Blaaaaaaaaaaackened anything!!!

[JustAddWater]

Real easy, real quick. Cast iron frying pan and bbq, with a pocket full of spice and dinner cometh.

Super heat your frying pan until it starts to smoke
Butter up your fish steaks. Thresher shark, halibut, tuna, cod...all are good!
Sprinkle to Cover (depending on how spicy you like your food) Don Prudomne's (sp?) fish cajun spice
About a minute on each side, and you have a delicious fish dish.
Reward yourself with a cold beverage of your choice.

[subdude]

Try olive oil instead of butter.

subdude

[Speargun]

I tried the Don Prudomnes blackened fish spice a while back. All I can say is, IT'S AWESOME!
I've tried making my own, but nothing I've tried comes close to this stuff. ....btw, I found it in the seafood section at Winn Dixie

[kitefisherman]

Paul Prudhomme in the Prudhomme Family Cookbook devotes a whole chapter to blackening. His blackened redfish seasoning mix is as follows:

1 tbsp sweet paprika
2.5 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
.75 tsp white pepper
.75 tsp black pepper
.5 tsp thyme
.5 tsp oregano

I usually mix up a double or triple batch so that I don’t have to make it each time.

The book also contains recipes for blackened pork chops, blackened chicken and blackened hamburgers.

The most important thing to remember when blackening is that your cast iron skillet must get VERY HOT (around 500F). Only then do you dip your fish in the butter and sprinkle each side with the seasoning mix. After placing the fish in the pan, pour 1 tsp of butter over the fish and cook about 2 minutes for half inch filets. Flip, pour another tsp of butter over the top and cook 2 more minutes and you’re done. The idea is to form a sweet, smokey tasting crust on both sides of the filet sealing in the moisture, not to create an extremely spicy fish (which you will get if your skillet is not hot enough).

This is extremely smokey business and is best done outdoors unless you have an industrial strength kitchen hood and fan. I prefer a butane burner like you would use to deep fry a turkey - turned all the way up. A long hadled spatula (or at least oven mits) is helpful in avoiding getting your hands burned by the splattering hot butter (even more reason to do it outdoors - and on the grass). I use the largest cast iron skillet that I have so that I can cook two or three fillets at a time and so that I can reduce the number of batches and the residue that will begin to accumulate in the skillet after multiple batches (be sure to let the pan reheat between batches). It's a bit of trouble but well worth it,

[KJNDIVER]

I dont know if yall get it over there, but if you see Zatarran's Blackening seasoning, give it a try. Not to say that Proudommes is bad or anything, but I prefer the Zatarrans, to me it has a better flavor.

[JustAddWater]

Good advice from Kitefisherman
USE OVEN MITS
More than once I've had blackened hand with my blackened fish. My buddies thought it was part of the entertainment.