Sweet-and-Sour Catfish, pages 92-93

All hail the last catfish recipe in the book-sweet and sour catfish. Why did we save this one for last you ask? Because it's SWEET AND SOUR CATFISH for goodness sake. The recipe contains three columns of ingredients, includes batter frying and by the picture looks like the aim is to make something that resembles take out Chinese from your local neighborhood strip mall. To put it in true British fashion, it was not the recipe I was most eager to try.

You know what though, this recipe doesn't take itself too seriously and made for quite a fun evening. With all the local ingredients/from scratch cooking I have been doing, Fred's had a craving for a frozen pizza and I know what he means. We made hot dogs the other night and I was really excited about it. They were like a cleanser between courses. Hog dogs as a cleanser: tee hee hee. Bernadette writes in the book that this recipe is included because she took a Chinese cooking class in the disco era and suggests cranking up Saturday Night Fever with this meal. I was afraid the closest we were going to have was Lionel Richie, which makes me giggle; Fred found our ABBA album and we played that instead, thank goodness. ABBA and and sweet-and-sour catfish, that will put a smile across your face and some funk in your step.

Actually, I liked the dinner pretty well. Our son Henry really enjoyed it. I've probably never ordered sweet-and-sour at a Chinese restuarant so it's obviously not my favorite kind of dish. I would say if you do dig sweet-and-sour dishes, this recipe is going to get you what you are looking for. I don't know why this surprised me but the recipe does taste just like it's from a Chinese restuarant. And, I did appreciate a more vegetable filled meal. One more thing, honestly I really liked the batter fried catfish in the dish. Catfish is such a soft meat it kind of needs a backbone like crisp batter to hold it up, figuratively speaking.

Now I've got a recipe under my belt should I ever hear that someone's favorite meal is sweet-and-sour Chinese. That and I caught a glance of Henry dancing to ABBA!!!