Cooking Catfish with no grease?

[BadgeBunny]

Danny is correct on smoked catfish. Use apple or alder wood if you have the choice. In a survival situation any seasoned hardwood. Smoking hides any off-putting flavors. I smoke them gutted and skinned.

THIS sounds like a good idea ... I may have to get a fishing license and catch me some catfish now ... Just to try it ...

there's a joke in there somewhere

Not to me, maybe just use to it. That is how I usually cook it whether its filets from the store or fresh bottom feeder from some murky Oklahoma water. It's still good.

Hmmmm ... You guys have just about talked me into smoking some fish ...

Don't like catfish? City boys (and girls!)

Tilapia is bait.

Haha! GC just wishes I was a city girl. My grandma cooked a batch of bad catfish once when I was little.

Oh. My.

I've not been able to eat fried fish since. Or hush puppies. Just the smell of them cooking turns me a nasty shade of pale, running for the outhouse!

 

[swampratt]

Badge Bunny can you eat perch and crappie?

I have smoked/ grilled fish with creole seasoning and lemon pepper with zest of lemon sprinkled on them.
In a skillet with no more grease or butter than you use to make a pancake that above spice combo makes
great tasting fish...No grease at all will work also...cook it a little slower.

Now when you have nothing but fire and fish and the trees and water that god gave you to cook that fish i have found the best way to do it.

The story:
I was fishing with my buddy Jacob, just got out of school and ran to the pond to fish..we both caught 1 big bluegill each.
Of course boys in the 5th grade are hungry all the time.. so we decide to make a small fire in the creek bottom to cook these fish.

He has a lighter because he is a fire bug. Well both of us are..
Anyway i decide to gut and gill my fish and cook it on a stick over the flames..Jacob told me it will taste like fishy crap.
Oh well gonna cook it and eat it anyway..
Jacob told me it needs to be gutted and gilled and cooked in a mud pie..??????

OK so i watch and he gathers some mud and packs it onto one side of the fish then gathers some more and packs it onto the other side..now this fine perch is engulfed inside the mud ,, not runny mud good forming mud....
He places his fish onto the coals and scoops more coals over the fish mud clod....
We sit there feeding sticks into the fire and cooking my fish on a stick...

I bet it was not 15 minutes my fish barely staying on my stick, flaking apart on me at the same time
that mud pie got uncovered.
He set it aside to cool ..then picked it up and palmed the mud pie and grasped the top and opened it up like clam.
The skin and scales were stuck to the mud top and in his other hand sits a nice mud bowl basically with the flakiest looking fish.

Well taste test time.... my fish on a stick tasted like crap smoke fish butt...
His tasted like MMMMM MMMMMM good baked fish...not fishy at all.

Oh i will agree with the blues tasting great up to a certain size...I get my catfish from the arkansas river that water is almost always moving and very sandy....Makes for better tasting fish...
I CPR the bigger ones CPR: Catch Photograph Release.

 

[BadgeBunny]

Badge Bunny can you eat perch and crappie?

Yessir. Perch ain't bad ... That mud pie cooking sounds intriguing ...

 

[swampratt]

Well then there is hope for you after all.
I cooked up a bunch of crappie and blue cat last year for some family..and some family will only eat crappie or trout..
I cut the blue small like crappie....It all was eaten and i even told them what each was...
You never know what i will cook though.
armadillo and peacock are some of the strange things you may see on the stove or grill around here.

OH and a good one not every one has tried..mulberry jam! OH YUM!

 

[BadgeBunny]

Ohhhh, I've had peacock! It's pretty good! And I have a mulberry tree that hangs over the fence from the neighbors. The berries don't last long enough to make anything!!

 

[Oklahomabassin]

It doesn't taste like mud to you?? (Seriously question ... Not clowning around.) I've always wondered if brining it first would help draw that yucky aftertaste out, but have never tried it.

Of course. I soak all of my fish at least 48 hours in icy salt water before cooking.

 

[Tuplumber]

Of course. I soak all of my fish at least 48 hours in icy salt water before cooking.

I do the exact same thing except I substitute the water with milk.

 

[dennishoddy]

Well, catfish, deer, wild pigs are all good to eat, but preparation, care of the meat, age of animal, and in the case of catfish, species and type of water are all relevant. I do my own butchering, and my family exists on wild game almost exclusively. I wouldn't prepare a meal from a full grown rutting buck the same way I'd prepare a meal from a 60 lb fawn. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, just require different approaches.

Same here. We got talked into buying a 1/4 beef two years ago, and the fat residue on the roof of my mouth after eating it really sucks. Most of it is still in the freezer.
I put at least 4 deer a year in the freezer, along with elk, and fish I've caught.As you said earlier, removing the red meat on any fish is key to making it paletable. Some folks hate salmon as they say it tastes "fishy" Remove the red stripe down the middle and it becomes a very mild flavored fish, as well as healthy.
Fish like crappie, walleye, saugeye, perch and Sauger don't have the red stripe, and can be eaten without any trimming.
There is nothing in the "domestic hormone laden" feed lot that can compare to wild game properly cleaned in the field, and properly prepared in the kitchen.

Except for Ribeye medium rare.......

For the OP, if you want to cook fish without grease, use Shaked and Bake extra crispy for pork. Its really good.

 

[cobra1]

I was originally considering a scenario like in the movie Defiance, but if things get real bad I could consider the movie Castaway, yank it out the water, rip it open and munch, call it Sushi: But, wrapped tin foil, butter and lemon pepper on an open fire sounds doable.

 

[BadgeBunny]

Of course. I soak all of my fish at least 48 hours in icy salt water before cooking.

I do the exact same thing except I substitute the water with milk.

Hmmmm ... I might need to get a fishing rod and a license ... Although I'm not real sure how good the fishing at Overholser is right now ...