As I was filleting the catfish we caught yesterday, I went ahead and picked 3 of the larger blueback herring we sabiki’ed up and filleted them (skinless).
Fried them up today. Just hastily breaded them in cornmeal seasoned with black pepper and Tony Chachere creole stuff.
I was pleasantly surprised, the flavor was a lot like the snippy little bluefish we catch around here in the summer (ie, pretty good). Yes there were a lot of tiny pin bones in there, but if you fry it crispy you don’t even notice them, they are quite tiny.
I almost filleted up a dozen of them for the smoker tomorrow but I’m going to be busy cooking the catfish.
Until this afternoon I had never had fried herring. Went over to my friends house to get some shad roe, they met some dudes from North Carolina that said they were delicious fried up after being cross cut like a Jack. It was a little strong, but not bad. They limited out Saturday and Sunday on Shad, a couple of catfish, and 100+ herring. He’s still debating weather to eat them or do like normally does and save for catfish bait and for the crab pot.
