02-07-2010, 11:23 PM
Bottled and smoked are my favorites.
To bottle them, I gut, head and tail the fish. Then drop them into boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, depending on size. This will cook the skin off and the meat more than halfway through. Take them out of the boiling water with a large spatula and rinse under cold water until you can handle the fish without burning your hands. Peel the skin and fins off, rinse and thumb the meat off into a large bowl. (You can stuff the whole carcass into the jar as the bones will soften with processing, but on the larger fish the spinal cord comes out like a rubber band. It's kinda gross.)
When you have all the fish removed from the bones, stuff your jars (I use pint size.) and leave about 3/4" headspace.
Then add:
1 or 2 tablespoons of Kraft Creamy French dressing to taste (I like 2)
1 tablespoon water.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
Cap and process at 15 lb for 90 minutes in a pressure cooker.
This is great on it's own, on crackers or mix up with mayo like tuna salad. I use only rainbows for bottling as the skin comes off very easily. Some of the other species like brookies are hard to skin this way. Boiling to get the skin off is also a great way to start if you are going to pan fry or grill trout. Just reduce the boiling time to around a minute so the flesh is not so thorougly cooked. Rinse off, pat dry and do your peferred cooking thing!
Good luck,
Jim
[signature]
To bottle them, I gut, head and tail the fish. Then drop them into boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, depending on size. This will cook the skin off and the meat more than halfway through. Take them out of the boiling water with a large spatula and rinse under cold water until you can handle the fish without burning your hands. Peel the skin and fins off, rinse and thumb the meat off into a large bowl. (You can stuff the whole carcass into the jar as the bones will soften with processing, but on the larger fish the spinal cord comes out like a rubber band. It's kinda gross.)
When you have all the fish removed from the bones, stuff your jars (I use pint size.) and leave about 3/4" headspace.
Then add:
1 or 2 tablespoons of Kraft Creamy French dressing to taste (I like 2)
1 tablespoon water.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
Cap and process at 15 lb for 90 minutes in a pressure cooker.
This is great on it's own, on crackers or mix up with mayo like tuna salad. I use only rainbows for bottling as the skin comes off very easily. Some of the other species like brookies are hard to skin this way. Boiling to get the skin off is also a great way to start if you are going to pan fry or grill trout. Just reduce the boiling time to around a minute so the flesh is not so thorougly cooked. Rinse off, pat dry and do your peferred cooking thing!
Good luck,
Jim
[signature]