Perch - Scale or fillet?

[Skidsteer]

Thanks for all the info. Very helpful!

[PigPen]

My wife just wants me to scale it, cut through the backbone just behind the head, then peel off the head (pulling all the guts out with it). Makes for a very fast cleaning process.

The video of the guy doing that while ice fishing was amazing. I wonder how many fish it takes to get that right. Way easier than fileting.

[john from md]

I tried it twice and wasted meat on both occasions. I hate wasting something that I killed so I'll wait until I can get personal instruction rather than a video.

John

[Frogsauce]

I had to learn how to do it when I was in Japan. MY wifes whole family has a fishing way of life. I butchered a few before I learned to do it right.

30+ gure or macks will take a while to fillet, and we didn't want to waste any by just taking the easy meat. We don't mind picking around bones in our house.

I learned to make lures from fish scales and chum/mash from heads and guts too. But those days aren't necessary anymore.

[CAGE RATTLER]

I tried the 10 second perch method last year and made a mess of it. Maybe it only works on yellows cause the skin on the whites I tried to do it with just kept tearing the meat off.

I scale them, cut the heads off, cut a belly slice, pull the guts out, then remove the top fin like the 10 sec perch video.
To cook I'll give them a milk & egg bath, toss into flour with seasonings of choice or bread crumbs or one of my favorites, crushed up old bay flavored potato chips.
Then fry in oil or butter till crispy. I'll just grab the top edge of the meat where I pulled the top fin off and all the meat just pulls away from the bones. No meat lost at all and its delicous. Even the skin.

I used to cut the tails off but my GF stopped me from doing that. She said they taste great when they are nice and crispy. Just like eating a potato chip and she was right.

[Yak Fish]

For the guys saying they make a mess of the fish, maybe this will help.....
Before pulling the head off with the guts and skin, take extra time to get your fingers under the skin and pull it away from the fillets of meat running down the sides first. Run your finger all the way down from the spine to the belly to release the flesh. I feel like I get every bit of meat and waste far less which is why I like to do it that way. After I cook the meat, the bones pull out with the spine.

[Delicious Bass]

I have on occasion deep fried smallish perch whole, unscaled.
The skin and scales and tail are pleasantly crunchy this way.

Remove guts. Pat dry.
Dust with cornstarch or a flour of some sort.
Drop in fryer.

However, I try to stay away from deep fried stuff.
So I usually scale/fillet & pan fry, or steam.

I have an antique "fish master" scaler that does a good job at scaling without flinging scales all over the kitchen.

[joemac]

I like to fillet and then flip the fillet and skin it. Hold tail end of fillet with thumbnail and run the knife along the skin. Makes beautiful little pure white fillets. If I plan to grill them I will gut them and leave the head on but pull the gills.

Just made a pot of White Perch chowder. Essentially an oyster stew but instead of oyster use chunks of white perch. Used the bodies and heads to make the stock. Wow was it good. Saved a few fillets to bread in Panko and fry up.

[reeltor_mike]

Got a recipe for that chowder?

[joemac]

Lets see what I can do. I kind of engineered this recipe myself but it is based loosely off of these;

The recipe is at the bottom of the article. I added a Leek to the stock and halved the recipe. So it will yield about 1 quart. I did not worry about frying the perch heads/bodies first. I used 10 carcasses. If you didn't want to mess with the fish stock just sub a quart of chix stock.

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/fish...lly-delicious/

I amended this recipe somewhat. I used only 1 Leek. Leeks are unfortunately not well used anymore but it will give a richness to the soup and stock that you cannot deny. They add another dimension that takes stock from good to great. So instead of 1 1/2 cups of veg stock I used the yield (approx 1quart of fish stock). I deleted the curry powder since it isn't really a mid Atlantic flavor. I also subbed 1cup heavy cream for the skim milk. I used the fillets from 8 of the perch cut into 1 or 2" chunks. Lastly I added a stalk of celery chopped into 1/4" dice. I let the vegetables and broth cook for about 15 min added the perch and cream and let cook another 10 min or so.


http://chesapeakecuisine.blogspot.co...h-chowder.html

[Cowpokey]

I've never seen that technique in the first video, might have to try it.

The second video...wow, that guy has been doing this for a bit; crazy fast.

I usually fillet everything, but after talking to my dad a few days ago, he said to run them (bluegill) under hot water and the scales come right off. I asked him how hot, and he said hot water tap. Haven't tried it yet. You do loose some meat when you fillet, that's kind of a big deal when it's small fish.

[reeltor_mike]

Just tried the method demonstrated by the guy in the YouTube video with the yellow perch. I did it no where near as fast as him but the result was still awesome and took a lot less time than other methods I've used before. Genius, pure genius!
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