Cooking Whitefish

[stick]

I finally found out last year that there is a difference between whitefish and tullibes. I posted in one of the forums on this site and people talked about tullies are best smoked but whitefish are a fine eating fish all around. To my knowledge I had never caught a whitey before and I have caught a ton of tullies, but I did catch a whitey this weekend. It was about 5 lbs (quite a fight and surprise while perchin'). I filleted it up, and I was wondering if anyone has any preferred method of preparing whiteys. I will plan on smoking my tullies, but I'm looking for a good prep method for the whitefish (unless I'm strongly disuaded from doing so).

I consider myself rather adept in the kitchen, so I'd like to do something a little different than smoke them or the typical fish fry (as I do plenty of that, too).

[kkahmann]

Treat them just like walleye--if their skinned yu won't know the difference.

[MNHuntress]

KK is right, fresh they are better than a walleye. However if you have to freeze them then eat it, you better smoke it because you will not get the same taste, more oily.

[stick]

One thing to mention that I noticed (never having filleted a whitey before) was the dark meat along the lateral line on the skin-side. This has been something we have always been very careful when cleaning lake trout to remove because that is where the "fishy" taste comes from. It is a relatively thin layer that I skim off, so I hope that makes a difference in taste.

Just a side comment. Thanks for the input, gents.

[kkahmann]

Huntress is right--they don't freeze well as far as flavor goes.

I like to scale mine and fry with the skin on--they are easy to scale.

[LABS4ME]

They make darn tasty fish cakes too!

Good Luck!

Ken

[Jim Uran]

Just get all the red meat off and they are awesome.

[Jack Stasney]

This past winter I was at a restaurant in Michigan that served Whitefish on a cedar plank. I was working there so I asked the chef how it was made. He told me they soak the cedar planks in water for a day then just place the fish with a line of mashed potatoes on the side and cook it. I don't know what temp they cooked it at (fairly high seemed to be), but I'm sure you could figure something out, same with seasoning. I can say it was easily the best Whitefish I've ever had, the cedar taste comes right up into the fish and it's great. So now if you've got some cedar laying around you've got something to do.

[ozzie]

just watched john gillespies fishing show the other day and they were cathcing whitefish and stated that you just want to make sure to remove the red meat....I am not sure but I thought maybe they said also remove a black line also....the "waste" line!!

[stick]

Did John say "HOLY COW...Make sure you remove the red meat...HOLY COW!!!"

I love John's enthusiasm.

[ozzie]

I use to hate John G but I now laugh at him and how excited he gets like when he catches a fish and he says "the gilleps has another"....haha using third person while fishing classic!!! but I think his buddy guide larry was the one that stated get the red out of the whitefish....