Catch of the Day

Hi y'all, I'm Paula Deen and today we're headed back to my hometown of Albany, Georgia

to meet up with my Aunt Peggy and our favorite fishermen for the catch of the day

Fast that is. Once we get our fish, we'll have to fly back to the kitchen where we're going to cook it up

southern style with the corniest cornbread you've ever had. And then for the best part of the meal, dessert

And I don't mean just any dessert, but the chocolate gooey butter cake

And finally we'll finish up with a spinach, strawberry, and hearts of palm salad

that'll keep them coming back for seconds. So y'all grab your tackle box, jump into your rowboat, and come along for the ride

I've got such a nice treat planned for today's shows

I grew up in the part of Georgia that's just abundant with fabulous plantations

and everybody would hunt and fish. In fact, celebrities would come. And I remember as a little girl, President Eisenhower

coming in all the time to go on these plantations and shoot quail

Well, today I'm going on Winfield Plantation where I'm going to do some bass fishing

along with a precious little lady named Aunt Peggy. And I promise you, she'll be full of fish tales and stories

So y'all don't miss it. I want you to come fishing with me and see where I grew up

Hey, you two. Hi there. Hey. It's good to see you. What are you doing out here cohorting with my favorite fishing buddy

Waiting on you to show up. Well, I ain't Peggy. Is she learning all your tricks? Y'all ready to go fishing

Ready enough. We're jumping. Good to see you. I've already named my fish. You've already given them a name

I gave them birth. Well, I can't hardly wait to see who's gonna outfish the other

My Aunt Peggy is truly, I would rather fish with her than eat when I'm hungry

Is she already cast? No, I'm not there yet. I just, don't you get too far ahead, I mean

I got a fish, I got it, I got it, I got it. He didn't know the gun was loaded

Where did you hook him? In the mouth? Where were I? I was speaking of the water

Oh. Now that you got your fish, we've got maybe just an hour or two more of lazy time

And then I've got to get in the kitchen, Peggy. That was so much fun

Do you just love my Aunt Peggy or what? She's a hoot

In fact, I wish every family could have an Aunt Peggy. I just adore her

In fact, she really took care of me good today. She even went ahead and filleted our fish for us and got it ready for me

So I'm all ready to get going with the cooking. And I tell you what, I was so busy laughing at her stories

I didn't have too much luck fishing today. I think it's because my pole was jiggling so from me laughing

All right, isn't that a pretty fillet? Now we have taken our baths, and all I'm going to do is just smother it with fresh lemon juice

Now I'm going to use a nice coarse salt on it and a little fresh black pepper

And to me, fish really needs that salt, so don't forget that

All right, now we're going to put a very light breading on this fish

We're going to start with our ordinary cup of breadcrumbs, Romano cheese

and we're going to put in about a tablespoon of garlic powder

And because this fish only will be cooking for about 10 minutes, I'm going to add just a little paprika to that

because the paprika will help our fish to brown. We're just going to toss those together

Just for color, we're going to do just a little fresh parsley

We'll toss it in, and those flakes of green leaves will be awfully pretty in there

And then we're going to take our fish and just dredge it in those breadcrumbs like that

And put it on a parchment lined shallow baking dish because you want to be able to let that

heat get straight to your fish. Now we going to pop this into a preheated 425 degree oven But before we put it in the oven one last little tip I going to drizzle it with just a little olive oil And that olive oil is going to help it to brown and keep it moist and tender

So, 425 for about 10 minutes. And while our fish is baking, I'm going to mix up the bread to go with it

And I'm probably making my all-time favorite cornbread today. Now, we're going to start with a self-rising meal

I would actually recommend maybe a medium ground on your meal. And we're going to add to that about three-fourths of a cup of self-rising flour

And a couple of eggs. And if you want this dish hot, you can add a little cayenne pepper

Now, if you're feeding the children, you might want to back off on this. But I'm going to put just a little bit

Now, I'm fixing to add a creamed corn to it. Now, this is canned cream corn, but I highly recommend that if you've got fresh, to grate

fresh corn and use it. They also make a nice fresh corn that's frozen in your freezer section at your grocery store

So if you can get that, I recommend that. And this is what makes the cornbread so good

It's sour cream. And the last ingredient is just a vegetable oil

And we're just going to mix that up. And cornbread doesn't take a whole bunch of mixing

You don't want to mix this with like an electric mixer or anything

Ooh, and I can smell that corn. Now for our last ingredient, we're

going to throw in some cheddar cheese. And stir that together. Now if for some reason you don't want the cheese, it's fine

All you have to do is leave it out. And while I was mixing this up, I actually

had our molds in the oven getting hot. The molds are in this oven

And look at these adorable little fish-shaped molds. So we've gotten that good and hot, so as we fill our batter in it

it's going to immediately start sizzling and browning, so it'll have a crispy edge

You can see the cornbread starting to cook, and you can hear it sizzling

Aren't those just the cutest things you ever saw? All right, we want to make sure as we fill our mold that we get it all the way back in the tail

so the fish will be shaped right. And you can see that I greased these very, very well before I heated them

All right, those are ready to go in the oven. Okay, the bread's in the oven, and I'm going to check the fish now

This is actual cooking time on this fish. No stopping or starting. So it's been in about 10 minutes

Oh, and it looks just delicious and smells even better. Look at that

I think I want to try that piece right there, that nice fat one

Oh, I think I want that piece right there. And a couple of onions

We can't eat a fish down south without a spring onion. And I've got some cornbread that should be ready

This actually baked, oh, about 15, 18 minutes. And this should pop out because I greased that pan so well

Look at that cute little fish. Isn't he the cutest thing? Oh, I love those moles

That looks so good, I can't wait to taste it. So here goes

I'm gonna try Aunt Peggy's fish, along with a little fish tail

So good. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. Guess what

think you like my pumpkin gooey butter cakes? Coming up next I'm gonna be

showing you my double chocolate gooey butter cakes so y'all don't go anywhere

I'm getting that oven heated up to make the most wonderful gooey butter cake

you've ever tasted. Now we're going to start with an ordinary chocolate cake mix. Do y'all

remember when I made my pumpkin gooey butter cakes at Thanksgiving and those are so good

but I can't hardly wait for y'all to taste these. All right, now we've got our chocolate

cake mix. We're going to add one egg and one stick of melted butter. All the bases will

always be the same to a gooey butter cake. One stick of melted butter and one egg

All right we gonna come over here to our mixer and we wanna make sure that we got our setting for our large bowl so it come around the sides and get it all good

So this doesn't take but a minute. We just want to get those dry ingredients moist

And that's it. I'm not even gonna clean those beaters because for our filling we're using chocolate anyway so it won't matter

And then in this bowl I'm gonna use an 8-ounce package of softened cream cheese

I'm gonna mix that up a little bit, just kind of beating and soften that a little bit

Add one 16-ounce package of powdered sugar, a couple of tablespoons of cocoa

one stick of melted butter for those that are counting I think that's two sticks of butter

two eggs, yeah these ain't called gooey for nothing y'all, between the eggs and the butter

teaspoon of vanilla extract, and we're just gonna whip that until it's nice and fluffy. Okay that

That looks good. Alright, now we're going to add about a cup of nuts, and we're using a chopped walnut

One day I was coming through the kitchen and somebody hollered, Paula, Paula, come here

And I went over there to the baker's section and they said, we want you to taste this

We've come up with a new gooey butter cake. I said, I didn't think there was any left

What have you done? And the baker said, a double chocolate gooey

And I said, honey, hush your mouth. Let me taste that thing

I could not get over it. So in no time, the double chocolate gooey was a favorite

All right, now I'm going to take a 13 by 9 by 2 pan, grease it lightly

There's plenty of butter in here, but I just want to make sure it doesn't stick

So we're going to take our base batter, and you can see how stiff it is

It's almost like a Play-Doh. Get this pan up here so I can press it in there good

And we're just going to spread that out and distribute that bottom as evenly as we can

You know we're always in search of a new gooey butter cake flavor, so if you guys and girls

out there have come up with any, let me know, because I'd love to try them

All right, so we're just going to pour that on top. Now you can put as much chocolate in that as you want

I have a tendency to like a lighter chocolate. I love milk chocolate

Now we're going to run this into our 350-degree preheated oven. Now the one thing I want to warn you about the gooey butter cake

is you don't want to overcook it because it's called gooey for a reason

It should have a gooey center, so you should actually be able to shake your pan

and it have just a little movement in it so you know that that center is still gooey

So you'll want to watch this because your oven may be different from mine

So start checking around 30 or 35 minutes. Now I've got one cooling here in the window

It's nice and cool and ready to cut. and ready to taste

He looks so delicious. Now, I don't know what size you would want to serve your family

but this is about the size that I serve mine. And I love fresh whipped cream

Don't act surprised. But I love fresh whipped cream with my gooey butter cakes

I just happen to have a little bit. Does it look divine or what

Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo

Coming up next, some lettuce. All right, I've got our spinach leaves

They're washed and over here draining. You know, the gooey butter cake is really a hard act to follow

But I'm going to give this my best shot. So y'all stay with me and try to pretend like you're excited about this lettuce

Okay? All right, we're going to start with a third of a cup of apple cider vinegar

This will make you feel better. Three-fourths of a cup of sugar. a pinch of salt

and about two tablespoons of lemon juice We going to let this heat just until the sugar dissolves and then this is what we going to wind up with

All right, we're going to add a teaspoon of dried mustard, some poppy seed, a little paprika for color

a little grated purple onion. I'm probably not going to use two too much because

whoo, it's strong. You can actually see all the juice and then some oil

And you notice I've got this all in a jar so that we can just shake it rather than pulling out a mixer or a Cuisinart

We're just going to give it a few shakes. That's it. Isn't that pretty

Our spinach should be drained. And you want to make sure that it is nice and drained

You don't want any water. Okay, now to our spinach, we're going to add heart of palm

I'm using about one can, and when you remove it from the can

it'll come in like a stick. It almost looks like a little stick of mozzarella, doesn't it

I love this stuff in a salad. It gives it such flavor and nice texture

All right, and we're going to toss in some fresh strawberries. Aren't those pretty and red and ripe

So that really kind of jazzes up this spinach. and then we're going to toss in about a half a cup of broken walnuts

and then we're just going to toss those together just like that

Give it a gentle toss. Oh, it's looking pretty. The colors are really beautiful

All right, now I'm going to shake this up. As you know, oil doesn't always mix in with your other ingredients

so we'll want to shake that up and really very quickly pour a little bit onto our salad while it's mixed

and I wouldn't go too heavy with the dressing. Just enough to wet your leaves

And then you can pour some of this up into a little container and then you can just let your guests add more dressing if they like

Look how pretty that is. It really is a delicious salad. And the strawberries are just a nice change from a tomato

I'm going to dip me up a little bit to try. This is going to be great

Along with the fish, it'll be a nice, light side. Mmm. And it's so good

Your different flavors are so nice together. The heart of palm along with the sweetness of the strawberry is so good

It's going to be just delicious with our fish. Y'all stick around because I've got a few more fish tales for you

So y'all come back. Okay, a few last tips for y'all

On your lettuce, when you come in from the grocery store with your lettuce

Take it and wash it good and dry it. You can actually pat it lightly

But you don't want to crush your lettuce because it will bruise it

We want to make sure it's dried nicely. And then I'm just going to slip it into Ziploc bags with paper towels

and it'll store so good it just gets crispier and crispier. And it'll store nicely for a few days

And if you don't have a microplaner, go find you one. These are the best little tricks for zesting

See how easy that is? And you don't have to worry about getting the white part

And if you want to dress up your plate just a little bit more with some extra romano

just use an ordinary potato peeler and do you some curls on it

Isn't that pretty? And on your fish, even filleting it, sometimes some long bones can be left in it

A good trick is laying this over a bowl so that the bones stick up

Run your finger down the opposite way and just use ordinary house pliers

And then you can just pull those bones right out. And that's all the fishtails I got for y'all today

I had such a great time today fishing with my Aunt Peggy and listening to her stories about my Granddaddy Paul and him trout fishing

And I hope on your fishing day that you come home with a good catch

and possibly do some of these dishes like the Romano baked bass

and the strawberry and heart of palm spinach salad is wonderful. And these adorable little corny cornbread fishes

And the double chocolate gooey butter cake you just can't beat. I wish y'all good luck on your fishing day

And as always, America, I send you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yours

Happy fishing