Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Pickled crappie/bluegill recipe

It seems that I've mis-placed my pickled fish recipe. Was wondering if anyone a good one to pass along?


Bob

I had my first bluegill this past summer. I couldn't wait to fry it up along with a mess of cats and black bass. I kept careful track of where it was in fry line. Pampered it all the way. Finally the big moment came. The damned thing tasted like an eucalyptus cough drop. It was the nastiest fish I've ever had. I wonder if it's diet affected the taste.

musta had a bad diet. they make a good fish fry around here.

You can search for pickled herring recipes. They should work equally as well for what you want. You may want to search several and compare to get exactly what you think might work best for you. Here's one I picked at random from a pickeling site.

Ingredients:

3 mild herrings
1 large spanish onion sliced
1 tsp. mixed pickling spices
1 lemon sliced or 2 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns or scant 1 tsp. cracked pepper
1 cup water
1/4 cup vinegar and
1 tablespoon brown sugar



Directions:

Wash herrings, removing head, tail and fins. Soak in cold water to cover for several hours. Combine spices, lemon, bay leaves, peppercorns with water, vinegar and brown sugar. Bring to boil, set aside to cool. Slice fish into 1 inch slices. Place in sterilized pickling jar. Add sliced onions and cooled liquid to jar and cover. Shake to mix contents. Set in refrigerator for 2-3 days. Check occasionally to shake and push down onions. Bring up bottom pieces of fish to get top pieces down into liquid.

I haven't pickled fish in decades, but that recipe sounds very close to what I used to use. It's delicious, too.

Bad bluegill? Not calling anybody a liar, but I cannot imagine how. Bluegill, crappie and walleye are among the mildest, sweetest fish flesh in the world. It's especially good as sashimi, right at the lake. I've popped many a filet that was still flopping.

The rest of the "mess" turned out great. I imagine it must have been on a funky diet. I haven't given up on them. It was a huge bull bluegill that tasted so odd. It was probably a 12oz'er (two fingers thick and 8" long) caught on a 5" Senko weightless/weedless with a 3/0 hook. We don't cross many brim capable of eatin that kind of bait.

Maybe he'd just stolen the bait of the guy down the lake. You know, the guy who baits his hook with Vicks...

+1 to that. Once or twice a year dad and I'll hit the rock quarry, fill a 5 gallon bucket with em, filet them out and fry them up as fish'n chips for breakfast. Good eats.

yea that sounds vaguely familiar! i'll give it a try. thanks!!

Bob

Hope ut works out. You shouldn't have any trouble bringing up a lot of recipes with a quick search. I haven't been crappie fishing in a coons age. We used to get them in the spring.

I don't have a clue what your "misplaced" recipe was? Here is mine. I use pickling spice, white wine vinegar, a little chopped green onion and cold pack for two weeks and try to forget them in the fridge.

This is a free-bee. I save the pickling juice from dill pickels. drop my peice of white fish in these and cold pack right back in the fridge. Two weeks wait is the hard part. By the way this is how I pickel hard boiled eggs.