Post by davidmiller on Mar 1, 2020 11:40:29 GMT -5
Bluedot
No matter how you look at it (or prepare it before smoking) - smoked fish is great.
The landlock salmon we normally bake. In recent years I sprinkle a little Zatarain's Creole seasoning on it. If my wife isn't looking I'll smear it with bacon grease then the seasoning before putting it in the oven.
I also like to poach it and serve cold with a dill and cream cheese on checkers or toast. The cream cheese is mixed with some salad dressing (or mayo) to thin it out some. Fresh dill is best for flavor.
Smaller lake trout are good baked or fried in any way you normally do fish.
The large ones are cut into strips or split down along the back bone leaving the last few inches before the tail uncut then hung over a wire or small wood dowel to smoke.
We prefer to smoke fish with apple wood if we have it or with alder(peel the bark off first) or maple.
One of the ways I like it is to take some smoked fish and pull it apart then mix it with cream cheese and some chopped up chives and use it on crackers.
Another fish that most people don't talk about eating is smoked suckers. We spear them sometimes when they are running up the streams to spawn and smoke them like the larger lake trout.
As far as brook trout go, we prefer the smaller ones (6 to 8 or 9 inches). I gut them by slicing from the vent up to the head, take the guts out and scrape the back bone to get the blood off the bone and rinse off in water. You can cut the heads off or not. Some people are grossed out with the head on, anyway rolled them in cornmeal & flour with lots of salt & pepper mixed in and pan fry ( best in bacon or sausage grease). I eat the smaller ones bones and all (most people don't} just like fresh water or sea run smelts (another great eating northern fish).
Growing up during our times running around in the woods we use to bring along one of the old sheet metal frying pans (lighter compared to cast iron), an old baking powder can with the bacon/sausage grease (or lard) in it and the cornmeal & flour mixture in a tin of some type, last but not least a potato or two. In the spring we cooked fiddleheads with the trout that we picked in the woods. The items together only weighted about 2 or 3 lbs and fit right in our pack baskets with our trusty axe and whatever else us kids needed during our adventures. We used sticks cut and/or shaped with our knives for cooking utensils. To clean up when done eating only required scrubbing out the pan with gravel in the stream or pond where we caught the trout. I still have my old sheet metal pan hanging out in my fur shed, although I rarely use it anymore. That old pan traveled all over with our household goods during all my years in the service. I've cooked in it on four different continents while fishing or hunting.
Before the days of home freezers we use to preserve the small trout (with heads removed & gutted) in a thick salt brine in a big pickle or salt pork crock.
During the winter you could take them and rinse them off in fresh water and fry them up.
No matter how you look at it (or prepare it before smoking) - smoked fish is great.
The landlock salmon we normally bake. In recent years I sprinkle a little Zatarain's Creole seasoning on it. If my wife isn't looking I'll smear it with bacon grease then the seasoning before putting it in the oven.
I also like to poach it and serve cold with a dill and cream cheese on checkers or toast. The cream cheese is mixed with some salad dressing (or mayo) to thin it out some. Fresh dill is best for flavor.
Smaller lake trout are good baked or fried in any way you normally do fish.
The large ones are cut into strips or split down along the back bone leaving the last few inches before the tail uncut then hung over a wire or small wood dowel to smoke.
We prefer to smoke fish with apple wood if we have it or with alder(peel the bark off first) or maple.
One of the ways I like it is to take some smoked fish and pull it apart then mix it with cream cheese and some chopped up chives and use it on crackers.
Another fish that most people don't talk about eating is smoked suckers. We spear them sometimes when they are running up the streams to spawn and smoke them like the larger lake trout.
As far as brook trout go, we prefer the smaller ones (6 to 8 or 9 inches). I gut them by slicing from the vent up to the head, take the guts out and scrape the back bone to get the blood off the bone and rinse off in water. You can cut the heads off or not. Some people are grossed out with the head on, anyway rolled them in cornmeal & flour with lots of salt & pepper mixed in and pan fry ( best in bacon or sausage grease). I eat the smaller ones bones and all (most people don't} just like fresh water or sea run smelts (another great eating northern fish).
Growing up during our times running around in the woods we use to bring along one of the old sheet metal frying pans (lighter compared to cast iron), an old baking powder can with the bacon/sausage grease (or lard) in it and the cornmeal & flour mixture in a tin of some type, last but not least a potato or two. In the spring we cooked fiddleheads with the trout that we picked in the woods. The items together only weighted about 2 or 3 lbs and fit right in our pack baskets with our trusty axe and whatever else us kids needed during our adventures. We used sticks cut and/or shaped with our knives for cooking utensils. To clean up when done eating only required scrubbing out the pan with gravel in the stream or pond where we caught the trout. I still have my old sheet metal pan hanging out in my fur shed, although I rarely use it anymore. That old pan traveled all over with our household goods during all my years in the service. I've cooked in it on four different continents while fishing or hunting.
Before the days of home freezers we use to preserve the small trout (with heads removed & gutted) in a thick salt brine in a big pickle or salt pork crock.
During the winter you could take them and rinse them off in fresh water and fry them up.