Name: Homemade Fish Sticks
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 2 Mahi-Mahi Fillets (about 0.7 lbs); 1 Cup Cornmeal; 1 Cup Flour; 2 Eggs; 3 Tbsp Water; 1 Tbsp Onion Powder; 1 Tbsp Chili Powder; 1 Tbsp Ground Cumin Powder; 1 Tbsp Garlic Powder; Salt & Pepper (to taste); Oil (for frying)

Mahi-Mahi makes a delicious fish stick with a flaky inside and a crisp and crunchy crust packed will spice and flavor.

Total Cooking Time: 20 minutes

I am always excited to try my hand out cooking new fishes and trying new dishes. When I saw Mahi-Mahi at my local grocery store, I immediately thought about using it to make fish sticks. It wasn’t a recipe that was normally within my wheelhouse but after doing some searches on the internet, I was able to cobble together my own recipe! I’m starting to suspect that all of my food has a slight Indian flavor to it. Absolutely no idea why. Nope. None at all.

Check out the Make section of MCG for more fun recipes like desserts and savory dishes.

Ingredients

The ingredients to make fish sticks were fairly common things that I had lying around the house. Flour and eggs are used as a binder for the crispy crust. For the crust, I decided to use cornmeal (another common option is panko) and I added what is slowly becoming my trademark blend of spices: onion powder, chili powder, cumin powder, and garlic powder. I used olive oil for frying, but I would probably recommend using canola or vegetable oil as food seems to fry better in those and (ultimately) they’re cheaper options. Although the olive oil fry turned out to be pretty delicious.

Process

Let’s get frying!! The first thing that needs to be done in preparing the fish. I wanted to stay with a more traditional shape so I stayed with sticks, but I feel like these could work in any shape. Just be mindful of the thickness. My sticks were about three-fourths of an inch thick on each side and about two and a half inches long. Then it’s time to prep the fish!

First, the fish should be seasoned with salt and pepper. Always a good first step 😊. Then the sticks are placed in the flour and the excess is shaken off. This step helps remove any moisture from the surface and primes the fish. It also gives a good surface for the eggs to stick to. So, as you probably guessed, the next step is dipping the stick into a whisked egg and water mixture. Once again, all excess should be shaken off. The last step would be to dip the fish sticks into a cornmeal and spice blend. I like to put the spices in the cornmeal because it adds a lot of flavors to the crust and seems to be the best place for it. For other spice blend options, check out the notes section of the recipe!

And now it’s on to frying. The oil should be heated up somewhere between 350 F° to 375 F° to fry fish. I fried the fish for two minutes in the oil, then I flipped it over and fried it for another two minutes. I like to take the fish out of the pan and put it on a plate that is lined with a paper towel. The paper towel helps encourage the excess oil to drain from the fish sticks. Once they’ve cooled enough, enjoy!!

Lessons

Heating Up Oil

The one thing I hate about cooking with oil is that I can never tell when the oil has reached frying temperature. On its own there are no bubbles, and it just looks like a calm, yellow water. But I have found a useful trick to it! When you dip the end of a chopstick (or narrow wooden utensil) into the oil, bubbles will rise up around the impacted area. This will let you know if the oil is hot enough to cook with.