Wels Catfish Steak Pan-Fried in Soy Marinade
Catfish is the handiest of our freshwater fish for a steak. The backbone is large, there are no intermuscular bones, the meat is dense and fatty, and you can cut it with a fork. That makes it convenient to cook like a pork loin — and that's also why it's most often overcooked.
Soy sauce in the marinade stands in for salt. Thirty milliliters for six hundred grams of fish is plenty, and if you add salt on top "to taste," the steak comes out over-salted — that's the most common mistake with this marinade.
Fifteen minutes of marinating is enough. There's no point holding it longer: soy sauce doesn't tenderize the dense catfish meat, it only salts it and colors the crust, and after half an hour it starts drawing out water.
The soy marinade is the whole point of this dish. Without it, the same catfish fries plainer — wels catfish with onion in a pan — or finishes in a sauce: wels catfish braised in sour cream with vegetables.
Caloric content: 180kcal
Prepare the spices
Transfer the fish
Mix the marinade
Marinate
Fry
Serve
Notes
- Don't add extra salt. Soy sauce is salty on its own. The source recipe's ingredient list doesn't account for that, and following it as-is over-salts the steak.
- Cut the steak two to two-and-a-half centimeters thick. Thinner dries out before it browns; thicker stays raw near the backbone.
- Don't remove the skin. It holds the steak together when flipping — without it the fibers fall apart right on the pan.
- It needs less time than you'd think. The source recipe recommends ten minutes per side. For a two-centimeter steak that's twice what's needed and leaves dry fibers. We kept it to fifteen minutes total.
- Large catfish gives off a muddy taste. It's noticeable in fish over five kilograms. Half an hour in cold water with lemon juice removes it.
Questions and Answers
How long to fry catfish steak?
Two to three minutes per side on high heat until a crust forms, then four to five minutes per side on medium. About fifteen minutes total.
Does catfish need to be marinated?
Not necessarily, but a soy marinade gives a darker, more even crust. Don't hold it longer than twenty minutes.
Should the skin be removed from the steak?
No. It holds the steak together, and after frying it comes off on its own in one strip.
Why does catfish smell muddy?
That's the taste of a bottom-dwelling fish, and it's noticeable mostly in large specimens. It's removed by soaking in acidified water.
Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.
