Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looks great - how long is your hand?

Your fish would butterfly. They must have some meat on them. Plonk them
down on their backs and hold them up vertically. Use a good thin bladed
reasonably sharp knife. Butterflying them lets more water out and
exposes more flesh to the smoke. Win/win.

Sawdust - don't buy it! $8 for a little plastic bag of it! Humbug! Any
hardwood sawdust will do. Find a sawmill that cuts hardwood and they'll
let you fill a semi-trailer for nix. I have bags it, if you want some no
probs. Fresh is best but older dust still ok. People often have
preferences like 'Mountain Ash is the best', but they're all good -
river red gum, iron bark, red & yellow box etc etc. I'll often spice it
up with herbs that I grow eg, lemon balm, oregano. Oregano smoke smells
like wacky backy so you can imagine what my neighbourhood is thinking
(but unfortunately the cops haven't 'busted' me yet...it would be fun).

The smoker is a warm smoker. Best results are when it's done slowly with
the heat right down so more smoke penetration - about 9 hours. You have
to be there the whole time to keep the sawdust up to it and the smoke
pouring out. If I don't have that long to spare I'll turn the gas up a
bit and do them in 3hrs or so (also depends on fish size/thickness).

Steamed Trout a'la Tony - use a false bottomed fish & vegetable steamer
(about $7 from Woolies). Remove head and tail if fish won't fit in else
just remove tail. Remove dorsal & anal fins by slicing down either side
with a sharp knife and grabbing the rear of the fins and pulling
forwards towards the head (do this with all fish anyway as these bones
are free-floaters and not attached to the backbone*). Grease false
bottom of steamer with butter or marg. In a bowl mix 1-1.5 cups bread
crumbs, 1 large finely diced onion, 1 large peeled carrot finely grated,
a tablespoon of dried mixed herbs (Italian if you want it a bit more
pungent) and grate in some fresh parsley. Stir it all up and moisten it
with bottled lemon juice diluted with 50% water. Just enough to make it
fluffy and a bit drier than say chicken stuffing as water will come out
of the fish and if you start with a 'wet' mix you'll finish up with a
soggy mess which would be a pity as the stuffing is part of the treat
(never cooked for anyone yet who didn't enjoy it). Stuff it liberally
into the fish gut cavity and the dorsal cavity you've hacked out. 6-7
mins in my 800W mwo generally does the trick. The secret with cooking
any fish is timing - it's best just cooked through to the backbone and
no further - a little bit underdone is better than overdone and dried
out.

* once the free-floaters are removed all other bones are attached to the
backbone and can be removed all together in one go - before serving,
remove the skin from top side, run a bread & butter knife (not too sharp
so it wont cut up any of the fine bones) down along the lateral line to
separate the top half of the meat from the bottom half, use a fork to
part the meat away and move it to the side of the dish or serve it out,
you've now got the backbone sitting on top of the other side of the
fish, grab the backbone fore & aft and ease it out. Bingo! No bones. Dig
in!

Geez, I'd better get some work done...

The smoker is a warm smoker. Best results are when it's done slowly with
the heat right down so more smoke penetration - about 9 hours. You have
to be there the whole time to keep the sawdust up to it and the smoke
pouring out. If I don't have that long to spare I'll turn the gas up a
bit and do them in 3hrs or so (also depends on fish size/thickness).