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eat the perch and crappie. Throw the trout back. Unless you really like 'fishy' fish. X2
Touge are whole different can of oil. If anyone has a touge recipe they would be willing to share, I would really like to hear it. I love to chase them but just can't make them taste good without a smoker.
Quote from: Sawyerjosh on Jan 14, 2015, 08:17 PMeat the perch and crappie. Throw the trout back. Unless you really like 'fishy' fish. X2Fresh water bass, perch and cusk have always been the better tasting fish in our waters. Pikeare good, but an angler has to be experienced in cutting out the Y bones. I enjoy all the brooktrout, Rainbows, Togue, and less interested in browns, and salmon. I tend to fry my fish in Panko, or bread crumbs and oil. Maybe it took generations for me to acquire my taste for thetrout species, but anyway I enjoy some each year.
A couple of thoughts on togue:1. If you only like flaky white fish like cod, haddock, perch, crappie, etc, then release your togue!2. If you do like fish with more fat in them like trout, salmon, bluefish, mackerel, tuna, etc, then togue can be as good as any of these if cooked and handled properly. 3. Keep smaller togue, anything above the low 20" range has more fat, stronger flavor, more mercury, and it's likely a very old fish that has taken many years to reach its current size. Big togue are a great sportfish and a valuable and easily depleted resource worthy of protection!4. Bleed fish and keep them cold. Bleeding can be done with a quick cut in the throat/gill area, and cold is never a problem during the ice season. 5. Small togue up to 14" or so are great pan fried whole just like brook trout. 6. 14" to low 20" fish are great for smoking or grilling. I don't like to fillet these fish because I feel it wastes too much meat, instead, just do a quick cut along each side of the spine so the fish lays flat. My favorite way to cook is sprinkle salt, brown sugar, and a heavy dose of black pepper on the flesh side, then grill 20-30 minutes on a hot smoky grill. Not really smoked fish, but gets a good smoke flavor, great hot and even better cold the next day.
My grand mother owned sporting camps in northern Maine for 25 years. She made a togue recipe that sucked the oil out of it and I didnt find it to be all that fishy and it is easy. She would clean the fish, remove the head and tail. Stuff the middle with bread stuffing like you would have at thanks giving. Wrap the fish in a paper bag and bake at 350. Usually when it is done you unwrap the paper bag and it peels the skin right off. Furthermore, if you are talented like she was you can pull all the bones out at once leaving a stuffed togue free of bones. It was fantastic.
Found this because I wondered if anyone had already posted the "paper bag" trick for cooking togue. Generally, I refuse to eat fish. Just not my thing and togue to me are especially unattractive as a meal. This weekend one of the guys cooked some up using this method. No stuffing, but clean the togue, cut the head off, wrap in a paper bag and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. I then watched him take the fish out, peel the skin off, grab the spine near the tail end and pull the bones out intact, leaving a pile of boneless fish. Then he sautéed the meat in butter, salt and pepper for a bit. I still can't say I like fish enough to make a meal out of it, but this was some pretty tasty stuff...
Big togue are a great sportfish and a valuable and easily depleted resource worthy of protection!
TogueLike the old recipe joke says. Put togue on a cedar plank. Bake in the oven for 20 min at 375 degrees. Remove from the oven and throw the togue in the trash can and eat the cedar plank.I like small brook trout.(Image removed from quote.)