Pressure canned pickerel

12 pints

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
¾ cup Pure pickling salt
1 gram Water
25 pounds Prepared pickerel cleaned and skinned

Directions

Dissolve the pickling salt in water to make a brine.

Clean, skin, and scrub fresh fish. "Fillet" the fish, don't worry about the "Y" bones. (note: Sonny leaves in the backbone and splits) Cut in jar length pieces and soak in cold brine for 60 min. Remove the fish pieces, drain, and pack solidly just to the top of the jars--not more than 1/16-in. below the sealing rim.

Half-close the filled jars. (Place the flat lide on the sealing rim of the jar, and screw the band down, just til the band cannot be pulled up off the threads) Exhaust the jars in the pressure canner at zero pounds. (Follow the directions for your canner re: amount of water in canner, etc) After 15 minutes, open the canner, then open one jar and test the center of its contents with pencil thermometer.

(it should read at least 170degF/77degC, if not, give it 5 more minutes)

When jars are exhausted, lift the canner off heat and finish screwing the bands firmly tight. Be sure there is enough very hot water in the canner for "Pressure-processing." Return canner to heat, put on lid, let steam vent in steady flow for 10 minutes, close petcock/vent and start to time.

Pressure process at 10 pounds for 100 minutes (1 hour and 40 min).

Remove jars; air-cool naturally.

Notes: If "putting up", use only pints. Sonny usually puts up, but I often do smaller quantities in quart jars for use within a day or two and refrigerate them as soon as they cool off. You can add a hot brine to the jars before processing, but then I would exhaust in my enameled canning kettle. The salt can raise cane with the pressure canner. I've used this pickerel on sandwiches, like canned tuna, but my favorite is in fish cakes. Substitute in any cod fish cake recipe.

Or heat up in the microwave, and ladle any sauce over it you generally use for fish.

This recipe was developed by Francis R. (Sonny) Martin, Sr. and Charlotte Welch, beginning with the information on canning seafood in "Putting Food By" (Greene, Hertzberg, Vaughan--4th ed.) Submitted By CHARLOTTE WELCH On 11-01-94

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