mud vains in fish?

Question

how do you remove the mud vain in catfish so you cna fillet them and what it the best way to cook them

Answer 1

It's not really a mud vein as much as it is a layer of dark red meat between the inside of the skin and the white meat. Just filet the fish and then with a sharp filet knife carefully trim the red meat off of the filet. Be sure to get it all........even one bite of the red meat will give that bite of fish a strong fishy taste. It will seem like you are throwing away a lot of meat but in reality if you get 30% of the fish's weight in clean meat you are doing good. And also check your local laws pertaining to the use of game fish for bait because you can use the red meat for more catfish bait (I have). Also be sure to trim the fatty looking meat off around the belly area and along the back near the dorsal fin area. You can find all kind of web sites that will show you how to filet a catfish. As far as cooking them, nothing beats just shaking your filets in a plastic sack of cornmeal and then cooking them in a pot of oil (perferably peanut oil if no one is allergic to peanuts). One thing to remember (and a lot of people make this mistake) is to cut all of your filets up so they are the same size. And cut them small enough so that the inside gets cooked before the outside gets over cooked. Quite often if someone is cleaning a fairly large catfish (30+lbs) they will cut the meat up in such large chunks that either the inside gets done and the outside is over done or the outside is done and the inside is rather raw. Don't get your oil too hot and don't put a lot of meat in at a time. Experiment with your cooking process.........like anything else you may not get it right the first time but when you do it will be very rewarding. Nothing is better that a plate of fresh caught catfish filets and a side of hush-puppies and coleslaw. Good Luck.


p.s. One thing I forgot to mention.......I don't believe those stories about large catfish tasting bad or fishy. This is probably a result of the filets not prepared properly. I have eaten 50+lb catfish and after cutting the filets into small 2 finger sized chunks it tasted like any other sized catfish.

Answer 2

Skin the fish, fillet as normal and cut out the dark meat.

Hard to beat catfish fillets deep fried in the right batter. Make is simple, use cornmeal, salt and pepper. Dip the fillets in a milk bath, drop then into the cornmeal, best way is to put the meal an seasonings into a lunch bag, shake, The real key is hot oil. Make sure the oil is hot enough that the fish fry quickly. Drop the fish in the oil and cook until brown. Good eats!

Answer 3

remove all the innards especially the bile sack this will ruin the meat.Cook them any way you want BBQ'd deep fried etc..

Answer 4

bonethug style