Smelt Recipes Anyone??

[orsturgeon]

Well the smelt are still in! I do not know if it is worth it to drive one and a half hours from Salem for 146 smelt. (One female - 145 male.) Eight dips max for most people today. It was great fun! Anyway I would like to cook some and smoke some. Would anyone of you like to share your favorite recipe with the group? Thanks

[Bait O' Eggs]

I took the family back up today for another round of bait gathering. I made one pass with the net and had at least 30 pounds in the net. I spilled about 10 pounds trying to get them in the bucket. I made a very short dip (less than two foot of travel in the water) and got that 3rd limit for the family. (I didnt get one for my 1 year old daughter, wasnt sure the gammie would allow her a limit http://www.ifish.net/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) They are still thick.

[CAGEY]

Hi orsturgeon. We have been eating smelt for many years and the best we have found is to skillet or deep fry until they are nice and crisp. Try some seasoning salt in your flour, roll the fish in it and fry em up. To smoke them we always use our standard brine and smoke them just like any other fish, It usually does not take as long as they are generally smaller in size. The brine we use is, one cup soy sauce, 1/4 lb brown sugar, one tsp garlic powder, one tsp pepper, one table spoon white wine vinegar, 1/4 cup of salt, one cup water. Mix it all together until disolved and brine the fish for 8 to 12 hours, Check for saltiness befor smoking, you may have to rinse them off. Hope this helps you out. You can also use this same brine for jerky and it is excellent.

[Jim]

Hey Cagey....how many pounds of smelt will this do?? We had some for dinner last night fried and will probably do that 1 more time, need a few pounds for Sturg and the rest I want to smoke...so will be smoking nearly 40 pounds...how many times do I increase the Brine??

Jim

[GoFish]

Cut off the head and clean out the body cavity. Whip up your best beer batter, dip the smelt and deep fry them in real hot peanut oil. They eat like candy!

[Eric]

Shake-n-bake......no kidding! Years ago, my mom use to cook em' up for the family that way and to this day it is my favorite way to eat them. Smoking them is a close second.

[CAGEY]

Hi Jim, That amount of recipe should brine about 10 lbs or so, you can brine as many as you can or you can double or triple the recipe. I dont know how many you can smoke at one time but you can reuse the brine two or three times. I have a Big Chief Smoker, and by the time i spread them out on the racks iam not sure how many lbs that is but i dont think it would even be 10 lbs. One way to make enough brine to do them all at once is to place all of them in a container, pour enough water on them to see how much you need, then take the fish and see about how much brine you would need, Remember the smelt dont have to actually all be swimming in the brine as you need to stir them up about four times during the process and this gets them all brined. I hope i explained that ok. Sometimes my fingers are faster than my brain. good luck, Cagey