Recipe by Damon Lee Fowler, featuring

Salt Table’s All Round Good Grinder Blend or Tybee Island Coastal Blend, or Southern Italian Blend

Equally perfect for busy weeknight dinners as well as weekend entertaining, these crumb-topped fillets are simple to put together, even more-so when they’re seasoned with All Round Good Grinder Blend. They would also be delightful with Tybee Island Coastal Blend or Southern Italian Blend.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs, preferably homemade (see method)
  • 4 fresh fish fillets (preferably locally caught flounder, snapper, grouper, or shad)
  • Salt Table All Round Good Grinder Blend 
  • 1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley, optional
  • 1 lemons cut in wedges

How to Make It:

  1. Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 450° F. Put 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. When the oil is warm, sprinkle in the crumbs and toss until they’re coated evenly. Turn off the heat.
  2. Rub the bottom of a baking dish that will snugly hold the fish in one layer with olive oil. Pat the fish dry, put them into baking dish, skin-side down, and season well All Round Good Grinder Blend. Sprinkle them with the parsley if using and then the oiled crumbs.
  3. Bake until the fish is cooked through and the crumbs are toasted, about 8-15 minutes, depending on thickness of fillets. Serve at once with lemon wedges.

Homemade Dry Breadcrumbs

Even if the ready-made boxed crumbs were from good bread (they aren’t), their texture and flavor is never as good as those that are homemade, and making your own is not enough trouble to justify taking the short cut. Here is my method.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Trim the crust from stale, unflavored (without sugar, herbs, garlic, cheese, olives, etc.) European-style bread and cut into 1-inch cubes. Spread the cubes on a rimmed baking sheet in one layer. Bake, stirring occasionally, until dry and crisp and just barely golden. Let them cool completely. In batches, transfer to a sealed freezer bag and crush to crumbs with a rolling pin. You may also process in a food processor fitted with a steel blade until evenly ground. Keep in mind that the dry, crisp bread is likely to scratch the sides of the plastic work bowl over time. If you want to keep that from happening, go to the trouble of crushing them by hand. Dry crumbs keep indefinitely when stored in airtight tins.

 

Suggested Seasonings

All ‘Round Good Grinder Blend

This recipe also works well with or Tybee Island Coastal Blend or Southern Italian Blend