Cisco it’s What’s for Dinner

A few weeks ago I headed north and ended up with a bunch of ciscoes. They are good size and have a limit of 10 so at the end of the day you are going to end up with a bunch of meat. One major issue is they don’t handle freezing well because they aren’t the firmest of fish. The good news is the meat very white and very mild tasting.

The obvious choice is for some to hit the smoker. That is a super reliable way to utilize cisco and after smoking you can freeze some for later. The texture of a cisco makes it one of the best fish to use for fish dip in my opinion or they are great on their own. With cisco I always chunk them for smoking. Cleaning them is simple, remove the head, gut, and chunk into 3-4 inch sections.

Since I had so many I decided to experiment with a fish on the open fire as well as some on the grill. I’d really never done a fish on the open fire before but it wasn’t too hard. I only gutted that fish and then stuffed it with lemons and some herbs. I also grilled some fillets to compare with the open fire fish. Those were also simply seasoned. One big difference between the whole fish approach and the fillet approach was the bones. They were absolutely a pain in the fillets while they stuck to the fish skeleton on the whole fish and the meat was relatively boneless. Going forward if I’m cooking one fresh I will definitely be using the whole fish.

I had quite a bit of extra fish from the grill and needed a way to use it for a dinner later in the week. I also didn’t want to mess with the tiny bones and needed a way to get those out. I settled on making fish cakes out of them. I could easily pick most of the bones out of the already cooked fish and add some simple ingredients (eggs, breadcrumbs, onions, Old Bay, salt, pepper) I already had on hand to make a meal. I assumed they’d be pretty good but I didn’t realize how much I was going to enjoy them. I’ve sure got some cisco beatdowns in my future after stumbling upon this.

The best part is you don’t have to eat them all right away. Freezing them and then vacuum sealing them is a great way to preserve them for an easy meal in the future. I do the same thing with the smoked fish. On a side note if you freeze before vacuum sealing the item will hold its shape and retain its moisture. This is something I do with a lot of different foods I vacuum seal. One thing to watch out for is bones puncturing the vacuum bag. It can be a real problem if you don’t get them all and wrapping them in a layer of butcher paper or paper towel might be necessary.