Are you skilled at filleting and skinning? I hope so.
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Fried Fish:

Make a 50/50 mixture of flour and cornmeal, seasoned to taste.

Dredge the fillets in plain flour, then beaten egg, then the cornmeal mixture.

Shallow or deep fry until golden, about 6 minutes for bluegills.
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Cold Poached Bluegill Fillets:

Poach fillets at a slow simmer in a 50/50 mixture of dry white wine and water, seasoned to taste.

Remove the fillets and chill them for at least one hour in the fridge.

Serve cold with cocktail sauce (poor man's shrimp) or sour cream sauce with dill.

Garnish with cucumber and radish slices.
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Bluegills Tempura

Make a thin pancake batter, stirring as little as possible. small lumps should remain.

Dredge fillets in flour, then batter.

Shallow or deep fry until golden, about 6 minutes for bluegills.

Batter and fry some crisp, thinly sliced vegetables (onion, carrot, peppers, etc.) in the same way.

Serve with ponzu dipping sauce.
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Fried Panko Coated Fish

Follow the instructions above for Fried Fish but substitute panko crumbs for the corn meal breading.
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Bon Appetit!

Jim

Hey John,
I don't remember that fish being that large the first time you accidentally posted it here. :) Has it been growing after the fact?
Melly (who is married to a fisherman)

Nicely done! :+) Dont'cha hate the white edges....
Hope you've got a big family if you're frying 44 of those babies!!

Deanna (documentation and photographer for my job....)

I confess I kinda gave it the "fish eye" myself. Hmmmm

Hmmmm. Looks pretty normal for a Missouri bluegill. You fillet 'em with a chainsaw down there don't you?

Jim

Ha ha!

Well, glad no one is ticked off about kinda off subject. My Photoshop skills are certainly suspect even though a good buddy of mine did that one.

Jim writes if I'm skilled at filleting and skinning? Yep, I'm darned good at filleting. I might start skinning some of the coon been catching (11 now) in my pepper patch lately. And my deck was raided last night. All the ripe and almost ripe Sungold tomatoes were eaten (I suspect a possum) I've skinned a few wild animals in my life, but never a coon or possum.

Back to topic...

I like Jim's recipes. I too, like dredging in flour to start things off. Then into the fridge for at least 30 min. Then an egg wash followed by seasoned crumbs of some kind. Several inches oil in very hot fry pan.

Got skunked this morning. Fish had lock mouth and only caught a minnow. Cold front moving in.

Bought a thousand crickets mailorder postpaid for $19 a couple weeks ago for fishing. Am soon going to have to order more. Did you know they are cannibals?

jt

Here's an afterthought, John. With your taste for chiles, why not make up a batch of bluegill ceviche? I'm sure you can do your own research on recipes. Just keep it on the simple side.

Jim

Jim,

Someone on a hot pepper forum suggested the same thing. I don't think I'm ready for raw fish yet. Just not that adventurous. I won't touch lutefisk either.

Caught two more keepers this morning at sunup. It gets crowded on weekends so only stayed an hour.

Pretty much decided to do the fish fry at one of the lakes we go to. Keeping it simple. Use my propane burners and just have sweetcorn (in season here), potato salad and fish.

jt

Looks to me like a 'cut and paste' photo job...

My favorite is Lake Erie Walleye, or Yellow Perch.
After cleaning then I'll portion them out, vacuum bag, and freeze.
Thawed out, I usually dredge them is a seasoned flour, dip into an egg wash then toss the fillets around in an Italian bread crumb and deep fry.
Combine that with a home made tarter sauce, cole slaw and fries and you have one excellent fish dinner.

Working in a restaurant we had "Lake Erie Perch" on the menu. I had to bread some up one night and took a look at the box they came in.. Product of Turkey was printed on the box. And the wife wonders why I donÂt like to eat out as often.

Jimmy, like you I love the walleye and the lake perch, although I'm on the Lake Michigan side of Michigan here.

Perch is my absolute favorite but I'm sure not adverse to eating what we used to call "pan fish", the blue gills and sunfish.

I like them just cut into filets, dipped into flour, egg wash and seasoned crumbs, then quickly panfried. Add a bit of tomato/basil butter if you like and a side of cornbread and I'm happy. Very happy.

Annie

Annie,

You are right about perch. They can't be beat. The best were the big ones we used to get ice fishing. For some reason, we only caught small ones in mid-summer.

John,

Are we going to see pics of your fish fry?

Jim

Jimmy,

I've posted before that my fav fish is the Yellow Perch, the 2nd fav is Bluegill and the 3rd is Walleye. The Walleyed Pike is actually a member of the perch family as you probably know.

There are no Yellow Perch here in Misery (the state just East of Kansas, Dorothy). The largest Walleye I've ever caught was here in Missouri though. (5 lbs)

Jim,

The fish fry is somewhat on hold. My granddaughter will be vacationing in Texas until sometime in early August.

Pictures?? Can you imagine me taking pictures of some foodie event?

jt