Family's Delicious Recipe 33 - Pan-Fried Milkfish

Ingredients: Milkfish, cooking wine, paper towels, lid, pepper salt (lemon) Instructions: 1. Scale and gut the milkfish, then cut it in half. If the innards are fresh, you can pan-fry them, but if you're not in the south, it's best to discard them. Milkfish aren't farmed in the north, so they're not fresh enough and can easily cause stomach upset. 2. Check if the scales on the skin side are completely removed, especially under the fins where it's easy to miss. Spray with cooking wine to remove any fishy smell and let it sit for 20 minutes. 3. Use paper towels to thoroughly dry the fish slices, inside and out. Make sure there's no moisture. 4. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat until it lightly smokes. Place the fish slices in the pan, skin-side down, and immediately cover with a lid. 5. Reduce heat to medium-low. Gently rotate the pan during cooking to ensure even heating. Once the sound from under the lid subsides, open the lid and flip the fish. 6. At this point, you can increase the heat slightly to medium. If you're worried about oil splattering, you can keep the lid on. Once both sides are golden brown, remove from the pan, sprinkle with pepper salt, and you can also squeeze some lemon juice. Pan-frying fish is generally similar, but milkfish tends to splatter more. For other fish, drying the moisture well prevents excessive splattering; just pay attention to the eye area. Personally, I don't recommend removing the thin black membrane inside the milkfish belly. The fat in the belly is the most delicious part. For other fish, this membrane must be removed during cleaning. When pan-frying fish, there's one action to be mindful of, and it's the most common mistake for beginners: just like with fried eggs, don't flip it immediately or too often. This not only makes it stick to the pan easily but also damages its shape. When frying fish, you can gently shake the pan. If the fish can move around in the pan with the shaking, then it's ready to be flipped. Also, when frying fish, the pan must be sufficiently hot.