I was given a mud fish the other day. Smoked it but thought it was a bit tasteless.

Whats the best way to eat a muddie

Bushie

It depends where they are caught as to how they taste, the pink fleshed ones are way tastier. Once you accept they are not the same taste as a sea fish you are halfway there. Straight on the barbie, skin and all (gutted!) - in butter of course - is not a bad way to cook the smaller ones. They cook up nice in a microwave. Something simple like a parsley butter sauce isnt too bad.

Split them in half from the bottom, leaving intact near line of dorsal fin and make a pizza on top of them.  So they are the pizza base.  Don't use things that are too strong a flavour and give a little heavy on the cheese.  Is good, but a think a pizza box would be good done like this too.

Alternatively, use them as bait and catch a decent tasting fish.

Matt B

Hi Bushie

Did you cold smoke it? They do have a delicate flavour but are really beautiful, especially a Taupo trout, straight from the lake, dripping with omega 3 oil!  Also raw, shashimi style. I never cook mine.

It's a fair point in some specific areas... but if the Fish and game are advocating killing fish in stocked lakes because of poor stock perhaps they need to really have a good hard look at that!

My point was really in relation to eating trout... I think they are horrible and usually only recieve approving comments after doused in every imaginable herb in the cupboard... and I've tried them a hundred different ways... now a nice piece of snapper is hard to stuff up!

Catch and release is, as with anything, a personal choice. It's also a management tool but  I do know iof rivers and streams that could use a good cull... but that's more to do with management that eating them.

theres nothing like smoked or bbqed trout tastes far better that sea fish done the same way

by sea fisher turned trout fisher

Lemon Pepper (Light), Cajun Seasoning (Light) , Green Herb Stock (Stock), Grated Cheese (Heavy).

Smoke it With Teetree Sawdust and it turns out Beeeeeeaaauuuutiiiifuuuulll!!!!

Cheers

Kylie

PS.  Pretty good on Most Light flavoured fish.

Yes... mmmmm... delish

OMG And you dont even smoke ciggies Barrie... Get a check up.

Trout... They are released for a good reason and that aint conservation...

Salmon... High up in my personal favourite eating fish...

Bazza,

Smoked salmon has to be some of the best fish you can eat.

Hi Barrie,  I know what you mean when it comes to farmed salmon. I did my "apprenticeship" on the red & black rivers so can say I'v tasted a few straight from the sea. Free range salmon feed largely on krill & I think that has a lot to do with the taste. Farmed salmon eat what they are given & I suspect that would be fish meal & pig pellets. During the summer months salmon was almost a staple diet,we had it smoked,bottled,baked & poached(yeh,right!) but found it too rich for frying. Take my word for it, fresh salmon would be up there with the best, ask the Royal Family!

I tried the supermarket version once & it reminded me of Chinese whitebait!

I take it by 'mudfish' you are talking about freshwater trout/salmon not the threatened native mudfish?

I agree the searun trout and salmon and true saltwater fish taste better that their freshwater counterparts.

Yeah Nice Dave. Supposing we don't have the requisite cash to head to Alaska to catch our own, there are some alternatives to salmon.

I have had real awful trout and real fine trout and the secret is in where they are caught and how they are treated. As a sea fish we tend to have flaked ice etc on board and the fish get ikkied and chilled real quick. The flesh is firm and tasty. Unfortunately when we catch trout it is almost certain we dont have ice and chilling facilities close to hand. Who's going to lug that around a river or lakeshore, (boating excepted).

If I decide to keep a fish I do try to bury it under water until I leave the area, it will discolour but seems to retain some flavour, and then I get it home as quick as possible.

Recently lala and I brought a wee trout home from the lakes near coleridge and I kept it in the lake and as cold as possible for as long as possible, then straight ino the fridge on arrival home. Now the secret to that fish, which was one of the best I have ever tasted, was a commercial cold smoke, I asked the local butcher to smoke it with his bacon and he did a magnificent job.

Personally I find salmon too rich and overrated, not to mention bluddy pricey, and prefer the more subtle and delicate taste of trout. And if the flesh is orange enough, sashimi-ed with wasabi and soy sauce is definitely the way to go.

Vig

Quote: Originally posted by Vig on 04 March 2006

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 And if the flesh is orange enough, sashimi-ed with wasabi and soy sauce is definitely the way to go.

 

Vig

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I like my sushi "Southern Fried".

Clark

Sashimi salmon with wasabi and japanese soya sauce - dee best! (Yes, even the supermaket ones.) I find the best part of the fish to sashimi is the belly as it gives it has a higher fat content and has a right level of "al-dente" compared to other parts of the fish.

I baked a trout "thai style" some time ago and it was okay. I could still taste a bit of "muddiness".

I am not a big one for eating trout.. in fact I'm not real big on eating fish at all, once every couple of weeks is just fine thanks.. I don't keep trout anymore, just a personal taste... BUT

I agree with Walter, they deserve better than to be called "Mudfish"!

As for wine...  be buggered... Merlot, Cab Sav, Malbec, Shiraz all inappropriate, all have a % on the label... that'll do !

Clark

The best way to eat mudfish is to feed them to snapper with a hook attached. They make very good bait.

Then eat the snapper... simple exercise.

Trout actually taste different depending on where they are caught. The ones from taupo are my favourites - very similar to salmon in flavour. They're nice smoked, or baked in tinfoil with lots of tasty stuff in the gut cavity. The worst I've tasted are from Aniwhenua, which taste like, well, mud.

Geoff Thomas once gave me a Taupo  trout he had smoked and it was some of the best eating seafood I've ever tasted. Whoever did the smoking really knew what he (or she) was doing.

I understand that someone with a narrow and drug addled mind would find the use of an expansive and all-inclusive phrase confusing.

Recommend you go back to the JD bottle and leave this to the real men.

I've never known a Taupo fish to taste like mud but the Arapuni fish usually do... A baked taupo trout is quite edible...

I tend to rate fish on how they taste without the need for a whole heap of additives to the cooking process... trout don't get there for me... but it's all personla taste.

Clark

Well a tried, tested and proven method is to wait until you are really really hungry after a hard days work and cook it up which ever way you like... wether this be in a billy full of water in the wilds of Alaska or at home on yer BBQ... Food always tastes so much better when you a hungry  ... similar to having a cold beer after a hard days work, the first one always tastes better.... admitedly enough the second and third ones don't taste so bad either...

Get a nice orange fleshed Rainbow from the T Delta, carve off the fillets and debone, mix one 1/3 non iodised salt with 2/3 brown sugar and pat all over fillets , dash a few good strong drops of Laphroaig over the top - leave flesh side up for 12 hours then reapply the mix and leave flesh side down for 12 hours. Either cold or hot smoke.

Nothing beats this - nothing.

PS - farmed Salmon has no Omega oil value and also is fed dye to get the flesh that colour.

Quote:

PS - farmed Salmon has no Omega oil value and also is fed dye to get the flesh that colour.

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I should have added - careful monitoring of the trout while in the smoker is aided by three fingers of Laphroaig (or more if you are cold smoking).

I will try and find the reference to the lack of Omega in farmed salmon and post it.

Here you go - about 2/3 way down page

http://www.alternet.org/story/13646/">http://www.alternet.org/story/13646/

Ive read the article Barbary B and found it quite interesting as im taking Aquaculture at AUT.

Intersting that they didnt want the West Coast salmon because they swim too much and burn of fat which the fish farms dont want, so they changed to Atlantic salmon which prefer to just tred water.

Does anyone know where our Salmon comes from in the super markets? i get mine from pak n save once a week because ive heard that the omega-3 is good for you.  I always look at the colour to see if its a bright orange/pink to tell if its fresh.  If they dye it i guess its a waste of time!

<SCRIPT language=javascript> Guess its all just another good reason to go out and catch our own...

Alive without breath;

as cold as death;

never thirsting, ever drinking,

clad in mail, never clinking.

Drowns on dry land,

thinks an island

is a mountain;

thinks a fountain

is a puff of air.

So sleek, so fair!

Whatr a joy to meet!

We only wish

to catch a fish,

so juicy sweet!

Gollum - The Two Towers