Whole Fish
 

After going on a Gambler offshore sea bass trip this year and keeping for the first time whole Sea Bass, I find it kind of weird(best word I can think of) that we still fillet a majority of our fish on many of the trips we do. It gets kind of procedural and compulsory, so it makes sense why we do it. But I tell ya, I baked a whole 4lb BSB in the oven and I could not believe how much more extra meat I had than compared to the fillets only. Cheek meat, rib meat, and meat between the spine bones. It adds up. I am not sure how many of us here keep fish whole, but I am not gonna get fish filleted too often anymore. I know I said it a thousand damn times in the BSB regulation posts, but it really gets us more bang for our buck. If a whole Sea Bass worked out better, I can imagine a whole Cod or Striper being even more better .... (I know many of the guys on here keep Stripers whole and it's a great thing to keep on seeing in my opinion.)

SNAPPER

Re: Whole Fish
 

If other members of your household do not wish to see the head come out of the oven then at least cut the cheeks out of a striper and cook them. Really good tasting morsels.

Re: Whole Fish
 

+1 on that for sure.

Re: Whole Fish
 

I agree filleting leaves a lot of meat behind. So what I do is after filleting I cut the carcass up to fit in a pot with a little water, celery, and onion and steam it for about 15 minutes. Then save the stock and flake the meat off. Good for chowder or fish cakes...Charlie

Re: Whole Fish
 

Also +1 on that one. Fish stock is ridiculously delicious.

Re: Whole Fish
 

Gut, scale, score and batter a whole scup. Deep fry and enjoy... The fins fry through and eat like potato chips and you can pick the fish clean! I do the same with haddock, cunner, and smaller keeper sized tog.

Re: Whole Fish
 

Cut the head off a nice size cod, take out the gills and simmer , drain and keep stock if you like but pick the cooled meat off refrigerate. Cut up some leftover cold boiled potatoes and warm up in a béchamel sauce with pepper and horseradish, add cod chunks and heat though trying not to break up the chunks. Simply heaven.

Re: Whole Fish
 

A while back I posted a recipe for Thai-style sea bass along with a picture of a whole fish prepared with the recipe. When you cook a fish whole, the bones give the meat more flavor.

This year my wife made fishhead soup from the head of a large striper. It takes a lot of work to clean the head but the cooking after that is easy. I can post the recipe but probably nobody is going to be interested.

Re: Whole Fish
 

Black sea bass scaled, gutted, and finned with a couple of slices on both sides in the skin, put a couple of butter pats inside the fish with a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder, coated with a little olive oil on the grill over medium heat ten minutes on each side....outstanding!

Re: Whole Fish
 

My Dad went through the depression. He would hitchhike down to the Longbranch Pier to fish and hitchhike home. He would never filet a fish said it was a waste. I can remember him being critical of a friend of his telling me they filet all their fish. All the fish I ate when I was a kid was baked or broiled whole. We're spoiled today.