Pan-Roasted Fish Fillets With Herb Butter

Nice recipe--but all wrong if your filet has skin. If it'll be flipped, always start pan frying fish flesh side down, so it lies flat and cooks evenly. The skin side, heated first, will immediately shrink, curling the filet so it won't lie flat when you flip it. Pressing down with a spatula for 20 seconds, as suggested, is unworkable, especially if you're cooking multiple filets. Moreover, if you start skin side down then flip, you're basting the skin, not the flesh. Ugly.

Update: I love the recipe and have used it many times with many types of fish. But every time, cooking for "2to 3 minutes" on one side and "45 to 90 seconds" on the other produces fish that is still way undercooked. Even with a very hot cast iron pan (recommended), I find that 2-3 minutes PER SIDE is needed -- and I tend to prefer most fish a bit rare.

Tried it with filets with and without skin. As is, works fine with skin-on filets, but the smallest bit of rubbed-in flour adds color and slight crisp to naked filet. Next time will add paprika to flour.

Made twice now - red snapper and steelhead trout (both skin on). "Heavy nonstick" pan wasn't successful -- not hot enough to really sear fish. Cast iron preheated aggressively is much better. As noted, use less oil for searing (makes degreasing the kitchen a lot easier too!). Both times fish came out a little undercooked, so will add 60-90 seconds to total time on heat. On 2d try I used butter with thyme and chive already compounded in -- seemed to boost the herb flavor.

We have found that a small amount of vinegar in a bowl next to the stove eliminates the fish odor overnight. Works every time.

Agree with others: use half the amount of oil and double the cooking time once you have flipped the fish - and mine were trout fillets so not very thick at all, yet still needed at least 2 minutes on the second side. I used a cast iron skillet and the fish turned out beautifully. Will definitely make again.

Recipe calls for too much canola oil. Try using half as much next time. taste of butter gets lost in the excess oil.

As with all simple recipes the quality of the ingredients makes all the difference in the result. The fish needs to be as fresh as possible, the butter not cheap store brand and fresh herbs are a must. I like to warm the butter separately with the herb(s) added to infuse the butter ahead of adding it to the pan with the fish. This way you can pour it right over the fish. The fish I like best this way is black cod.

Need some advice: Would love to cook in a cast iron pan, but don't have the wrist strength to manipulate the pan.
Is there a lighter pan someone would recommend that can do an almost comparable job?

Goes well over a bed of spinach with shallots and garlic

This recipe properly respects a good piece of fish. I made it with striped bass. I suspect this would be equally good with snapper, grouper. Delicious. But the herbs should go into the pan at the very last minute or the flavor is lost.

Keep a wide mouth glass bottle with vinegar and leave it open and all that cooking smell will disappear. It is like pure magic. I wish I had known this before. Try it you will be surprised.

British Cod: Lightly pat seasoned flour on 6 oz. filet. Dip in wisked egg white (remove excess with fingers). Fry in EVO on medium+ in a non-stick pan for 2:15 minutes (do not move filet!). Flip, add 2 TBS butter + juice from 1 lemon and baste continuously for another 3:45. Remove, let rest for 1 min.

I'd read this recipe as fairly "medium" heat in a cast iron cooking context. If you want to use super high heat DON"T USE OIL it will just smoke you out. For skin-on fish, heat the cast iron pan until you think it is crazy hot, then wait another 5 minutes, NO OIL and a scattering of kosher salt. Skin side down and press to prevent curling. If the pan is hot enough, it will "release" the fish and you'll get a nice crispy skin. I usually just pop the thing in a 450 oven without flipping.

I tried this with two 5 oz pacific cod filets. The final product was very tasty but I felt that 3 Tbs of oil was way two much and unnecessary. When I do this again, I'll try it with 1 Tbs and see it that works as well.