How to Prepare Checkerboard Style Fried Flounder
Keith Lusher 10.04.23
I’ll admit that fishermen are spoiled here in South Louisiana. On any given day we can head out on the water and catch speckled trout, then after reaching our limit of 25 fish, completely change gears and catch a limit of redfish. With so many different types of species of fish to choose from, it often comes down to catching whatever species of fish you are in the mood to eat. That brings me to my favorite type of fish to eat: Southern Flounder. Here in South Louisiana, it’s known as a lagniappe fish. Lagniappe is French for “An unexpected bonus” and that is the perfect description for flounder in the south. Whether it’s a box of speckled trout or redfish, there’s a very good chance that the average angler along the Gulf Coast has a flounder mixed in. But what do you do with that flounder when it’s on the cleaning table along with the other fish that you’ve caught?
The most popular thing to do is the standard broiling method in the over. Or maybe stuff it with shrimp and stuffing. While these are the two most popular ways to prepare a flounder, I was recently introduced to another way to cook it and that is to fry it.
I recently made a fishing trip with Forrest Green of Lacombe, LA. Green and made a fishing trip to the marsh and caught a box of speckled trout. During the trip, he pulled up a 14-inch flounder. “This is the perfect size for frying,” He said. Keep in mind that I have never eaten fried flounder and frankly didn’t know how you would be able to fillet a fish of that size being that it is flat wasn’t very long.
When we returned from the trip we laid all the fish out on the cleaning table and started filleting the speckled trout. After we were done with the trout the last fish in the ice chest was the flounder. I handed him the fish and said, “Okay, show me how it’s done, Mr. Green.”
Green started by scaling the fish on both sides. He then de-headed the flounder which was standard operating procedure for baked flounder. Then he did something that I’d never seen before. He ran the fillet knife lengthwise down the fish making a half-inch slice straight down into the body of the flounder. He made a total of five slices from the head to the tail and repeated it on the other side. He then made perpendicular slices on the fish. When he was finished, the flounder was sliced into a checkerboard pattern.
Green then dipped it in an egg wash and coated it with fish fry. “Sometimes you have to bend the fish and open up those cuts so that the fish fry gets into the body of the fish,” he said. After coating the fish in fish fry he slid it into a pan of hot oil and it came to a golden brown color within five minutes.
Green scooped the fish out, let it drip for a few seconds, then slid it onto a plane where he proceeded to say, “Watch this!” The native Louisianan reached down to the fish, grabbed one of
the cubed sections of the surface of the flounder, and pulled it off the fish. The crispy meat pulled right off of the bone. “How ya like dat,” Green said. I tried a section of the flounder and the meat pulled right off of the bone with no problem. Then I tasted it and all I can say is that fried flounder checkerboard style is some of the best fried fish I have ever tasted. I will definitely be incorporating this recipe into my repertoire of South Louisiana Classics. The next time you catch a flounder, give the checkerboard method a try and think of Mr. Green asking, “How ya like dat?” I’m sure I know what your answer will be!
