Dutch Oven Fish Fry (Video & Transcript)

BG: “Hey folks what we have here is something that most people in Florida consider a trash fish. This is Southern chain Pickerel. Okay, it’s lost a little color because I just brought him off the ice. He’s a predator fish, he’s got pike. Look at the mouth on that joker. He can eat a lot of stuff. Old timers use to just knock these guys in the head, kill em and through em back in the water. This ones got something big in his belly. We’ll try and see what that is. He’s eaten something very larger. For his size he can wolf down a huge fish. Like I said, most people either just through these guys back or just kill them or leave them out there for the gators. The old timers call this fish in Florida a Fresh Water Jack. It is a cousin to the northern pike. Much smaller. This one is average size but they get much bigger than this. Maybe 3-4 pounds. I’ve even seen a few around 6 pounds but this is a very good fish to eat.”

“Skin off. Like I said, those look like 2 beautiful fillets of fish. The problem is just like every other pike there are those Y bones running the entire link of the fish. Now that we have this filleted you can go down this middle and you can feel the Y bones and may be able to see the little tips of them. They extend down like your spread fingers all the way through that filet. So we are just gonna try to find the edges of them all the way down there and let the knife just kind of follow them. I can feel the pressure of them as I go down and take this strip off you’ll be able to actually see them. This is, believe me, I would never go through this trouble with this particular fish if this was not worth it. You can see there is the Y bone there, but that piece right there is completely boneless. You can feel it with your fingers. Beautiful piece of fish right there so we’re gonna save that one. Now it does the same thing on the bottom side. I see a few bits of the bones, a little piece of the rib left. Down here at the tail end we are gonna kind of do the same thing. We are gonna cut down until we feel that Y bone. Let the knife follow it. Even if these pieces are very small, they are delicious. “

“We got a couple nice crappy today to. We are just gonna go head and filet them out. Another tutorial filleting we are just gonna go ahead and get these guys ready for the Dutch oven and go ahead and cook these guys on an open fire for you guys today. I try to do the least wasted meat as possible. Fish is ready to go on the fire and the Dutch oven warming up with the oil. 

“What we are gonna do is a very simple hush puppy mix. One cup of corn meal, one teaspoon of baking powder. So dry ingredient’s a teaspoon of garlic, a teaspoon of pepper and salt. Boom. Combine the dry ingredients alright. Next thing we got is about a half a cup of finely chopped sweet onion. Optional. It’s really good in hush puppies though. Throw that in and then we’ve got one beaten egg and a little bit of water to bring it up to ¾ of a cup. Pour that in and incorporate that. While we are looking here our consistency we are looking for on this is a little thicker than corn bread. We want it to be able to hold together enough that we can drop it into hot oil. That’s about right. Really thick cake batter or pancake batter. Not as soupy as corn bread. We’ll just let that sit a minute and we’ll be ready to make hush puppies.”

“Alright we’re gonna go ahead and dredge our pickerel strips, this is a half cup corn meal, half cup flour, and a good couple tablespoons of butt rub. Go ahead and dredge those and get em good and coated. We got a couple of good fillets there. Crappy or as we call them here in Florida, speckled perch. Dredge em up and let em set over here on the pan and get em ready. Got a couple people to feed. (Dropping in hot oil)”

“Okay folks, as usual we’re gonna plate this up backwoods gourmet style. Got some fresh Romain from the garden here. Gonna go ahead and place that on the bottom of the plate as part of our garnish and also a nice, fresh cool component. Over the top of that we are gonna squeeze a sour orange. These are all over Florida where peoples trees have frozen and they don’t make sweet oranges anymore. It is a lot like a lemon, very sour. Gonna go ahead and arrange a couple fillets here. A couple pretty ones cooked in the Dutch oven. And then strip of our pickerel. Most people call it trash fish. Then we got three beautiful hush puppies to go with that and then a couple of wedges of the sour orange segment’s to compliment the dish. Alright so another beautiful plate cooked on an open fire. You can do this and it is delicious.”