Email to Cat      

Catfish Mulldown

Source of Recipe

From "Secrets of the Southern Table" by Virginia Willis


Recipe Introduction

"Catfish can grow to an enormous size; there are photos of my grandfather as a young man with a catfish hanging from a tree on the banks of the Savannah River. The fish was nearly as long as my grandfather's strapping six-foot height. His brother was a fishing guide, and although he passed away before I was born, I got the impression that Uncle Marshall was rough around the edges, and probably ate his share of catfish mulldown, an old-fashioned recipe that would be found at a fish camp. It's a very thick, layered catfish stew made of bacon, onions, potatoes, and often ketchup, slowly cooked until the fish is falling apart. Typically, the catfish was cut into steaks because the large fish were too big and tough to fry. This adaptation is more gratin than stew, soulfully filling, decadently rich, stunningly delicious, and more likely to be found at the table of a fine restaurant than a roughneck cabin in the woods."

List of Ingredients

â—¦ 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature, for the baking dish
â—¦ 1 ¼ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced
â—¦ Coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
â—¦ 1 sweet onion, very thinly sliced
â—¦ 1 pound catfish fillets, thickly sliced on an angle
â—¦ ¾ cup heavy cream
â—¦ ¼ teaspoon paprika


Recipe

Heat the oven to 350° F. Butter a large ovenproof casserole.

Arrange half the potato slices in the prepared dish, overlapping them to cover the bottom of the dish. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter half the onion over the potatoes and then arrange the fish slices over the onion in a single layer, overlapping the slices as necessary. Top with the remaining onion and then with the remaining potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the cream evenly over the layers. Cover with a tight-fitting lid or aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes.

Remove from the oven and spoon some of the cooking liquid over the top of the gratin to moisten the potatoes and help them brown. Sprinkle with a few shakes of the paprika. Remove the lid and bake until the top layer of potatoes is tender when pierced with a sharp knife, 20 minutes. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 6 to 8