Have any of you guys ever canned pike or pickeral? I seem to waste a lot of meat when I filet out the y-bones. I'm sure they'd dissolve during canning like they do in trout.
Use it up, wear it out. Make it do, or do without![/b]
Pike are great canned. We can pike, carp, bass and whitefish. Its all good. You MUST pressure can it to dissolve the bones. I don't normally eat bass but one year we had 3 of 4 & 5 pounders and 2 northerns that went over 13# ice fishing that we got mounted. We asked the taxidermist to save the meat. He said no problem. He put all the meat in ONE LUMP BAG and froze it. We didn't want to eat 35-40 pounds of fish at one time so we thawed it and canned it. It was great. Heres the recipe we use.
1 tsp salt 1 tsp salad oil(Mazola) 4 tsp vinegar 4 tbsp cat sup ( gives fish a pink color)
Put chunks of fish in quart jars add ingredients and 1/4 jar of water. Cook for 90 minutes at 10# pressure. Can be use in place of tuna or salmon. enjoy.
Another pike recipe I just tried from a Polish friend is as follows;
pinch of salt 2 tablespoons ketchup 1 tablespoon canola oil cut pike into chunks and pressure can (15# for 100min at my altitude).
He said that it doesn't really acquire its full flavour until at least 3 months later. I just tried it and it was great after 3 days! I used it as a sandwhich spread after mushing it all up in the jar.
Last Edit: Mar 12, 2010 20:00:55 GMT -5 by lookout
I cleaned it by cutting out the back, then cutting the fillets around the Y bones off the sides. I didn't bother with the bones around the rear fin, I left them in place. You could see the bones after cooking but they mushed up with a fork, along with everything else and did not affect the edibility.
