flipping easier Perfect Fish Tip 2: Drier Is Better Nothing cools down oil faster than wet stuff being added to it Rather than working toward searing your meat, the energy from the hot oil ends up getting used to evaporate excess moisture The drier your meat before it goes in the pan, the better I press my fish fillets firmly between paper towels before I transfer them to the pan (skin side down) Perfect Fish Tip 3: Hold On Tight—She’s a Fighter! Fish skin shrinks as it cooks due to proteins tightening and water and fat being driven off What happens when this occurs? Like a bimetal strip, the fish fillet will begin to curl up on itself This curvature can cause uneven cooking—the edges of the skin in tight contact with the pan will end up overcooking and burning while the central regions that are lifted off the pan will barely cook at all This is not an ideal state of affairs To counteract this problem, I use a thin flexible metal fish spatula to hold the fillets firmly in place as their bottom sides cook This is of utmost importance during the first minute or two of cooking After that, the fillets’ shape will be set and they will continue to cook evenly Perfect Fish Tip 4: Slow and Steady In order to get perfectly crisp skin, three things need to happen simultaneously: fat needs to render out, water needs to evaporate, and proteins need to set Cook too hot, and your water will evaporate too fast The temperature rapidly climbs, and the proteins set and start to burn before the fat has had a chance to render out properly You’ll end up with fish skin that is slightly crisp in spotty patches on the surface while still gelatinous, greasy, and fatty underneath Preheating the oil over a relatively high heat to prevent the sticking problems explained in Tip 1, then immediately reducing the heat once the fish is added solves the problem The result is shatteringly crisp, perfectly rendered, brown crunchy skin, just like the best pan-seared chicken And here’s another bird to kill with that same stone: slow and steady cooking also leads to a more evenly cooked finished result Say good-bye to coagulated albumin! Perfect Fish Tip 5: Don’t Flip Until It’s Ready! If there’s one most important trick I’ve learned about panroasting foods in all my years cooking, it’s this one: never force your food out of the pan It’ll come on its own when ... reducing the heat once the fish is added solves the problem The result is shatteringly crisp, perfectly rendered, brown crunchy skin, just like the best pan-seared chicken And here’s another bird to kill with that same stone: slow... fish skin that is slightly crisp in spotty patches on the surface while still gelatinous, greasy, and fatty underneath Preheating the oil over a relatively high heat to prevent the sticking problems explained in Tip 1, then immediately... bottom sides cook This is of utmost importance during the first minute or two of cooking After that, the fillets’ shape will be set and they will continue to cook evenly Perfect Fish Tip 4: Slow and Steady