Found another thing to do with this awesome tasting fish vs just frying, baking, grilling. Needed to try something different.



This batch was supposed to make 1 gallon, I used a package of 18 crappie to test it.

1. rinse crappie with water
2. cut into chunks (mine are about 1.5x 1.5 in size, some bigger.
3. put fish in a container with 1 cup pickling salt and cover with water, cover and put in the fridge for 48hrs.
4. rinse fish with water and then cover with white vinegar , cover and put in fridge for 24hrs.
5. rinse fish with water and put into jars with sliced onions.
6. Boil 4 cups vinegar and 3 cups sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat to cool (important to let it cool or the fish will get mushy)(optional 1 cup white wine can be added here to the mixture, I did not on this batch)
7. Add mixture to jars covering the fish
8. Add 1/4 cup pickling spice
9. Put in fridge for 2 weeks. (I could not wait 2 weeks and had to test them after 1, lol)

When doing the pickling spice I just split the 1/4 cup up in each jar since I used the smaller jars. I do recommend getting some cheese cloth to put the spice in , I let it float (which is fine) but you have to scrape it off the fish when you are ready to eat it and it is kind of a pain.

Store refridgerated

let me know how that turns out.... looks kinda funky..

They turned out great (for my first time) , I have had a few people try them that never had pickled fish before and they really liked them.

So post up your secret ingredients and instructions...so we can give it a go..

I don't think I would do crappie this way, but might make sandbass eat-able??

Redgun, I was so used to perch (real perch in MN) that I wanted to try a real clean fish, I eat sandies all the time and I know I have started to use sandies instead of crappie for my ceveche (sp) and it is good so I will probably try pickled sandies as well. I bet they will be just as good.

I'd like to try a jar first. I do like pickled eggs, okra, onions, sausage, wieners, pig knuckles and peppers. I bet I would like this too but I don't want to waste a bag of fish trying it out. You going to let any of those jars out for tasting?

lol, If you want to try it you can. I have let a few friends try it, they never had pickled fish before and they loved it, the pickle spice adds some sweetness to it as well so it is not as pickled as you would think.

Thanks for the recipe..gonna try it in a week or two...

Looks good

Is this safe with freshwater fish? I've heard of people getting pretty sick trying to make freshwater "sushi"

I met an old timer years ago that canned drum. They are a clean meat fish also.

I agree red.

Interesting......Sushi perhaps

There is an issue with eating raw fresh water fish, but mine has been frozen and the vinegar actually cooks it, similar to using lemon or lime juice for ceveche.