Smoked Catfish and Creamy Dill Sauce

For this weekend’s round robin cookout, hubby decided to do some smoked catfish as some different and lighter fare than the brisket and pork butts we’ve been enjoying.  We were all a little bit skeptical, but hubby found this recipe on the Food Network, and we set to work.  As the catfish you buy in the grocery store here is not the big, thick, beautiful fillets they used on the show and as we were cooking for 6, we wound up with 10 medium sized fillets.  The end result was amazing, and is totally doable as a weeknight smoked supper.  We paired it with roasted veggies and a tomato corn salad.

Ingredients (we added 50% more of everything since we were feeding a crowd):

  • 1.5 quart buttermilk
  • 3 tablespoons hot sauce
  • 10 medium catfish fillets
  • 3 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 1.5 teaspoons dehydrated lemon peel
  • 1.5 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • Olive oil
  • apple wood chips, soaked in water for an hour

Directions:

  1. Mix the buttermilk and hot sauce in a 13×9 casserole dish.
  2. Soak the fillets in the mixture and cover with saran wrap.
  3. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
  4. After an hour, pull the fish out and pat dry with paper towels.
  5. This would be a good time to get your smoker set up and work on getting your temp around 275.
  6. Mix together the lemon peel, oregano, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
  7. Lightly coat the fish in olive oil and sprinkle both sides of the fish with the seasoning.
  8. Smoke the fish for about 45 minutes until fully cooked through and golden brown.  Just to be safe, we tossed ours in the oven for another 10 minutes to be sure it was finished.
  9. Serve with creamy dill sauce

Creamy Dill Sauce (we altered this somewhat from the original recipe)

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup plain yogurt
  • 2/3 cup light sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons orange juice
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2-3 tablespoons chopped green onions
  • 1 tsp dried dill
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
  • 2-3 dashes hot sauce
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • salt
  • fresh ground black pepper

Directions:  Throw everything into a food processor and blend until smooth.  Serve over the fish or in small bowls for dipping.

Printable version.

5 thoughts on “Smoked Catfish and Creamy Dill Sauce

    1. Cleaning fish is totally a boy job IMO. As my husband doesn’t really fish much (he doesn’t want to clean them either), the grocery is our source for seafood!

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