Panko Bread Crumbs

Photo credit: Vigo Alessi dot com

I'm always looking for new recipes, I get bored making the same things all the time. In some recipes I looked at I was seeing Panko, what the heck is Panko. After Googling it I found out it was a type of bread crumb, how come I never knew this, all the cooking I do from scratch, and never knew about

Panko. So, what is the difference between Panko and regular bread crumbs? Panko is a Japanese style bread crumb used for deep frying foods. While other bread crumbs use all the bread, Panko bread crumbs are made with crustless bread. With Panko you get a light crunchy coating, which stays crunchy longer than traditional bread crumbs, and also does a lot better in the micro wave when reheating.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

Being a big sea food eater, and a fan of fried foods I had to try these. I had purchased 4 lbs of both cat fish, and salmon from a local store that sells great sea food. Some people do not like fish because they feel it taste too fishy. If you can get fresh fish it does not taste fishy, frankly it is like eating steak, not the texture or taste, but just so good. Anyone who has read my blog knows I do not measure my ingredients, why? Because it always comes out tasting bland, so I use the ingredients I find for a recipe and just add as much as I want.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

So as you can see I am using a baking dish for my bread crumb mixture. The fillets I have will not fit in anything else, so I took my Panko, garlic, parsley, paprika, basil, oregano, thyme, and pepper, and sprinkled each of them over the bottom of the baking dish. I add one egg, and some milk to the bowl, when breading be sure to use one hand for the wet ingredients, and one for the dry, this helps to avoid those clumps you get. Another little trick I taught my self is to take the hand mixer, and mix the eggs and milk together. This will make sure your whites are mixed in well and avoid that egg white mess you get.

I decided to bake the bigger parts of the fillet, and fry the smaller ones I on the stove. Whenever I cook with oil I always add some butter I have found it helps to keep down on the splatter of oil. So, I just added some coconut oil, along with some butter.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

 When fish is done it will just flake off, sometimes you can see start to pull away, and tell it is done. other times you may need to take a fork and test it and the biggest part to see if it flakes.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

I also used coconut oil with butter for the two fillets I put in the oven. I enjoyed these more than the ones done on the stove, and they contained just a hint of the coconut which I also enjoyed. The two pieces done on the stove had no hint of coconut taste to them, but did have great texture.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

You can see how the fish is flaky, also because this is salmon it will have that pink tint to it. I love cooking with my new found friend Panko bread crumbs, it is the best for doing fried foods. Just be sure to use a healthy oil such as coconut, or even peanut.

I made the cat fish the same way, my husband who was born in West Tennessee, and loves cat fish questioned if it was cat fish. He really enjoyed it, as did I, can't wait to make some fried green tomatoes with Panko.

Do you use Panko? Share what you have made with it, if you have a link please include it.