Cisco Recipe - “Lobster Rolls”
Things happened to work out just right to make this one happen. I was up north with no intentions of catching ciscoes but when I stumbled upon some out in Lake Michigan…I was certainly going to put them to good use. We were on a trip with family and thoughts of doing a simple fish fry or making my favorite “cisco cakes” but I just really wasn’t going to have time. My mother in law mentioned something about wanting a lobster for dinner and it reminded me of something a buddy posted about “lobster rolls” with burbot. Pretty much everything works with a cisco I’ve found so these were going to sit in the fridge until we got home and go into an experiment.
One of the most important things when dealing with ciscoes is prep. First make sure you bleed them. I actually didn’t do a great job of this on this batch because I wanted to show the kids on vacation them swimming around in the livewell. Some of them had already gotten a little weird by the time I went to clean them from the temperature change. However the more lively they are when you bleed them the less blood will be in the meat. I don’t get too fancy with it and a quick rip of their soft gills works well for me. I know this is obvious but make sure you keep them cold after the catch.
One downfall to a cisco is they have a lot of red meat and a lot of bones. All the red meat needs to be trimmed off with no exceptions. It tastes bad, looks bad, and also is where most of the contaminants are found. The bones need to be either cut out or picked out. In this case I filleted the fish and took the skin off. When I got home I trimmed them up and trimmed out the bones. For this recipe it was better to have the fish in chunks vs the whole fillet anyway so it worked well. Also I never freeze them! The only acceptable freezing for me is if they have been already cooked. Anyway we are to the point where we have a bunch of beautiful cisco chunks, free of red meat and bones.
I looked at some recipes online for doing lobster rolls with fish and never settled on one that I really liked. I took bits and pieces of things and then added my own steps. I’m not a lobster roll connoisseur by any means so there were no rules I had to follow. I know they are different regionally and what I ended up finding is that this is a good recipe for experimenting with what you personally like.
Ingredients
Cisco (I used 4 and it got several meals)
Butter (for cooking)
Parsley - chopped
Celery - chopped
Onion - chopped
Capers - finely chopped
Mayo
Salt to taste
Old Bay
Deli Rolls
The recipe I found called for 1/4 cup of parsley, celery, onion, and capers to 1 tablespoon mayo. I started there and tweaked the amounts based on how much fish I had and what the mixture looked like. The parsley is totally optional but since we had some growing in the garden I was absolutely adding it.
It certainly seems like butter should be involved in this so I first melted some butter in a pan and added some fish chunks. Sprinkled with some kosher salt and Old Bay the fish doesn’t take long to cook. I also mashed it around a little bit to achieve my desired “chunk and texture” for the roll. Meanwhile all the other ingredients were mixed together and it was obvious that they were going to add a nice crunch to the roll. You could certainly eat this recipe hot but is best to let the cooked fish and “sauce” separately chill out in the fridge for awhile. When the fish has cooled down mix them up, add to a deli roll, and enjoy. I also sprinkled some more Old Bay on top to not only add flavor but give it a more pleasant look.
Taste test results were in and it was a major winner and opened up a whole new way of cooking fish for my family. I’m definitely not bailing on cisco cakes ever but these are getting worked into the rotation. I think they would work well with other types of fish also although cisco has such mild flavor that I can’t think of anything better other than a burbot. It’s also something that can really be experimented with based on your preferences. Before I make it again, I’m going to spend some time researching lobster rolls and will try something totally different for the sake of experimentation.