Smoked Crappie

sampled 9/17/19

Yeah, another non-BBQ post, but this is something I just had to try.  With our recent successful experiments in smoking salmon in our little bullet smoker, in the back of my mind I have been wondering how smoked crappie would taste.  Fried crappie is one of my favorite meals.  Even beating BBQ.  Yes, I know, heresy, but there it is.  Take some freshly caught crappie fillets, dip them in milk, roll them in corn meal, and fry them up in a little butter and even Aaron Franklin would have a tough time measuring up.  Plus you have the fun of catching them!

Yesterday I did a guided crappie trip on Lake Lewisville, specifically so I could try this out.  We got a 25 fish limit in about 2 hours and my guide turned them into a big gallon bag of fresh fillets.  This afternoon I picked out the biggest fillets, rinsed them off well and patted them dry.  Then we fired up the smoker and smoked them on the top rack for just 30 minutes.  We used a smaller than usual pile of charcoal with added pecan, oak, and some macadamia nut shells.

This is what we had after just 30 minutes of smoking.  Internal temperature of 145 plus was confirmed with a meat thermometer.

Pretty darned good eating and about as quick and easy a meal as you can make with a smoker.  The fish had great smoke flavor and was flaky and moist.  Some of the thinner parts, the thumb on the mitten, for example, were just a little crispy but still tasted great.  I suspect we will be doing this from now on whenever I can catch a good mess of crappie.  It doesn't quite beat pan fried, but it is still mighty good.  Unfortunately, crappie costs way more than salmon!