Thumbs up on smoked eel

[onionpants]

Since I bought a Nipper Kipper smoker, I've attempted to catch eels purposely; I've caught dozens by accident. With the intention of smoking them as opposed to feeding them to my dog. Robina Lakes is teeming with eels, and I caught two in two hours of fishing. Cleaned em' and smoked em'. Isn't bad at all, as good as any other smoked fish. The dog will have to stick to dog food from now on, the eels are going in my smoker.

[fish-n-dive]

Yea, I'd give smoked eel a thumbs up as well. (we are talking about freshwater eels aren't we???)

cheers 8-)

[Jim_Tait]

Welcome aboard - I've been smoking them for ages and love them as does my whole family kids and all - I marinate mine with a bit of hawk smoking mix beforehand - placing verticle cuts to the vertebrae about three inches apart along both flanks to ensure the marinae get in. Also discovered that chilling them after smoking and then cutting off flesh and thinly slicing (like smoked salmon) makes for great cracker snack meat.

One other trick - i discovered by accident is that paperbark off melaleuca trees is the most effective remover of eel slime - after preparing your eel break off a length of bark, crumple it up and rub dry over hands like it was a piece of soap and wash off with water and the slime and most of the smell dissappears leaving clean hands - amazing and makes eel preparation a more attractive proposition!

Regards and good smoking - Jim

[Az]

what would you compare it to? i'm sure its great but I couldn't bring myself to keep them for a feed

slimy buggers to work with :-/

[onionpants]

Az - I don't know what to compare it to other than to say it tastes like smoked fish. They may be ugly and slimey, but the taste isn't that much different from "normal" looking fish.

Jim - I've been using salt to get rid of the slime. Seems to work pretty well. I marinate my fish in a brine of salt, brown sugar, pepper, and a couple dashes of soy sauce.