The first Friday in Lent. The perfect opportunity to eat fish for dinner. And I intend to proffer up a fish dish for dinner every Friday in the lead up to Easter. Personally I love fish. As does my family.  Unfortunately I never seem to be organised enough to cook it at home as often as I would like. After all if I’m cooking fish I like to pay a visit to the Sydney Seafood Markets to purchase the freshest produce I can.

Growing up in a Catholic household we always had fish on Friday. Rain, hail or shine. Even in later years when the Church relaxed the no meat on Friday rule, it was fish as usual at our house. After calamari fritti, our favourite fish dish was flathead. Sweet scrupulously fresh fillets. The smaller the sweeter. Stripped in half. Dusted in flour and shallow fried. We would devour platefuls of  the fish. Like hungry seagulls. Those fillets were crisp, flaky and sweet. Dressed with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of parsley.

Pan-Fried Flathead Fillets By The Plateful. Simply Dressed With Lemon and Parsley.

180 – 200 g skinless and boneless flathead fillets per person
salt
pepper
flour
olive oil, for frying
lemon wedges and a generous sprinkling of chopped parsley, to serve

TEAR or slice flathead fillets in half lengthways into long strips
TOSS the strips in a little flour, salt and pepper, shaking off any excess.
HEAT a large, heavy  pan over high heat. Once the pan is hot, reduce heat to medium and add enough olive oil  to thoroughly coat the pan.
COOK the fillets in batches for 3-4 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Fillets should sizzle the moment they touch the pan. Add additional oil between batches if necessary.
SERVE immediately garnished with fresh lemon wedges and a generous sprinkling of parsley.