Clean and Pan Fry Whole Bluegill (Like the good ol' days!)

hey everybody hunter Fisher dropper trader guide scout interpreter and country cook Steve Hall here in Nashville Tennessee along with pretty miss Sheila behind the camera running that camera doing a great job i sila i just got back from the lake and then this pan right here i got 10 nice bluegill now i want to have you come over here with the camera and i'm gonna explain a few different processes of what I'm gonna do but first thing I did is I went out to Bass Pro and I bought me a pair of these little steel let me see what they say steel reinforced filet gloves so if you're cutting or scale and do something you won't Knick yourself because this actually has metal in it to keep you from cutting yourself but come on over here we're gonna do blue gills the old-fashioned way we're gonna fry them in a cast-iron skillet we're gonna bread them up but let's show you what most people did when they first started fishing all right let me tell you what we're doing we've got three different weapons here we got our handy dandy little ectric filet knife we got a spoon and then I've just got a folding actually a locking knife because I want the blade to lock out if I'm scaling now some people scale with a fillet knife and that's really not a safe thing to do because it's kind of springy in it you need something solid like a good salt almost like a hunting knife would do great and some people scale with a spoon so we're going to try it but first let me show you a playing process which folks do once you've been fishing for a while you're gonna play out your bluegill you're gonna play out the rib cage here and then you're gonna have boneless fillets that's all fine and dandy but you're losing so much flavor let me go ahead and toss these back here I'll get to them in a second we're gonna scale this let's see what is easier and I only use one of those two gloves that I bought from Bass Pro cos I like to hang on to what I'm doing over here this is the hand that's in danger anyway I like to smash the fins in on both sides second really hang on to it and some people scale with a spoon see and I'm used to using like a hunting knife that works good for me just kind of like the round part of the tip there don't forget the little piece right there scale way up past the fin plate up on here because we're gonna get that meat I like scaling with a hunting knife a lot of folks use a spoon and that's fine whatever works for you so you can get this scaled and then once we get this scaled like this in the old days we didn't know anything about fillet knives they never even had any fillet knives that I remember and we used to scale our bluegills and then don't cut straight like this because you're losing this meat up here on the shoulders up over the top of the gill plate so kind of come in at an angle remember we scaled all the way up here go over until you get to the blue gill part of it then turn and come down so your fillet or your whole scaled fish should look like this over then down because we want this meat up here on the top then you just cut out the belly until you get to the little butt hole back there take your thumb pull out the guts and it's finished rinse that out with real cold water put it in the refrigerator and a bowl of ice water which we're going to do here with a little bit of salt for just a few hours and then we're ready to cook so I'm going to scale the rest of these and we'll be right back that's the process all right before we go any further I want to take a moment to thank Sheila for letting me scale in the house but I want to stop right here because I'm not done with all of them but I wanted to show you one other option if you do want to flay it out so you have a Flay instead of the whole fish like this especially if you got kids that don't want to pick through the bones but I love picking through the bones and the fins fry up like baked and I'll show all of that to you when we're cooking it scale one you can do the same thing with your crappies scale them then cut this down and you know when you normally get to this point right here you flip it over and Flay it off don't do that cut it right on off now you've got a fillet that has the skin on all scaled ready to fry of course we got to take the rib cage out of here as well but man you talk about flavor in that fillet with the skin on that's all scaled try it with your bluegill and your crappie so I'm going to do a couple of them that way and a couple of them the rest of them I should say this way and we're gonna fry both of them up see in a little bit all right I kind of like to scale all of them at once then I can do all the head chopping at one time then I get my right hand dirty just once from the guts but I'm telling you it's well worth it I used to have it got lost somewhere in one of the moves an electric scaler had a little electric motor that hung up over your head in the fish cleaning house and a cable came down and it had a little tumbler with a cover they make one that's electric that's actually in a handheld never tried it so I can't tell you if I like it or not but that one that was hanging down from the ceiling man it just like butter Oh flip it or scales just zinged right off of that thing so if you see one that's got a motor and a long cable about this long and a little handheld thing on the end they work fabulous I don't know what brand it is but let me cut all these through the bung hole at one time then I can get my right hand dirty once alright and again there's a little pocket right here kind of a membrane put your thumb on top of that and you can pull out the liver all the entrails or whatever they say all the goodies fantastic you don't have to watch any more of this let me get these cleaned up and rinsed up and I'll be right back well we have successfully covered everything with scales I should've did this outside I know Sheila but I want to do it for the folks that watch us on YouTube man we got this all done get yourself an electric flame knife get yourself a hunting knife or a spoon don't use a fillet knife a standard non electric Flay knife to try to scale with but come on over here and I'm going to show you what we have on this platter here well I wanted to give you three different options this is just regular bluegill fillets if you play it I'll completely take the skin off and bones out this is skin on bluegill which is scaled you can do the same process with crappie don't forget that because it's so good if you do insist on fleeing it out and taking out the rib cage at least try a few of them scaled so you can taste them with the skin on then this is the whole bluegill with just the head cut off and the guts taken out back to the anal part here and here's the neat part you notice on my bluegill fillets that this front shoulder is still here I don't just chop them off behind the gill plate I kind of cut in and then go around because I want all this meat that's up front here so another little tip you can do you can take your fillet knife and you can cut scores in here it's called scoring just down to the backbone don't cut through when he takes a second and what that does is that allows the hot grease to get in there and cook it even better and if some of your breading gets down in through those cracks so I'm going to score them all up I'm gonna put them in a blast bowl I'm gonna put some salt water in there and put it just a little bit of salt put it in the refrigerator for a few hours maybe overnight and then we're gonna cook this up and show you what the next step is I can't wait to eat whole bluegills the old-fashioned way see in a bit all right it's time to cook the bluegills they've been in the refrigerator and some cold water with about a teaspoon of salt in there now when I do catfish and stuff like that I'll put in a little bit of milk or maybe buttermilk or something with it but you don't need it with bluegill crappie perch they are so sweet the way they are I got my good old cast-iron skillet here which I've cooked a hundred fish fries in my fish breading which is shotgun Reds catfish and crappie breading mix some paper towels a little bit of tartar sauce and bread we're ready I know you want to watch this so come on over here I love this little notch in this pan because it keeps my thermometer from rolling back and forth she's just rolling on 360 degrees which is just where I like it 350 is okay 375 is okay it's up to you how you cook your fish and I got canola oil in here the reason I do that it's kind of out of habit because when I get some guests over and we're feeding fish if somebody's got a peanut allergy I know a lot of people cook with peanut oil but I just don't anymore I just use canola oil it's got a wonderful flavor right there we're just hitting 360 now that we got the oil hot we got our fish ready this is a one-shot deal remember we've laid out some crappies or a bluegill I should say exactly like how you normally fillet them so I'll put a couple of those little guys in there these are the ones that been filleted no skin now we're going to put in a couple of Flay's that we've laid out but we left the skin on and scale them I want to cook a couple of those for you there's another one man try that with your bluegill and crappie scale them then fillet them like you normally do but then don't do the final step of playing them off the skin oh and here comes the babies I got a little bit of water and a bottom my dish because I like to get the fleas and get the fish wet shake off the excess water and then put this in here I'm going to get this breading up so you can see this because I like to push this down inside the little pocket you know where we cut the belly open here I hope this is on camera cuz Sheila's gone today I'm doing this on my own and I try to work the seasoning down into those little scores remember how we scored it there we go tail on fins on this is heaven here boys man oh man oh man a lot of these recipes when I get done with them we get some of the neighbors we give some to some people that can really use the food we throw some in the freezer that ain't happening today when this recipe is over I'm turning the camera off before I even edit it and it's going on the plate get a couple of them babies in there let's do this let's fry these up first because I really want to show you the finish process of how you eat them I know that sounds kind of crazy but there's so many people out there that just don't master playing and they're so used to scaling they're bluegills chopping the heads off and frying them up I know they're loving this so I'm gonna turn these over in a second we'll be right back boy these are looking good I had to go wash my hands off a little bit now these little Flay's they don't take very long and you notice the ones with the skin on they curl up because the skin pulls it around there but I'm gonna let these other guys lay here and really get golden brown on one side before I turn them I gotta tell you I had so many aluminum pans that you know all the Teflon would chip off and then they would warp and roll around I bought a cast-iron pan here about Oh golly about a year and a half ago now and I will never cook with anything else I just threw all the rest of them old scratchy pots and pans away it's cast-iron for me I love it now this little electric burner here for this kitchen preparation is not as hot as the one in the kitchen when one in the kitchen I turn it wide open and when it gets right up to temperature I turn it to about nine and then I just leave it there because I'm putting fish in taking fish out and I want the oil to stay hot this little monster I got it wide open and just struggling to stay at 350 and 360 so it might take another extra couple of minutes to do this all right I pulled the little filets out of there put them on the paper towel and they gave these about another two or three minutes I wish this burner was a little hotter but it's getting there done and in fact I like to put the oil in not really like it's deep-frying but so about 1/4 of the flay or the fish is sticking out of there oh yeah then we're looking good until it's time to turn them when they start getting golden brown and the fins get stiff and one thing you'll notice you see all the little scouring where we scored them with the knife man they just open right up and they let the oil right down in there with your breading cook right down to the bone so when these get golden brown I'm gonna pull them out of here and put them on the plate and let them cool well I found a couple other little Flay's they threw in alongside of them of these are done remember you always want to cook these a little longer than you do your normal fish fillets because it has to get clear down to the bone from both sides does that look good or what Wow now I'm gonna let these lay on here for just a second on these paper towels and cool down because I want to show you a little process that you can do so we'll see in a minute well as long as I got the camera and I don't care I'm gonna put some more of these blue gills in here that little burner over there is fine for doing recipes out here on the counter but I had to go in the kitchen turn on the real stove and finish these babies off now let me show you something and you eat a bluegill this is cool now first thing you do is your brother's not here so you eat the tail no no no no no he's not here so I get all of them Oh fantastic and I even like these fins you can pull this row of fins right out of the fish right to the front eat that little crispy pull the fin out of the bottom right to the front eat that little crispy sorry if I'm smacking on camera but you're gonna have to deal with it today then all you do is just peel or open right down the middle and the fish falls off both sides of that bone and what you end up with is a bone that looks like them cats on the cartoons when they pull you know fish out of the garbage can and I'm telling you this stuff on both sides now as boneless with skin on but the flavor coming off the side of these little rib cages and stuff is absolutely I mean I like to break these off like this and eat the meat off the little bones as a kid we learn to do all that so let me show you what heaven looks like play the blue gills stack of buttered bread on the side big tall glass of cold milk this my friends is pure heaven I can sit and eat half the lake full of these little rascals and again my brother's not here so when we were kids we used to run around eat all the tails off him who ate my tails sorry mmm absolutely fantastic you have no idea so this my friends is the end of this recipe because I'm turning the camera off and I'm gonna enjoy these you know the little flayed bluegills they're delicious the curled up filleted bluegill fillets with skin on scale they're even better but this little guy right here cut down around clean out the pocket filling full of fish breading score him on both sides this is heaven this is what it's all about I'm sorry but this brings me back to my childhood up and I when we sketch blue gills and I catch them out here at Ellenville marina fantastic I hope you enjoyed our recipe we'll see you next time don't forget to subscribe to our Channel little shotgun dreads face will pop over here I'll probably put some other fish recipe or something over on this side but either way Sheila's out shopping with her mom which is a good thing is I get to eat a few of these and we'll see you next time right here on cooking with Jacques and red this is heaven

Channel: Cooking with Shotgun Red

Views: 2,501,811

Rating: 4.8198953 out of 5

Keywords: Clean and Pan Fry Whole Bluegill, pan fried fish, pan fried bluegill, pan fried crappie, fish fry, bluegill, bluegills, deep fried fish, crappies, perch, fishing, scaling fish, how to clean fish, gone fishing, fish batter, fried bluegill, cooking fish, bluegill fishing, how to, catch clean cook, cooking bluegill, how to cook bluegill, how to fillet a fish, clean adn pan fry whole bluegill

Id: VfSheKqDRQ4

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/otto3210]

Good ol Shotgun Red...guy has a great channel I use his recipres a lot. Most recently those hamburger buns. Awesome

[u/Dergins]

That's how I always do mine. Best way IMO.