Using the whole fish

[Cold Inside]

Yesterday, I brought home a 30 inch 6.5 lb pike. I do my best to use the whole fish.

After cutting out the right & left fillets, I slice out the fins, and clean up the backbone with all of the meat attached. That goes into a pot for soup. I also put in the pot the slices of meat I take out with all of the Y-bones. I boil this stock for about 45-minutes, then let it cool over night. This morning, I take the pieces out of the stock and pull the meat off the bones. Big flaky chunks come off the back bone, and it's relatively easy to remove the Y-bones from the meat around them. I'm left with broth (strained), and a bowl full of meat in small chunks. I've tried some chowder recipes, but the soup we've settled on lately has onion, green pepper, celery, tomatoes, and herbs.

While cutting out the Y-bones, I keep slicing upward and take out the thick ribbon of meat above the bones. That's for boiling (poor man's lobster style). I also took out the cheeks which will also go into the boil. On a nice size pike, it's a good portion for two people. For the boil, I added some sugar, celery salt, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne. I'm still adjusting the proportions to get a good recipe. I cut the thick ribbon of meat into chunks about 1.5" long. When the water mixture is boiling hard, I drop in the fish for no more than 2-2.5 minutes. Dip in margarine to serve.

The 2-minute boil is perfect at the end of the day when I'm too tired to enjoy a more involved meal.

I made the fillets look good by slicing off any ragged pieces which I throw in with the boil. Today, we had the fish soup for lunch and will have the fillets for dinner. We switch between a few recipes for cooking the fillets in the oven. Sometimes it's a simple fish rub with some sliced onion. If we have more time, there are a few baked recipes with sauces in pan.

All of the meat gets used. Plus, I sliced the boiled pike liver for the cat.


What's left?  I'm looking at the egg sac for homemade caviar. Any experiences?

I never made harcore fish head soup, but I'm willing to give it a try. Anyone?

[ran7ger]

 awesome  hopefully this can inspire others to do the same 

[frozengator]

Man I am hungry now THANKS ALOT

[CMMahy]

The father-in-law mentioned before that he would eat the egg sac from some of his fish, can't remember which one exactly. I'll try and get his recipe, i think it involves some spices and pan frying chunks in butter or oil.

[Cold Inside]

We recently tried pike caviar from a recipe. It simply said to separate the eggs from the membranes and soak them in a salt brine for about a half hour, rince and ready.

It didn't work out too well, the eggs were too sticky and too salty (even for caviar). Separating the membranes wasn't too easy. Next time, I'll work harder on taking out all of the membranes and reduce the salt content of the brine.

How's this for gourmet:
http://geniuscook.com/recipe-quail-eggs-stuffed-pike-caviar

It says that pike caviar is known to boost sexual desire. Maybe true, but it'll be hard to slip into the wife's drink.

What else can you do with the eggs? I've had a soup before with boiled egg sacs. The consistency and texture was a shock for the first time, but I can see that something can be done with the eggs. It's pure protein of the best kind.

Keep the ideas coming.

[hillmann]

We once tried whitefish egg pancakes. The were horrable.