Blackened Catfish and Dirty Rice

Since the parents had never tasted catfish, I decided to cook some for dinner tonight, with Zatarain's dirty rice and steamed string beans. The fish was super easy to make and came out tender and flakey and really tasty. It's spicy though, and although I cut the cayenne in half, it was still spicy. The recipe is actually from Allrecipes, though I made a few changes, noted below.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (as per the reviews online, I cut this in half and it was still plenty spicy)
  
• 2 teaspoons lemon pepper
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons pepper
• 1 pound catfish fillets
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup Italian-style salad dressing (I omitted this and used olive oil instead)
• I also added 2 teaspoons onion powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium baking dish.
2. In a shallow, medium bowl, mix cayenne pepper, lemon pepper, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
3. Brush both sides of catfish fillets with butter (I softened the butter in the microwave for a few seconds first). Rub fillets with the cayenne pepper mixture on both sides.
4. Heat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until really hot. Add fillets, and fry approximately 2 minutes on each side, until slightly blackened.
5. Arrange blackened fillets in a single layer in the prepared baking dish, and coat with Italian-style salad dressing (I just misted with a bit of olive oil and omitted the dressing completely). Bake 30 to 35 minutes (mine were cooked in 15 minutes) in the preheated oven, until fish is easily flaked with a fork.