), and 3/ breadcrumb. The second preparation which is called anglaise / English gives its name to the preparation. I thought first that it was because the English like to eat Fish and ships.

Start by drying meat or fish with paper towel and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides. First dust in flour on both sides. Tap off flour excess. This first step is to dry the food so that eggs will stick. Soak in the anglaise egg preparation on both sides, drain a bit, make sure flour is coated with liquid. This way crumb will stick. Finally place in breadcrumb. Breadcrumb gives the taste and crispy texture, of course. Make sure you always use se same hand to soak in the anglaise scrambled eggs and the other one for flour and breadcrumb otherwise your hands will immediately be messy (thus not as on the photos as my daughter did !).

Breadcrumb can be bought ready-made course but may be replaced or supplemented with all kinds of ingredients to improve its taste. There are many possibilities : breadcrumb, bread toasted and mixed, Japanese panko, corn flakes, ginger bread; seasoned with sesame, herbs (parsley, chives, thyme, herbes de Provence…), spices (cumin, paprika …), parmesan…

Another example of breaded dish is the classic French escalope panée, breaded scallop.

2- Breaded with mustard (or breaded the American way):

The technique here is to coat first with mustard (that may be seasoned) then with breadcrumb.

3- Breaded with butter:

The food here is coated with breadcrumb after being soak in melted butter.

Here, it is a faster and lighter recipe as there are only 2 steps, and no flour nor egg yolks. No flour but fish perfectly dried with a paper towel, just egg white well whipped instead of the anglaise, and a very tasty breadcrumb seasoned with chopped parsley.

For this recipe you can use the white fish of your choice such as cod, halibut, ling, pout, sole … Filet or cut into smaller portions in order to cook evenly or make one bite pieces.