Thread: Blue fish. What's your opinion on them

Originally Posted by fordguy

The only blues I've eaten were fish that my grandfather caught and froze when I was a child. Not sure about fresh, but I still remember the frozen bluefish fillets being unpleasant.

Your memory is probably exactly correct. That combination would require copious use of ketchup, garlic and tobasco sauce to be edible, and even then it would help to have had a lot of french fries and hush puppies on the side.

Its all in preparation.
Like others noted, you have to remove the red meat down the middle of the fillet.
And they are best eaten fresh.
Even vacuum packed, they don't freeze very well.

So do they not freeze as well as Spanish. I kept hearing everyone say Spanish do not freeze well but if you take care and prepare the filet correctly it freezes wonderfully.

Try this: We used to catch big bluefish during the summer and freeze the fillets to eat over the winter. The trick was to rinse the fillets in sea water, blot them dry, and then dip them for 20-30 seconds in an ascorbic acid (vitamin C) solution. If I recall, we would use 2 tablespoons of ascorbic acid powder per quart of cold water. It worked very well. Ascorbic acid is an anti-oxidant. It prevents the fats in oily fish from becoming rancid during storage. That prevents the fishy flavor from developing. Rinsing the fillets in water before cooking removes the ascorbic acid.

You can make "sea water" by dissolving a 1/4 cup of non-iodized salt in a quart of water. Rinsing any kind of fillet in either clean sea water or this brine solution will reduce water loss upon thawing. That's why you don't want to rinse fish in fresh water before freezing. The fresh water swells up the cells and lets out a lot of moisture when you defrost the fish.

I have done this with Spanish and it works great.

We freeze all of our fish fillets in brine and have kept them for more than a year with no loss of freshness. Vacuum sealing is a great convenience, in the short term.

Just curious, has anybody tried to can them?

Originally Posted by jigslinger

Just curious, has anybody tried to can them?

Yes ,,, "Trash Can" that is.
They remind me of Salt water Hard head catfish. U can eat anything but. Skip jack can be edible.

Try this: We used to catch big bluefish during the summer and freeze the fillets to eat over the winter. The trick was to rinse the fillets in sea water, blot them dry, and then dip them for 20-30 seconds in an ascorbic acid (vitamin C) solution. If I recall, we would use 2 tablespoons of ascorbic acid powder per quart of cold water. It worked very well. Ascorbic acid is an anti-oxidant. It prevents the fats in oily fish from becoming rancid during storage. That prevents the fishy flavor from developing. Rinsing the fillets in water before cooking removes the ascorbic acid.

You can make "sea water" by dissolving a 1/4 cup of non-iodized salt in a quart of water. Rinsing any kind of fillet in either clean sea water or this brine solution will reduce water loss upon thawing. That's why you don't want to rinse fish in fresh water before freezing. The fresh water swells up the cells and lets out a lot of moisture when you defrost the fish.

I have done this with Spanish and it works great.

I stand corrected on my original post: I had some 8 month old bluefish fillets vacuum-packed in the freezer.
They were just fine, made fish tacos a month or so back.

Last time I had fish tacos they where made out of bass I had caught that day. They where ok. My Dad and Sister said they where almost better than beef. That night I almost threw it up. Took a Zofrain and was good.