“I don’t eat dem things!”

“I throw sheepheads back!”

“Sheepsheads is too hard to clean!”

Well, so be it. Because my lot in life is not to change anyone’s impression or opinion of this little fish. If you don’t eat ‘em. . .that’s fine. If you throw them back. . .that’s okay too. And the truth of the matter is. . .they really aren’t any harder to clean than a speckled trout if you know a good fish-cutting technique (which I’ll get into in a minute or two).

So with that said, lemme ‘splain a few things, Bunky!

The biological and culinary hardcore of it all is that the meat of a sheepshead (which is a member of the porgy or seabream family) is probably among the finest to ever come out of the water! It’s pure white. It’s virtually worm and parasite free. On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a “high-9” in palatability, taste, and texture. And as table fare it can be prepared in a myriad of different—and delicious!—ways. For example. . .

Preparation:

If you remember a few issues of Louisiana Outdoors back, I showed you precisely in multiple pictures how Kenny Campo takes a 9-inch filleting knife and easily removes the edible tenderloins from the sheepshead, using the groove along the fish’s dorsal fin as a template to guide the knife blade.

A year or so before that, on my television show, I illustrated how to easily lift the fillets off the sheepshead using a linoleum or carpet knife.

But just a week or two ago, after patiently and anatomically experimenting with a box of fish, I’ve figured out that if you angle your electric filleting knife approximately 25 degrees and cut from the lateral line to the doral of the fish, using the backbone as a guidance template, you’ll cleanly extract just the prime, meaty portion of the fillet, leaving the belly and lower caudle fin (which has little edible meat) behind. In fact, if you execute the procedure correctly, you’ll be able to read the pages of this magazine through the fish’s backbone! Now that’s slick, Slick!

And Now For Recipes:

To make mock crabmeat, take the fillet, carefully scrape (or cut) away the heavy bloodline, and lightly wrap it in a single layer of cheesecloth. Then prepare a pot of water, seasoned just as you would if you were getting ready to boil up a bunch of crabs, shrimp, or crawfish, and bring it to a rolling boil. At that point, drop the fillet into the pot (the water will stop boiling). Then when the water comes back to a boil, immediately remove the pot from the fire, put the lid on the top, and allow the fillets to steep for 5 to 10 minutes (or until the fish flakes easily with a fork). All that’s left to do is to remove the fish from the stock, let it cool, and break it into “lumps” of mock crabmeat. Viola!

To do broiled sheepshead, take the fillets and place them onto a shallow-sided sheet pan (I prefer to line the pan with parchment paper, but if you don’t have any on hand you can spray it with Pam). Then preheat the oven to broil (that’s 500-degrees plus on most models). While you’re waiting, season the fish by brushing it liberally with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkling it with Frank Davis Grill and Broil Seasoning (or a homemade mixture of salt, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, thyme, and paprika), squeezing on the juice of half a lemon, and splashing the fillets with a few drops of cocktail sherry. All that’s left is to slide the fillets under the broiler element and cook them until they turn a golden, toasty, semi-charred color. (They can be served up right away as an entrée; they can also be refrigerated then later broken into chunks, mixed with lettuce and tomatoes, tossed with vinaigrette and served as a chilled, light fish salad.

To do sheepshead on the grill, prepare the fillets as you would for broiling, only place them gently on the grill or barbecue pit and cook them only until they flake. By the way, it’s a good idea to baste the fish periodically as it cooks to keep the fillets moist—I like to baste ‘em with an olive oil/garlic/lemon juice mixture. (And, yep—if you really want to barbecue the fillets, just slather then down with your favorite BBQ sauce. It’s a tad different, sure, but it’s still pretty tasty).

To do bronzed sheepshead, place a couple of fillets on a sheet of waxed paper on the countertop and pat them dry with paper towels. Then salt and pepper them (or sprinkle them with a little Frank Davis Bronzing Mix) and place them into a very hot non-stick skillet which you’ve generously sprayed with Pam. Then cook the fillets over high heat (dropping in a touch of margarine as they sizzle) until the outer edges of the fish turn a beautiful golden color.

To do pan sautéed sheepshead, prepare the fillets just as you would to bronze them, only drop them into a sizzling hot skillet that contains a couple of tablespoons of butter, along with about a cup of mixed seasoning veggies—onions, celery, bell pepper, parsley, garlic and scallions. Cook the fish on both sides, gently flipping them over real easy-like with an egg turner, until they become opaque and flaky. Hint: Mushrooms go great when sautéed with the fish, and for a special accompanying sauce you can add to the skillet any variety of the Campbell’s cream soups.

To do fried sheepshead, it’s a no-brainer! Simply dredge wet fish fillets in your favorite fish fry (or seasoned corn meal) until uniformly coated and then drop them into hot peanut oil (375 degrees). At the right temp, and with the help of my Frank Davis Gourmet Fish Fry, they should come out super crunchy and crispy in but a few minutes (and by the way, the texture and purity of the sheepshead fillet will astound you)! It’s actually really hard to find a better-tasting piece of fried fish anywhere!

To do sheepshead courtbouillion, use your regular courtbouillion recipe but substitute the sheepshead fillets for the traditional catfish or redfish. The flavor will be light and delicate, not overbearing, and certainly not fishy, yet the fillets will be firm enough to hold together when heaped over a bowl of steamed rice. But once again, because of the subtle flavor of the trimmed sheepshead fillets, the finished dish will take on a truly gourmet quality.

To do baked sheepshead, all you’ll need to do is place the fillets (or even a couple whole, scaled and gutted fish if they’re small enough), into a baking pan, pat the fish dry with paper towels, liberally brush them down with melted butter or olive oil, and season them well all over with salt and black pepper or some Frank Davis Seafood Seasoning. To get the fish to come out perfect every time, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, rest the fish on a sheet of oiled parchment, top them with about a half-dozen thin slices of fresh lemon, and bake for about 20-30 minutes until the fillets flake easily. A can of Rotel Tomatoes with Green Chilies poured right over the fish about halfway through the baking process will add a touch of piquant to the finished, light, accompanying pan sauce.

To do stewed sheepshead, all you gotta do is smother the fillets down in a black cast iron Dutch oven (it’s kinda like a courtbouillion done on top the stove) until the fish shows signs of falling apart in the pot. Of course, to make this true Creole you gotta have a nice tomato gravy going on and a pot of steamed rice on the side. By the way, the lightness and whiteness of the sheepshead fillet lends itself beautifully to this recipe.

To do sheepshead patties, you can take some of the sheepshead fillets I taught you how to poach way back at the beginning of this article, flake them and toss them around in a big bowl with seasoning veggies, fold in some chopped and cooked potatoes, sprinkle on some seasoning (I think Frank Davis Sprinkling Spice is a good choice), shape the mixture into fish cakes, dip them in egg wash, dredge them in spicy bread crumbs, and pan fry them on both sides in melted butter in a hot skillet until golden brown and crusty. If you think those so-called “codfish balls” your Maw Maw used to fix back in the day were some good, wait until you taste these bad boys!

Now at this point, I am rapidly running out of column space, so I’ll have to quit typing pretty soon. But before I stop pounding on the keyboard you just have to know that I’ve only touched on but a scant few of the ways you can prepare and cook sheepshead, convict fish, Rondeau sea bream, stripped snapper, jailhouse bream, pipeline perch, Southern lady’s purse, or whatever it is you call these things. There’s still Creole, etouffee, sauce piquante, fondue, cacciatore, and dozens of other dishes to work up!

But hey! As I said at the outset, don’t let anything that I might say influence your perception of the species. You don’t want to eat them and you want to throw them back? That’s fine! It’s just that I guess I’m all hyped up about them because I happen to know firsthand just how dad-gummed good they taste, even with the bad rap they’re always getting. And since right now everybody’s catching them just about everywhere they fish, I guess I just had to tell you that “it’s seasoned sheepshead season!”