Bit of a noobish cooking Q

I recently tried frying a few crappie "whole", i.e., scaled and heads removed with slits in the sides, breaded and pan fried. Turned out ok, the bones did not stay put as I had assumed, not sure if I got into them a bit hard with the fillet knife- cooked too long, or what. I did enjoy the added flavor of the skins, I'm prepping to try them this time scaled, but fillet'd with the skin left on.

My question is, what do you do about the extra fish goo.. I dried/wiped with paper towels, but I havent really noticed this step being mentioned in any vids or tutorials.

Do you wipe/scrub/rinse to remove the slime, or just ignore it and dunk goo and all in the breading??

I just rinse, roll'em in corn meal & put'em in the grease. And I don't cut slits in them ... never saw the need to, since they're not all that thick. And besides, the fish's meat is so tender that 2-3min per side will cook them just fine. Those "slits" MAY allow the steam out, causing the fish to cook too dry. :dono

Thanks,

The reason I was asking is I noticed rinsing does nothing to remove the slime, and was curious if it was something I should be removing or not. I just breaded the whole crappie slime included, but prepping the fillets I was reminded the goo had me wondering, should I pad/wipe it off or just bread it and not pay any mind.

I agree the slits were probably overkill, especially for the 9.5-10" fish I was cooking. But, was just trying to follow others methods I had seen.

I've read somewhere of using a solution of water and apple cider vinegar to wipe them down with prior to cooking or freezing. I've never tried this as I fillet my fish without keeping any skin on. Perhaps a search using vinegar and fish slime might turn up some results?

I have learned over the years that crappie on ice produce much slime. I have started using bottles of ice to cool fish without the issue of melting ice and water. You’ll still have some slime, but less.

When I filet fish I have less slime using bottles. It seems I have to rinse my cleaning board a lot less using ice bottles.