How do you make stocked trout edible?

[6xAdams(Jones)]

I didn't want to figure out poll questions and I also didn't want to hijack the "Do You Keep Trout?" thread.
Anyways, that other thread got me curious about favorite recipes for stocked trout that one happens to bring home.
For us, it used to be cleaned, scaled, and grilled over any kind of fire - after which, the fish is filleted on the plate by pulling on the spine and taking most of the bones with it. Salt, pepper, dill pickle juice, "seafood seasoning" to taste, or any combinations of these or other seasonings.
More recently, a careful filleting, breading, and pan frying or roasting is a decent offering.
My daughter is the one in the family who likes eating fish more than the rest of us - and usually enjoys it however it is cooked.
So, what's your favorite? It can be as simple as grilled-on-a-twig-fire streamside, or as complicated as brined-seasoned-smoked.
"Never stockie" connoisseurs need not reply.
Regards, Glenn

 

[ROVERT]

Cut fillets into small strips. Thread them on a size 10 hook below a bobber. Eat the resulting bluegills instead. Not really, I've never used trout as bait.

I don't like (to eat) trout but have each spring until recently. Sports have now gotten in the way but my kids always caught a bunch that they either wanted to or had to keep. My wife likes them. She grew up eating hatchery rainbows from the grocery store. Buying them out of choice baffles me but I digress.

Grilled in foil with butter and seasoning, fish cakes, and battered/deep fried are how we do it. Grilled would be the most common. Fish cakes would probably be my preference.

 

[moodyblues]

I didn't want to figure out poll questions and I also didn't want to hijack the "Do You Keep Trout?" thread.
Anyways, that other thread got me curious about favorite recipes for stocked trout that one happens to bring home.
For us, it used to be cleaned, scaled, and grilled over any kind of fire - after which, the fish is filleted on the plate by pulling on the spine and taking most of the bones with it. Salt, pepper, dill pickle juice, "seafood seasoning" to taste, or any combinations of these or other seasonings.
More recently, a careful filleting, breading, and pan frying or roasting is a decent offering.
My daughter is the one in the family who likes eating fish more than the rest of us - and usually enjoys it however it is cooked.
So, what's your favorite? It can be as simple as grilled-on-a-twig-fire streamside, or as complicated as brined-seasoned-smoked.
"Never stockie" connoisseurs need not reply.
Regards, Glenn

I don't eat them, but I do enjoy releasing them in front of the truck chasers and watching, and hearing, them get apoplectic.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear 6xAdams,

I'll admit that I haven't kept a trout in decades but what worked for me then would still work today.

Cut the belly open from the anal vent forward. Cut the tongue and grab the flap and pulls the entrails and pectoral fins off and out in one pass. Scape the mud off the spinal column with your thumb and rinse and pat dry.

Season with salt, pepper, and some garlic powder and onion powder if you'd like. Toss it in a frying pan swimming in melted butter and fry both sides until the skin is crispy.

Let it cool a bit and then just pick it up and eat like corn on the cob. If you cooked it right, you'll be left with the head, the spinal column and tail in one easy to dispose piece. 😉

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

Edited to add - If you fry some bacon in the fish pan before you melt the butter and fry the trout you'll have bacon jimmies to sprinkle over the fish and it'll add some extra flavor and the bacon grease help with the crispiness too.

 

[troutbert]

I fry them and season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. That's good for fish shrimp, crab, etc.

 

[moodyblues]

That ain't mud, that's its liver.

 

[TimMurphy]

That ain't mud, that's its liver.

Dear moodyblues,

Actually, it's the kidney. But why get technical?

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dep/downloads/pdf/environment/education/internal-trout-anatomy-collage.pdf

Anyone who filets a trout smaller than 16 inches needs a bigger frying pan. 😉

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[wildtrout2]

I don't eat them, but I do enjoy releasing them in front of the truck chasers and watching, and hearing, them get apoplectic.

Me and a buddy used to do the same thing! We enjoyed watching the looks on their faces, since they weren't catching any. 🙂 It was usually a field day the morning after a stocking, when we pretty much had the stream to ourselves.

 

[wildtrout2]

That ain't mud, that's its liver.

That dark colored line along a trout's spine? I aways though it was coagulated blood, no?

 

[TimMurphy]

That dark colored line along a trout's spine? I aways though it was coagulated blood, no?

Dear wildtrout2,

See my post above with a road map of trout anatomy.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[moodyblues]

Me and a buddy used to do the same thing! We enjoyed watching the looks on their faces, since they weren't catching any. 🙂 It was usually a field day the morning after a stocking, when we pretty much had the stream to ourselves.

I've been called an SOB for not giving them the fish I catch and release. They just can't comprehend what I'm telling them when I say, "If I give them to you, I have to quit fishing."

 

[3wt7X]

The key is to bleed them. Give them a quick knock on the head to dispatch them and then pull the gill rakers out while the heart is still beating. That will clear most of the blood.

I like to filet them and remove all the skin. Rinse the filet with cold water and dap it dry on both sides with a paper towel. Put some sea salt on the filets and let them sit for a few minutes, while you prepare the egg wash and panko or breadcrumbs. Fry them in a light drizzle of olive or coconut oil.

They are good as nuggets, sandwiches or tacos that way.

I will also occasionally dry brine a nice batch of filets in black pepper, brown sugar and kosher salt. Let them brine overnight, pull them out, rinse them off and let them sit for an hour. Smoke them over hickory or applewood chips at 180 degrees max for 2 hours. Coat them with some apricot jam with 15 minutes left to candy them up a bit. The smoked filets will last a long time and have a jerky quality to them. I like them on club crackers with Gouda cheese and a nice scotch or bourbon.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

The coagulated blood along the spine is the trout's kidney. Hemingway's son wrote that his dad liked to leave it alone and then cook the trout, saying it "added flavor". I never tried it. I also scrape away the fat along the lateral lines from a cooked fish, after removing the skin. It just isn't appealing to a person for whom fish isn't a favorite.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

The key is to bleed them. Give them a quick knock on the head to dispatch them and then pull the gill rakers out while the heart is still beating. That will clear most of the blood.

That's a good point. Rather than letting them suffocate in a bucket or on a stringer, killing them right after catching does make them taste better. If we keep them, they get a stunning blow to the head, followed by breaking the neck - which does a good job of bleeding them as well.

 

[hockeyref]

That's a good point. Rather than letting them suffocate in a bucket or on a stringer, killing them right after catching does make them taste better. If we keep them, they get a stunning blow to the head, followed by breaking the neck - which does a good job of bleeding them as well.

So I’ve been doing it wrong all these years……

 

[TimMurphy]

That's a good point. Rather than letting them suffocate in a bucket or on a stringer, killing them right after catching does make them taste better. If we keep them, they get a stunning blow to the head, followed by breaking the neck - which does a good job of bleeding them as well.

Dear 6xAdams,

In the olden days every sport who wanted to keep some trout carried a wicker creel over their shoulder. Lined with a bed of wet ferns, trout kept for the day as long as one made sure to snap the keeper on the lid. Those who didn't risked a fresh one knocking the lid open and escaping back in the drink.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[wildtrout2]

I've been called an SOB for not giving them the fish I catch and release. They just can't comprehend what I'm telling them when I say, "If I give them to you, I have to quit fishing."

That's funny! I believe they comprehend what you're telling them, they just don't care about the limit concept. They want to go home with trout, one way or the other. 🙂

 

[hockeyref]

Dear 6xAdams,

In the olden days every sport who wanted to keep some trout carried a wicker creel over their shoulder. Lined with a bed of wet ferns, trout kept for the day as long as one made sure to snap the keeper on the lid. Those who didn't risked a fresh one knocking the lid open and escaping back in the drink.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

Always envied the old timers with the wicker creels when I was a youngster. I wanted one but never had anyone to teach me how to use it. Dad said “you don’t need one of those things”. My dad and brother were metal hook stringer types…. Go out shoulder to shoulder on the first day and then maybe a half dozen times the rest of the year. I know my brother tried a fly rod once cuz the old busted Shakespeare automatic reel and busted bottom part of the fiberglass rod with reel seat are still in the basement of my mom’s house.

 

[TimMurphy]

Always envied the old timers with the wicker creels when I was a youngster. I wanted one but never had anyone to teach me how to use it. Dad said “you don’t need one of those things”. My dad and brother were metal hook stringer types…. Go out shoulder to shoulder on the first day and then maybe a half dozen times the rest of the year. I know my brother tried a fly rod once cuz the old busted Shakespeare automatic reel and busted bottom part of the fiberglass rod with reel seat are still in the basement of my mom’s house.

Dear hockyref.

My father had a fiberglass fly rod and a Shakespeare Automatic fly reel when he was a bait dunking youth. Like all good coal cracker kids, he knew a fly rod made it easier to flip nightcrawlers or minnies into likely lies for fish. 😉

The neat thing about those automatic fly reels was that if you weren't careful, or you were really skilled, you could reel in a trout in so fast it would be gutted and cleaned by the tip of your fly rod. 😉

I still think I have his old glossy green Shakespeare reel somewhere in my house!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[wildtrout2]

Dear 6xAdams,

In the olden days every sport who wanted to keep some trout carried a wicker creel over their shoulder. Lined with a bed of wet ferns, trout kept for the day...

Back in the day, when I fished for and kept stockers, I used the mesh creel that came with my vest. I always kept lots of ferns and grass in it to keep the trout fresh. It worked well.