Working up a Baked Crappie Dip

I have fillets pile up around here and often look for different ways to prepare Crappie for consumption. I had some rather large fillets in the fridge getting some age so I poured a bottle of ice cold drinking water over them then about 4 tablespoons of Zatrain's Liquid Crab Boil with Lemon and let the fish soak in the Crab boil in the fridge for about 6 hours. Then I drained and baked the fish on parchment paper kinda hard, you could see the flakes separating a bit when I pulled them out to cool. I chose to bake the fillets to remove excess water that poaching adds.



I used 2 cups shredded Baked Seasoned Crappie fillets, 1-1/2 cups sour cream, 1 cup Ricotta cheese, 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese (half in the dip & half on top), about a cup of fresh Baby Spinach chopped, & about 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley. After mixing well I added the packet of Vegetable soup mix and mixed again. Once mixed I placed in a 9in Pyrex Pie Plate then added the other 1/2 of the Mozzarella cheese before popping into the oven to bake. I baked it for 30-35 minutes (I was busy cooking Eggplant) before removing from the oven.



Although very good it lacked salt. The soup mix was lite on salt. Also a pressed toe of Garlic and some Cayenne pepper would take this to the next level.




I tried it 3 ways, hard Toasted white bread, dipping the Eggplant spears into it, and on Tostito's Catania Thins and the latter was almost magic. I think the extra salt on the chip made a difference. The toast looses the flavor I wouldn't bother with dipping with a bread and the Eggplant was a excellent combination too.