Illmitzer Feuerfisch

Illmitz Fire Fish: Catfish Fillet with Chilli and Garlic

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Zutaten

  • 500 g catfish fillet
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 lime
  • 5 Santa Fe chillies
  • 8 cloves of garlic
  • Butter for frying
  • 1 large sprig of rosemary

Zubereitung

Method

  1. Season the fish fillets with salt and pepper and drizzle with the lime juice.
  2. Remove the stems from the chillies and finely chop them together with the garlic. Ideally in a food processor's chopper attachment or with a stick blender.
  3. Heat plenty of butter in a pan and fry the fish fillets on one side over fairly high heat (not full blast).
  4. After flipping, add the chilli-garlic mixture straight into the pan and fry it alongside the fish.
  5. Add a little more butter if needed.
  6. Now add the fresh rosemary directly into the pan with the fish as well.
  7. Once the fish is done, lift it out of the pan. If needed, let the chilli/garlic/rosemary sauce fry a little longer until everything is crisp.
  8. Finally, top the fish fillets with the sauce and you're done!
  9. Grilled vegetables, rice or simply white bread go wonderfully with this.
  10. Enjoy your meal!

EIN PAAR WEITERE TIPPS FÜR DICH

Timing, Not Heat: The Trick Behind Illmitz Fire Fish

Catfish is one of the milder, firm-fleshed fish varieties, which makes it particularly well suited to a quick pan dish where chilli and garlic set the tone – a recipe with a regional connection to Lake Neusiedl, where catfish is traditionally found.

Why the Chilli-Garlic Mixture Goes In Only After Flipping

If the chilli-garlic mixture fried from the start, it would easily burn and turn bitter at the heat the fish needs. Added only after flipping, it gets exactly the right amount of time to turn aromatic without charring.

Santa Fe: Mild Heat With a Fruity Note

Santa Fe chilli brings a mild, fruity heat that supports the delicate flavour of the catfish rather than masking it – a deliberate choice over hotter varieties, which would quickly dominate such a delicate fish.

Butter Instead of Oil as the Flavour Carrier

Plenty of butter instead of oil doesn't just do the frying, it becomes part of the sauce itself: together with chilli, garlic and rosemary, an aromatic topping forms right there in the pan, so no separate sauce is needed.

What Goes With It

Grilled vegetables, rice or simply white bread soak up the buttery chilli-garlic sauce nicely and round off the dish without distracting from the fish as the main event.

You'll find the Santa Fe chillies for this recipe in our Heat Level 0-3 category.