My wife spent the weekend in a beach cottage on Whidbey Island with some teacher friends and my daughter's are hiking up Pilchuck...so I'm on my own this afternoon. M's are down by 10 to A's. Watching Seahawks on TV. Seahawks are still in it with Rams 23-17 with 13 minutes to go. Seattle Tongue just intercepted a Rams pass! (Reggie Toungue)
I have a couple of fish recipes for you.
You can use the basic breading/frying principle for walleye, trout, bottom fish or other white fish.
My brother in law used this technique to cook some brown trout. We were living in Bozeman and he came to visit one fall. I'd been fishing all summer...since I had a fair amount of free time as a student at MSU. I knew some hot spots. We went to Three Forks area. It's called that because 3 rivers, the Madison, Gallatin, Jefferson converge to form the Missouri. We had a great day catching nice size brown trout on tiny (1/16 oz or so) Panther Martins. Trout are not the great to eat, but Jay filleted them and breaded them with this recipe and they were good.
Brown Trout Breading
Gather up some fish fillets (hopefully fishing in Montana) alternately at Safeway.
Rinse fillets (some people think this is sacrilege but I do it anyway)
Pour some milk in a bowl
Beat up on an egg in another bowl (you can combine the milk and egg, or just use milk for a lighter breading)
Mix flour, salt/pepper in another bowl
Mix crunched up Kelloggs Corn Flakes in another bowl (crunch corn flakes by putting them in a plastic bag and roll with rolling pin)
Heat up some oil in a frying pan to hot (just below smoking or 425-450 if you have a thermometer). I'd put an inch or so of oil in the pan...but that's your call.
Dip fillets in milk, then flour, then eggs, then corn flakes, then into frying pan.
Cook fillets until they are brown. Put them on paper towels to remove excess oil.
This is more fun to do outside because of the mess factor. I use an electric frying pan outside.
My second fish recipe is brine for smoked salmon. Actually it's not a brine but it makes some good smoked fish. The main ingredients are:
Johnny's seasoning salt
Brown sugar
Mix the salt and sugar at about a 3 to 1 (sugar to salt) ratio. Place salmon fillets in a large plastic bowl layering with the salt/sugar mixture. Let the bowl sit for a few hours. Have a few beers...take a nap, whatever. When you look into the bowl a brine will have magically formed as the salt drew the water out of the fish. Rearrange the fish so it's all covered with brine; throw in some more salt/sugar if you need to. Go away for a few more hours.
Take the fish out of brine and put on paper towels. You can rinse the fillets a little if you want (I like leaving all the salt/sugar/brine on the fish). Put the fillets on rack and let them air-dry for some hours. This is a crucial step because it allows the salmon to form sort of a shiny surface and it looks a lot better when it's smoked.
Put some alder chips in a coffee can or whatver is handy and pretty clean. Add water to the chips. You are going to throw them on a BBQ or put them in a smoker and want smoke not fire.
I like the Little Chief electric smoker. Without the box it can be almost a cold smoker (for lox type smoking), if you leave it in the box it works for a hotter smoke. Alternately you can use a Webber (covered BBQ) and indirect heat from the coals.
Put the wet alder chips directly on the coals for the Webber or in the chip pan for Little Chief. Smoking takes anywhere from a few hours to 8-12 or more hours. Just keep checking your fish and you will be able to tell by looking/tasting when they are done.
This makes a nice smoked salmon. I have a recipe for salmon cakes and creamed salmon that I'll put down later.
Happy cooking (and eating)
