Description
Southern flounder landed by the same day boats that bring us snapper, taken mostly on the shallow gulf side out of Port Aransas. Being a flatfish it gets cut differently: we run the knife down the lateral line and lift four fillets off each fish, two from the top side and two from the bottom, then skin every one of them. Bottom-side fillets are paler and slightly thinner but eat the same.
Flounder is thin, so it wants a light hand. Dust it in flour, get the butter foaming and give it two to three minutes on the first side and barely a minute on the second. It is done the second the flesh turns opaque and slides apart at the seam, roughly 130F, and it goes from perfect to cottony in under a minute. Do not try to grill these fillets, they will fall through the grate.
Specification
- Caught: Gulf day boats, Port Aransas
- Prepared: quarter-cut skinless fillets, four per fish
- Grade: 1.5 to 3 lb fish
- Sold by: the pound
- Never previously frozen
Storage
Cook within two days, sooner if you can, because thin fillets go soft faster than thick ones. Freezing flounder is a waste of a good fish, the texture does not survive it.
Marcus Whitlow (verified owner) –
Floured it and cooked it in brown butter with capers and it was as good as anything I have eaten on the coast. Four minutes total in the pan, exactly as they said.
Ana Villareal (verified owner) –
Really clean sweet fish and the skinning job was perfect, not a scrap left on. It is thin enough that you want to plan on two fillets a person.
T. Nguyen (verified owner) –
No complaints on the freshness, it smelled like nothing at all which is what you want. The two bottom-side fillets in my order were noticeably smaller and thinner than the top ones, so the pound went less far than I expected.