Cooking trash

[Wolfdog91 6,276]

Idk if the term trash fish is a thing over there but it's commonly used to talk about fish people deem inedible, a nuisance, not worth catching ect.  Stuff like carp, bullheads ,sheep's head ,drum, gar and so on. Lotta folks fee the same about animals like squirrel, muskrat, nutria,possum ,coon ... You get the picture.

But got a long heritage of taking trash and making it good eating , though now super fancy looking, so anytime I hear someone say some critter isn't edible I need to try it myself.... Half the time its somone who has no clue how to really work with anything past chicken or pork or beef. If it requires more then the most basic food prep then ...yeah.

Anyhow ever since I stared working out her id catch catch these lil salt water catfish, either hard heads or gaftops. Things are about a place in the summer ... My record is like 30 so thing in an hour. .eveyone talked about how they where inedible but no one actually ever tried when I talked to them , that or you could tell they did a half assed job. Well caught one tonight that swallowed the hook so figured why not.

Filleted and skinned him , tried to remove the dark red meat but these are some small fillets,   so washed them along with a few minutes in a salt brine to get some more blood out

Pat dry some really basic seasoning then a quick lil skillet sear in olive oil then wrapped up with better in the over for a bit

All in all pretty decent. Definitely not this inedible deal that takes like crap that eveyone suggests.  Think I'll get a few more and play around with bigger portions next , ma ye even in the smoker .

 

[WILF 44,335]

I believe the garfish is of the Mackerel family but people don’t eat them because they are put off by their green bones, they are perfectly edible.

As for carp, never tried it but the chinks and Eastern Europeans seem to love them and the reason we have them in the UK is because they were originally the food stuff of monks who kept them for precisely that reason.

But I think a lot of it is that people don’t really want to prepare their own food, I was on a fishing trip a few years back in the Atlantic off the Sligo coast.

We caught loads of mackerel and pollock but when we got back, nobody wanted to take anything so I took the lot…..must have had 5 stone of fish. 
 

Of course most people would rather eat a salmon then a pike, but either can be a great meal. 
As can be seen from your photos, it’s all in the prep 

[THE STIFFMEISTER 14,569]

Carp are also the number root cause of suicide in the uk . 

many’s the sad soul fisherman in the southeast who has sat baiting their lines up only to be approached by a man said to be in Possession of the most boring set of carp knowledge in the world , the only escape from such a conversation 
Was the murky depths of the chalk pit . 

if anyone has experienced any such encounters please send them to carpingisfornonstarters@hotmail.com 

 

[South hams hunter 8,837]

7 hours ago, Wolfdog91 said:

Idk if the term trash fish is a thing over there but it's commonly used to talk about fish people deem inedible, a nuisance, not worth catching ect.  Stuff like carp, bullheads ,sheep's head ,drum, gar and so on. Lotta folks fee the same about animals like squirrel, muskrat, nutria,possum ,coon ... You get the picture.

But got a long heritage of taking trash and making it good eating , though now super fancy looking, so anytime I hear someone say some critter isn't edible I need to try it myself.... Half the time its somone who has no clue how to really work with anything past chicken or pork or beef. If it requires more then the most basic food prep then ...yeah.

Anyhow ever since I stared working out her id catch catch these lil salt water catfish, either hard heads or gaftops. Things are about a place in the summer ... My record is like 30 so thing in an hour. .eveyone talked about how they where inedible but no one actually ever tried when I talked to them , that or you could tell they did a half assed job. Well caught one tonight that swallowed the hook so figured why not.

Filleted and skinned him , tried to remove the dark red meat but these are some small fillets,   so washed them along with a few minutes in a salt brine to get some more blood out

Pat dry some really basic seasoning then a quick lil skillet sear in olive oil then wrapped up with better in the over for a bit

All in all pretty decent. Definitely not this inedible deal that takes like crap that eveyone suggests.  Think I'll get a few more and play around with bigger portions next , ma ye even in the smoker .

 

We have the same with fish like rockling, wrasse, gar, mullet, eel and other stuff ... most aint worth the hassle or are too good sport to snot for 1 meal

[DIDO.1 20,897]

We are a small island nation surrounded by sea. I'm sure carp is ok, but cod is better. I'm sure whicherty grubs are edible but we don't need to eat them either....we have cows and lambs. 

Leave the trash to the polish and abo's

[WILF 44,335]

5 minutes ago, DIDO.1 said:

We are a small island nation surrounded by sea. I'm sure carp is ok, but cod is better. I'm sure whicherty grubs are edible but we don't need to eat them either....we have cows and lambs. 

Leave the trash to the polish and abo's

This what I don’t understand about the Irish famine, nobody is more than 3 days walk from the sea which incidentally they had to walk to in order to board the boat to Australia or America ?……was fishing banned ?

[South hams hunter 8,837]

7 minutes ago, DIDO.1 said:

We are a small island nation surrounded by sea. I'm sure carp is ok, but cod is better. I'm sure whicherty grubs are edible but we don't need to eat them either....we have cows and lambs. 

Leave the trash to the polish and abo's

Whiting is better again

[mC HULL 10,440]

haddock is the one 

[mC HULL 10,440]

32 minutes ago, WILF said:

This what I don’t understand about the Irish famine, nobody is more than 3 days walk from the sea which incidentally they had to walk to in order to board the boat to Australia or America ?……was fishing banned ?

how easy is it to feed a family on an odd fish you catch lol 

[Wolfdog91 6,276]

Wild , think our gar and y'all gar are two different things

 

[Wolfdog91 6,276]

1 hour ago, DIDO.1 said:

We are a small island nation surrounded by sea. I'm sure carp is ok, but cod is better. I'm sure whicherty grubs are edible but we don't need to eat them either....we have cows and lambs. 

Leave the trash to the polish and abo's

The word need and y'all across the pond..

Not really the point of needing to eat this critters it's the fact that most act like their inedible when really they can be just as good if not better then a lot of other stuff as well as being more plentiful and easy to get . 

I know I was talking to some guys from over there about the cost of Sea food. Said they wish they had something More plentiful and easy, asked if they lived in an area with this invasive crawfish. They said yes and told them they where great eating. Explained to them how to make the traps , bait then cook the things and they fell in love with them .

I Mena I guess if you happy with the same thing day in day out that fine but when people just say something is inedible because it's not as easy to cook like a chicken breast or something, idk rubs me the wrong way.

Gotta say it's always good to have that on your site too when it comes to Views of the public. 

[shaaark 10,140]

17 minutes ago, Wolfdog91 said:

Wild , think our gar and y'all gar are two different things

 

Yep, that's alligator gar you have over there, wolfy.

[DIDO.1 20,897]

8 minutes ago, Wolfdog91 said:

The word need and y'all across the pond..

Not really the point of needing to eat this critters it's the fact that most act like their inedible when really they can be just as good if not better then a lot of other stuff as well as being more plentiful and easy to get . 

I know I was talking to some guys from over there about the cost of Sea food. Said they wish they had something More plentiful and easy, asked if they lived in an area with this invasive crawfish. They said yes and told them they where great eating. Explained to them how to make the traps , bait then cook the things and they fell in love with them .

I Mena I guess if you happy with the same thing day in day out that fine but when people just say something is inedible because it's not as easy to cook like a chicken breast or something, idk rubs me the wrong way.

Gotta say it's always good to have that on your site too when it comes to Views of the public. 

I was joking. I totally agree. Always amazes me when we hear people struggle to afford food.....our local markets are full of different types of fish, cheap cuts of meat and fruit and veg. Because it's not what people are used to eating they won't touch it. It's also getting worse. Just 20 years ago people wanted pheasant and duck....now they aren't interested. I struggle to give rainbow trout away these days 

[Wolfdog91 6,276]

16 minutes ago, shaaark said:

Yep, that's alligator gar you have over there, wolfy.

Gator, spotted, long nose ,short nose ,and Florida gar are the main ones. Most  won't touch them because they "have too many bones"  in reality they don't like the extra lil work of getting though the hide with I'm legit about like armor plate.  But once you get tit off

People say the same thing about bones in carp but will happily eat around and pick though all the Y bones in pike or pick them out of a Salmon.... Just an excuse for you ca toss them in the ditch and not feel bad 

[Wolfdog91 6,276]

14 minutes ago, DIDO.1 said:

I was joking. I totally agree. Always amazes me when we hear people struggle to afford food.....our local markets are full of different types of fish, cheap cuts of meat and fruit and veg. Because it's not what people are used to eating they won't touch it. It's also getting worse. Just 20 years ago people wanted pheasant and duck....now they aren't interested. I struggle to give rainbow trout away these days 

Ah, my apologies. But yeah it's crazy how picky "hungry" people are. But there a certain magic about going from game to plate and once you get somone in that their hooked . About like a spiritual thing to a degree to go from killing the animal taking care to process it the way you want to on your plate.It's difficult though, not eveyone can do it.  Some wanna make it the most cave man bullshit ever, some wanna completely over do it with trying to make it fancy...

Presentation helps a lot too.a bloody just shot rabbit vs a nicely quartered up and vacuum sealed one always seems to get to separate reactions. Do t help most have never even broken down a whole chicken from the store much less any game or fish.Heck even just goin from saying this is swamp rabbit and veggies to " organic ethically sources rabbit fricassee" will have tons of people wanting a plate..... Ask me how I know