Filleting and cooking Pike

[Violin_guy]

While ice fishing last year, I caught a few pike, both filled with roe.  Especially interesting is taking fillet off the top--the texture is very firm, resulting in a first class piece of fish.  Pike is not my favourite, being somewhat bland and a bit smelly (very cucumber-y). Initially, I made Pike in lobster sauce, pike caviar, and the next day, pike fishcakes with roe and battered pike burgers. In the future, I would like to pickle pike, following these recipes for pickled sucker: http://www.creativesustenance.com/stumpjack/2013/5/11/more-pickled-sucker-recipes Anyways, here are some shots. Oh, and I cooked all of this on my wood cookstove, but that's a post for another day! Enjoy!

[Violin_guy]

Oh, and we drank a Featherstone Canadian Oak Chardonnay with the pike in lobster sauce, an excellent wine.

[ElsieD]

Did you have trouble getting all the bones out?  I used to go fishing with a friend in the La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve in Quebec.  We went for lake trout but occasionally caught pike.  Those bones were a bugger to get out.  That pike in lobster sauce looks especially good.

[Violin_guy]

This way of filleting gets out all most of the bones, and avoids the Y bones. As you mention Quebec, have you come across this wonderful book put out by Environment Canada https://www.amazon.ca/Taste-History-Origins-Gastronomy-Language/dp/B0046VXPOW

 

Many people pickle pike which dissolves the bones. I would recommend taking the top fillet to eat and pickling the rest.

 

[heidih]

That is really interesting on the pickling dissolving the bones. The great thing about using what is locally available - ingenuity abounds,

[gfweb]

Impressive results!

 

I think that t here is a reason that the French make quenelles out of pike. Avoids the bones and the blandness.

 

Re Ice fishing.  I've caught more pike through the ice than on open water.  Thankfully I've lost the urge to do it anymore. Really freaking cold.

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, Violin_guy said:

This way of filleting gets out all most of the bones, and avoids the Y bones. As you mention Quebec, have you come across this wonderful book put out by Environment Canada https://www.amazon.ca/Taste-History-Origins-Gastronomy-Language/dp/B0046VXPOW

 

Many people pickle pike which dissolves the bones. I would recommend taking the top fillet to eat and pickling the rest.

 

 

No, I did not know about the book.  But then, my fishing days are long over.

[Violin_guy]

13 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

No, I did not know about the book.  But then, my fishing days are long over.

Ok this is just a general cookbook, not fishing related.

[Eatmywords]

Nice pics!  How did you treat the eggs and how/what do you eat them with?

[ElsieD]

https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/gourmand-gourmet

 

I can't find much of anything on the book but have you checked out this link?

[Violin_guy]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/gourmand-gourmet

 

I can't find much of anything on the book but have you checked out this link?

Oh, I own the book and you can sometimes find it at Value Village. Thanks for this link!

[Eatmywords]

My neighbor caught this over the wknd but threw it back citing the insanity that is filleting pike.  I've never tried to but would've loved the opportunity.  Needless to say I was very upset w him.......barely on speaking terms.  

 

[chromedome]

That's an impressive specimen.

When I was an inquisitive and science-minded youngster, my father (a sailor) brought me home a barracuda from the Caribbean (he got one of the ship's cooks to throw it in the walk-in freezer for him). The first time I saw a photo of a pike, I was struck by how similar they were in design...a definite case of convergent evolution.

[Eatmywords]

14 minutes ago, chromedome said:

That's an impressive specimen.

When I was an inquisitive and science-minded youngster, my father (a sailor) brought me home a barracuda from the Caribbean (he got one of the ship's cooks to throw it in the walk-in freezer for him). The first time I saw a photo of a pike, I was struck by how similar they were in design...a definite case of convergent evolution.

Yes, I thought the same.  Look to be stealth predators and their teeth are certainly no joke.   Now I want quenelles like my mom made many decades ago. 

 

 @Violin_guyyou mentioned filleting but didn't share your method.  Do tell

[TicTac]

Watch out for those pike!

 

My dad told me a story when he was a Yout skinny dipping in Northern Ontario during a tree planting expedition - the pike thought there was a worm to be had, needless to say - last time he went skinny dipping in a lake!

 

[weinoo]

7 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

Now I want quenelles like my mom made many decades ago. 

 

Don't you mean gefilte fish, like my grandmother made? (Classically with pike, whitefish, and/or carp.)

[rotuts]

5this is what 

 

I might know

 

soo long ago

 

I was going to br

 

a Great Fisher Man

 

read so many books,

 

Id chosen to   be a Fly Fisherman

 

gave me a lot yo do 

 

w piles of zfuzztthus

 

chicken necks fron China 

 

[ smaller feathers ]

 

but what I do know :

 

a )  if you use a barb hook  while fishing :

 

and take it 0ut of your caught fish :

 

\more often than not

 

the fish will die.

 

if you do '' catch an release "

 

w barbless hooks

 

and release the fish while they are still in the water

 

many will survive.

 

so what do I t think ?

 

if you've caught it

 

then you should plan to eat ir

 

with respect.

[haresfur]

My dad always filleted them like any other fish and we just spat the Y bones out.

 

So a story that could go in the Mining Meals thread, but it was an archaeology crew - my first time working in the bush when I was in high school. The cook was also in high school but did a decent job, especially considering it was a low budget operation and food flights only came in every 2 weeks. The one thing he could cook really well was fish. One evening I was hanging out in my tent and heard a faint, "Help! Help!" from out on the lake. We all went out and one of the crew was out in our leaky aluminum canoe. His fishing rod was completely bent over and he was being towed slowly along. He'd managed to get a 7 kg northern pike alongside the canoe but there was no way he could land it without capsizing. Someone went out in another boat and hauled it in.

 

The cook cleaned it and made steaks which he soaked in flour & water for a couple of hours and fried it up with salt and pepper over the wood stove. Surprisingly good eating for a fish that size.

 

BTW do other Canadians call them Jackfish? 

[Eatmywords]

15 hours ago, weinoo said:

 

Don't you mean gefilte fish, like my grandmother made? (Classically with pike, whitefish, and/or carp.)

No, thk hashem.  We're french Algerian sephardic (atheists).  Mom was classically trained in French.  I didn't know the 'gourmet wonders' of Ashkenazi food until later in life.  Although I do love me some gefilte w red horseradish (prob because it was a novelty, not forced on me : )

[gfweb]

@rotuts agreed. Catch and release with barbless flies is the way to go.

But the occasional dinner fish is no sin either.

 

Lots of trout around you up there. And trouts don't have the covid.

[weinoo]

6 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

No, thk hashem.  We're french Algerian sephardic (atheists).  Mom was classically trained in French.  I didn't know the 'gourmet wonders' of Ashkenazi food until later in life.  Although I do love me some gefilte w red horseradish (prob because it was a novelty, not forced on me : )

 

Ha!

The "gourmet wonders" indeed! I have a friend who is Spanish sephardic; often, I'll mention a dish I'm making or had growing up, and he'll say he's never heard of it nor tasted it.  Very interesting.  (he recently got his Spanish citizenship; took him years working on it, as his ancestors were expelled from Spain a long time ago)

[chromedome]

12 hours ago, rotuts said:

but what I do know :

 

a )  if you use a barb hook  while fishing :

 

and take it 0ut of your caught fish :

 

\more often than not

 

the fish will die.

 

if you do '' catch an release "

 

w barbless hooks

 

and release the fish while they are still in the water

 

many will survive.

 

so what do I t think ?

 

if you've caught it

 

then you should plan to eat ir

 

with respect.

More or less my feeling as well.

 

I will not lecture or think less of anyone who does fish for sport using barbless hooks, and then releases their catch; but it's not my thing. If I go fishing it is with the intent of eating a fish, full stop. When I have my meal in hand, however idyllic the day, I'm done.

[Eatmywords]

17 minutes ago, chromedome said:

More or less my feeling as well.

 

I will not lecture or think less of anyone who does fish for sport using barbless hooks, and then releases their catch; but it's not my thing. If I go fishing it is with the intent of eating a fish, full stop. When I have my meal in hand, however idyllic the day, I'm done.

Interesting.  He's been fishing for 50yrs. Makes his own lures, worked in tackle shops, yada yada. I'm guessing he knows when and what can be thrown back w out killing it. (But I will use this conversation to further guilt him for not giving me the fish. I'll accuse him of killing it and report back).

[rotuts]

trout up here are very very heavy , w very very bad metals.

 

signs in 18 languages :  " eat , Die "

[chromedome]

6 hours ago, haresfur said:

BTW do other Canadians call them Jackfish? 

Yes, I missed that earlier. Pike=jackfish, though my favorite colloquialism for them out West is "slough shark."