Originally posted by TCLynx on AGC, May 30, 2010
Well Here is the blog post I promised about the BIG catfish. We had this girl for a little over two years and she was definitely an advanced fingerling when we got her. This one was from our very first batch of fish that we put in the system in March 2008. We harvested this fish March 31 2010.
This one was two feet long.
And she was so heavy that the kitchen scale couldn’t hold her so we had to get creative and use the luggage scale to get the weight.
Here is a close up of the scale so you can see better what the weight actually was.
And here is a picture of mom holding up the fish just before filleting out the meat. The cook has already removed the barbs then skinned, gutted and removed the head. Even after all that it still looks like a huge piece of fish.
After filleting, we still had six pounds of meat from that one fish. One single fillet was plenty for four of us to eat and still have left overs. Even that big fish was still tender and tasty and wow were some parts of that fillet thick!!!
Just shows what can be possible with aquaponics!
I would be interested in a full how to dress a cat for the skillet. I’ve heard rumors about nailing its head down?
I don’t have any good videos but if you search youtube there are plenty of people out there who have made video on the subject. My Hubbie deals with doing the catfish. He usually uses a rag to hold the fish wile delivering the death blow then cuts off the barbs and peals off the skin then guts and removes head/tail. Rinse well with water then soak in some brine before drying off and freezing or fillet them. He usually just holds the fish with rags while pealing the skin off with special pliers. We tried the nail the head down before, much more difficult than it sounds and it didn’t work well for us.
I’ve seen videos of people filleting the fish without even skinning or gutting them. They were really fast at it too. I’ve never gotten the feel for it myself. It takes practice and since hubbie kinda rules the kitchen here I’ve usually just let him do it. I’m in charge of growing and preserving food/medicines he is the cook.