Fish and Flips – How to Cook Pan Seared Fish

Every good chef has their favorite slab of fish to cook. Ted Allen (host of the Food Network show Chopped) presented Chef Eric Ripert’s Crispy Black Bass on Best Thing I Ever Ate and I thought to myself, “wow, that’s one yummy looking slab of fish!” But it’s trickier than it looks. Eric Ripert is a seafood cooking legend. So how can an average guy like me cook something that foodtacular? I went out and got myself some Black Cod, fired up the stove and busted out my favorite spatula and….the outcome? It wasn’t crispy, it fell apart, and it was a too oily. (And it took me an hour to make….talk about being unprepared.)

Time for some advice: Ted Allen to the Rescue

I decided to ask Ted himself how to properly cook Crispy Black Cod. And here’s what he said.

“It’s not hard. A 6-ounce piece of skin-on cod holds together well. Sear the skin side, turn, and finish briefly on the other side. Voila.”

and…

“What you need to do this is a fish spatula—one of the most useful tools ever invented. Also, get a DRY pan heated medium-high, a good 5-10 minutes, then add your oil immediately before putting the fish in, skin side down. Cheers!”

Gold! I’ve struck GOLD! Keep the skin on, dry pan, fish spatula, add oil in later?! Who needs Le Cordon Bleu when I’ve got Facebook and Ted Allen? Wait, maybe I also need a fish spatula…

I also found this Q&A while looking for more inspiration from Chef Ripert himself. In the interview, he mentions halibut red snapper and escolar, which just happens to be some of the fish I’ve been wanting to learn how to cook for Hunnie. It might be a while until I master the art of cooking fish. Hopefully the learning process will be sped up with Ted’s advice. Upon further investigation, the dish Ted was talking about was Crispy Black Bass, and I was cooking Black Cod. I’m sure that difference in ingredients also contributed to my…* ahem*…failure.