Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Catfish

I have cleaned and eaten a lot of CC since getting my pond. Most would grade out as B+ or better on taste and texture; there have only been a couple that tasted lousy and there was one last Fall that just didn't get cooked right - burnt & raw in adjacent bites.

I have not had a bad tasting CC since I started soaking the fillets in water (fresh) for 24 to 48 hours. I don't know what else this does, but it ensures that the last of the blood has left the meat.

I tried breading & deep frying with spectacularly bad results; to date the only way my family likes CC is pan fried in butter (OK) or grilled over charcoal (excellent). For either, my wife marinates the fillets in extra-virgin olive oil with spices (I like cajun seasoning the best, but she has also used dill) for about 15 minutes. She bought a perforated steel griddle for the charcoal grill to do CC on, which works well. A fresh (well, soaked for 2 days) CC of not more than about 3 pounds can be cooked up into a wonderful entree. Larger ones are not quite as good, IMHO, I believe mostly due to the disparity in meat thickness which makes them harder to cook evenly.

P.S. I discard the belly meat, but one forum member (who ???) from down South liked the belly meat best!