Spots before our eyes

...or the charm of "trash fish"

This is a tale of the lowly, prickly, and often delicious Virginia Spot, a fish widely used by fishermen for bait and by locals for lunch.  The fish is small, usually under a pound and less than 5 inches in length, and distinguished by a coloration fading from steel grey on the dorsal to yellow in the ventral side and by a large, eye-like spot behind the gills.  They are often referred to as Spots, or Spot Croaker,  or Croaker Spots.  Like most fish around the Chesapeake, they spend their winter adult lives in the Atlantic and are caught there in nets or with worms, and then they migrate into the brackish waters of the bay and its estuaries to spawn and grow....

...wherein six of them ran afoul of my crab traps.

You know, it seems everywhere I've lived, there are some little swimmers that get derided as "trash fish" or "bait fish" that, if you dig a bit, you discover the locals have been eating for centuries.  Look, guys, unless a fish is poisonous (like Fugu) or raised in a toxic environment, it's edible, and some of the smaller, bonier varieties have amazing, delicate flavors.  Now as to the lowly spot:

The Spots are small, with spiny fins, and a bit of a bear to clean.

 

I've read dozens of recipes on how to prepare these little things, but the one we went with was this:  Scale and gut, removing the fins.  We then tossed them in flour (so the egg will stick), then in an egg wash (so everything else will), then in cornmeal spiced with salt and a generous amount of pepper.

As its summer, we're doing a lot of outdoor cooking in the dutch ovens, which make great fryers.  You just plop the little rascals in, turning occasionally, and fry until golden brown.

A bit of fresh corn never hurts either :)

Now for a bit of a simple side, we did a bit of cole slaw.

And for this one I have to thank Erik over at Garden Fork, a great site for recipes and DIY if you don't know it.

 This is so simple:  Head of cabbage, two carrots(both shredded), half a cup of good olive oil, 2 tbl apple cider vinegar, 2 tbl maple syrup (Erik uses 4, but I find that a bit sweet), salt and pepper.....

and a good tablespoon full of caraway seeds.  Blend well and set aside to mellow for at least an hour.  It just gets better with time.

Yum

The fish is delicate and sweet, with a flavor very much like really good fluke, but bony, so be careful.  We've also heard they make GREAT fishcakes.

More shortly

M