Slo-Cooker Crappie Stew

[kgalla02]

I'm no master chef & I kind of discovered this by accident, but it ended up quite good. Had a bunch of peppers & tomatoes getting old in the fridge and a bag of crappie fillets in the freezer ... didn't want to fry them, thought about making a gumbo, but decided on a fish stew after picking a recipe off the internet. So my point is, pick a fish stew recipe you like and substitute crappie fillets for all the seafood elements you'd otherwise use and modify it to taste ... and use a slow-cooker, . Here goes, cooking is not an exact science with me & I don't necessarily follow measurments or ingredient lists, so think of it more or less of a guideline, eh?:

Ingredients

- 1 cup chopped onions

- 1 cup chopped celery ...**I actually used a 12oz bag of mirepoix-style (onions, carrots, celery) blend frozen veggies, there's a soup-blend mix and another mix with okra in it I'm gonna' try.

- 5 cloves of minced garlic

- portions of (4) semi-fresh bell peppers from the fridge (so probably 1 1/2 cup or so total), one red, one yellow, one orange, one green, chopped and chunked.

- 1 28oz can diced tomatoes ...**I used a 14.5oz can and a couple semi-fresh tomatoes from the fridge.

- 1 8oz bottle clam juice ... **did not use, I've put it in gumbos & I'm sure it would work great in this too, just didn't have any and wasn't in the mood to shop.

- 1 6oz can tomatoe paste

- 1/2 cup dry white wine or water ... **just poured in what looked like half a cup of red wine from the fridge.

- 1 Tbs red wine vinegar ... **did not have, so since I already substituted red wine for white wine, I used apple cider vinegar and figured the combination of red wine & vinegar would suffice, follow me? I also probably used more then 1 Tbs.

- 1 Tbs olive oil or vegetable oil ... **did not use, I had some, just didn't see the point.

- 2 1/2 tsp dried italian seasoning ... **wasn't sure what they were calling for here, so I used that italian seasoning you get to make your own dressing & sometimes mix in with ground beef, but I also added a little oregano & basil just to be sure.

- 1/4 tsp sugar ... **used brown sugar, and probably more like 1 tsp.

- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes ... **oh come on, at this point I'm starting to feel my pantry/cooking supplies are woefully inadequate to follow any recipe. Substituted a half-teaspoon or so of good ol'-fashioned cayenne pepper for this one.

- 1 bay leaf

- 1lb cod, cut into 1" pieces ... **I used a pretty good sized bag of crappie fillets & did not cut them, but instead just let mixing them into the stew break them up. It worked pretty good, some big chunks, some flaking, et...

- the recipe calls for 3/4lb medium shrimp, (1) 6 1/2oz can of chopped clams, (1) 6oz can of crabmeat and 1/4 cup chopped, fresh parsley ... none of which I used. The whole point of this exercise was to substitue the crappie fillets for any seafood ingredient called for in the recipe and make it more of a 'fish' stew than a 'seafood' stew. Didn't use the parsley either, figured it was just for decoration.

How to make it

• In 5 to 6 quart slow cooker, (**I was using a 3qt or so), combine the first 13 ingredients (from onions down to bay leaf ); mix well.
• Cover; cook on High setting for 4 hours.
• Stir crappie fillets into stew. Reduce heat to Low; cover and cook an additional 30 to 45 minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork.
• Just before serving, remove and discard bay leaf. Stir in parsley.

So there you have it, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, basically just take a slow-cooker fish/seafood stew recipe, substitute crappie fillets for the fish/seafood ingredients & modify it to fit whatever you have around the kitchen ... it really worked well for me. I really like slow-cooking because I can put the ingredients in the pot and even take off fishing for a few hours, .

Enjoy.

[jaxsprat]

Sounds like some good eating to me..........

[BULLFROG-1]

Interesting.1st time i ever heard of clam juice,Ive been using cream of shrimp soup.....

[kgalla02]

Interesting.1st time i ever heard of clam juice,Ive been using cream of shrimp soup.....

With stuff like clam juice, I've used it in seafood gumbo just to see what it does, but don't keep it around. Fish-sauce works just as well and I usually have some of that, though not this time. Now, cream of shrimp soup, that sounds interesting, I'm going to have to look for some of that, .