Wild Game and Fish

Guess this goes here since, grocery stores dont sell guts in em. Hah!

18.5in Redfish my son pulled out the jetty wall yesterday evening. Gutted and chilled in the cooler last night, filleted out tonight after relaxing. Pan seared on the grill, paired with some Anson mill extremely coarse ground white grits, and a tomato bacon gravy with lots of garlic.

just outstanding. It’s one of our go to, “no measure, cook it with your eyes closed” mealsBEF6EC86-F227-463C-B430-FB04F9A9F43E.jpeg85D972F9-2B5C-47FD-A066-299EAAA68326.jpeg924B3DA5-9BB4-4855-BC19-AB6D2BA3F796.jpeg
 
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Drunk me didn’t take finished pics or cooking but this is one side of the black drum in the bottom pic.
Grilled up with some basic seasoning, and was fantastic. It’s pretty amazing how juicy, fresh and rewarding fresh fish is when you take care of it. You could eat it year round if you could and never miss anything else!

I’m a proponent of icing fish ASAP. The bigger ones I would suggest bleeding them by cutting the gill plate near the front, gut them, and then ice for atleast a day. Fresh fish is good, but trying to cook them during the rigor phase is kind of meh. I think this is where a lot of people mess up. Ice them but do not submerge the fish in ice with a bunch of water.
Ice overnight, and the remove the sides ( and throats if they are larger ), clean my fish in a bucket of salt water. Don’t use fresh water on salt water fish! Similarly, fresh water goes in fresh water. I won’t use warm fresh water from the source but I will use saltwater from the ocean or bay I was fishing in to clean my fish. Just don’t get it from the marina!!
Dry and pack them to for use when cleaned. Personally not a huge fan of frozen fish, but will freeze some fish like drum and snapper. I will not freeze some grouper species as often, and never any speckled or white trout.
 
FATC1TY said:
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Tried and true. Speckled sea trout pan seared over some Georgia grits, and a tomato bacon gravy.

It honestly doesn’t get much better, it’s my death row meal.
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This dish will always remind me of the beach. When I was a kid, we’d visit my grandfather in South FL… we’d start fishing early and then late-morning he’d make us fish and grits. It was usually grouper but kinda whatever happened to bite. Even before I was old enough to cast, I’d help him catch sand fleas for bait.
 
Layne said:
This dish will always remind me of the beach. When I was a kid, we’d visit my grandfather in South FL… we’d start fishing early and then late-morning he’d make us fish and grits. It was usually grouper but kinda whatever happened to bite. Even before I was old enough to cast, I’d help him catch sand fleas for bait.
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grouper is generally the fish of choice, especially for this dish, but I’ve found anything really holds up well that isn’t too fragile, or oily.

my kids have/will have the same memories. They catch it, I’ll clean it, and we throw this together as a meal we all put effort into it!
 
libbey said:
share your tomato bacon gravy recipe? Looks delicious
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The gravy is pretty simple, I don’t measure much, but these are really close.

2-3 tomatoes diced up
5 strips of bacon- more or less, your call
3/4 cup of heavy cream
1/2 cup veggie stock
2-4 cloves of garlic -minced or grated small
Salt and pepper

cook the bacon- pretty simple

Cook the tomatoes and garlic down until the tomatoes start to release their juices, and you kind of have a little mushy tomato garlic roux with chunks still present. Maybe 5-6 minutes medium heat. Can use same pan as bacon, dump a lot of the grease if you can.

Add bacon chopped back to pan with tomatoes and garlic.

Deglaze with the stock, stir well, add cream, lower the heat and stir until it’s thickening a bit and remove from the heat. Season to taste.

If you care to reduce the cream, just supplement with more stock, you can adjust as needed to your likening, or be even used half and half, but it won’t thicken as well.
 
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