critique my blackening spices

The Mississippi River was kind and yielded up a nice quantity of walleye, bass and crappie this last week so when I got home I set about cooking some for dinner. I wanted to do it on my grill (Weber gasser - I'll save the charcoal for when it's not raining!) and my google searches came up with blackened walleye. I started with a recipe I found:

1 teaspoon ground basil
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon garlic
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt (sea salt is better)
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika


Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/blackening-s ... z1cJchdSR2


I made the following changes to the above:
- Sounded like a lot of cayenne so I went with about 1/2 tsp instead of two.
- I added about 1/2 tsp ground ancho chili pepper.
- I used Hungarian paprika which also has some heat.

I started with pieces of fillet from one of the larger fish - up to 1" thick - and dipped them first in a mix of melted butter and then sprinkled on the blackening mix. I then smeared the blackening mix on the fish to get an even coating. It's sort of like a wet rub and next time I'll just mix the blackening in the butter/oil and apply.

I grilled the fish in a medium hot grill (thermometer read about 475° F) until it was flaky.

Both SWMBO and I were pretty happy with the results. There was no reaching for lemon or tar-tar sauce to augment, it was great just as it came off the grill. Heat from the cayenne was moderate and I'm glad I modified that part of the recipe.

I'm curious about what else I could do with the blackening mix. It seems to me that some oregano and cumin would also be good. Do any of you have suggestions?

thanks,
hank

Looks good - I agree that Cumin could be a really good addition.

One thing you could try is losing the cayenne altogether and replacing it will a mix of chile powders. You can get plenty of specific chile powders (like the ancho you added) from loads of places. Native Seeds has a really good selection, you could even go with Habanero if you want really spicy.

Make sure you get ground chile and not the suoermarket chile powder which is a mixture of spices.
Then mix to taste for the meat/fish/vegetable of choice and grill or sear in cast iron.
I'm amazed at the money being made for spice blends for blackening when its so simple to make your own!-Dick

Thanks both for the tips.

budrichard wrote:Make sure you get ground chile and not the suoermarket chile powder which is a mixture of spices.

Actually seeing "chili powder" in a recipe is one of those things that gets my undies in a bunch. That's mostly because I don't have a bottle on my shelf. But it seems easy enough to make with a few common spices. IMO the recipe authors should just list those ingredients (and in fact most recipes that list chili powder also list most or all of the other ingredients.)

I have also learned that there is a specific technique to cooking blackened fish and grilling is not it. It involves cooking on very hot cast iron and I'll give it a try when I get a chance. Nevertheless, grilling over charcoal and using the blackening spices produces pretty good results.