Fried fish is one of the must have food at our home. Personally, I do enjoy eating crispy, spicy fried fish with hot steamed rice. Rice-curry and rawa fried fish is a match made in heaven 😋. My personal favourite fish options for frying are king fish, pomfret, bombay-duck, Indian salmon or Indian mackerel etc. Unfortunately, after shifting to UK these fish options were not easily available and I used to miss my favourite curry-rice bowl with fish fry. So, I started experimenting with fish like sea bass, sea bream or sardines. These fishes are easily available here, so I tried cooking them with Indian style marinations. And it turned out super delicious & now we regularly make rawa fry using sea bass, sea bream or sardines. Among all the fishes, fried sea bass is my most favourite so I am sharing recipe of same in this post.

This fish fry is crispy outside as we’ll use semolina and rice flour coating. The spice marination adds flavour which complements the taste of the fish. In this post, I have used sea bass fish but same recipe works well with sea bream and sardines as well. Also, I always use fillet which saves my time of cleaning (removing scales and bones etc). But if you want to use whole fish then clean it and make some cuts on top. This helps to marinate the fish thoroughly.

Let’s check my recipe of fried sea bass !!

Ingredients:

2 Sea bass fillets

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp kashmiri red chilly powder

1 tsp red chilly powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp coarse semolina

1 tbsp rice flour

2-3 tbsp oil for frying

Method:

In case you are not using fish fillets then thoroughly clean the fish. Otherwise, fillets can be directly used for marination. Apply some salt to the fish and keep it aside.

Next, mix all powdered spices with ginger-garlic paste and lime juice. Prepare a marination paste with these ingredients & if it’s too thick then add few drops of water into it. Rub the marination onto the fish fillets. Properly marinate both sides of the fillet, thick tastes amazing after frying. After marination, keep fish fillets aside and you can fry them just before serving the food. Or keep them aside at least for 15-20 minutes.

In the mean time, prepare coating for frying by mixing semolina and rice flour together. I like the texture of coarse semolina, so I prefer using same. But one can use fine semolina instead. Semolina is easily available in any asian or Indian grocery stores.

Heat the pan on medium-high flame and add oil into it. Carefully apply semolina coating to the marinated fish without breaking the fillet.

Once oil is super hot, slip these marinated fish fillets into the pan. Turn the heat to medium-low. If required, add some oil on top and cook on medium heat.

It is important to add fish onto the pan when pan and oil is super hot. This will allow to keep coating intact, else it will fall-off from fish.

Thoroughly cook from both sides until golden brown. Flip it carefully without breaking the fillet. Sea bass won’t require much time for cooking. It should be ready in 8-12 minutes.

You can serve this fried fish with hot steamed rice and some curry. Checkout recipe of prawns or mackerel curry on my blog under seafood section.

This is a perfect seafood side dish and can be ready under 30 minutes. If you are seafood lover then you must try this recipe. You can adjust the spices in the marination as per choice. I like thick coating of marination, hence accordingly used it in the recipe. Also, fillets can be further cut into small pieces which makes it easier to handle while frying.

I hope you like this recipe would love to try it !! In case of any questions or feedback, do let me know in the comment section.