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Title: Cleaning Catfish 2
Yield: 1 Serving

Ingredients

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Instructions

Our method was:

We hammered in a spike (big nail) into the wall of the boat house, then cut
off the head of the nail and sharpened the remaining rod.

Catfish are really hard to kill. My Dad always put them out of their
misery, before he would start cleaning them. An old tale was that you could
stick a broom straw up their nose and it would puncture their brain and
they would quickly die.

We didn't have any luck with the broom straw (small brains like democrats)
so we just pushed their heads down on the sharp spike on the wall and
assumed that brain puncture was accomplished. They kinda croak like when
you do that.

After hanging them from the spike, we made a cut all the away around, right
behind the head. Then, using pliers we would strip the skin away by pulling
downward. Catfish skin is really tuff.

We liked catfish fillet, so while the fish was still hanging we would take
a fillet knife and remove a nice thick slab of catfish meat off each side.

Some times we would have a gas cooking pot going on the boat dock and drop
the fresh fillets straight into the hot oil right from the fish. Sure was
good. (With hushpuppies and sweet iced tea of course)

After cleaning the fish, we would toss the carcus back into the water to
feed the turtles and such.

One of the strangest things I ever saw was a catfish, that had just been
skinned and filleted, slowly swim off when tossed back into the water. If
I'm lyin' I'm dyin', that really happened, more than once. Like I said a
catfish is really hard to kill.

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Contributor: Richard Matthews

Preparation Time: 0:00

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