Gar Recipe, Easy Cleaning Tips, History, Market Price & More
I saw the post about Gar and thought I'd lend a professional opinion to the topic and my own cooking ideas along with some history etc.
First as many of you, I grew up learning that Gar was a trash fish and I was told to throw them on the bank and let them die rather than return them to the water. Here in Louisiana they seem to be hated by about 95% of the fisherman and many a day I heard my dad spit out a string of swear words when he hooked one. When I asked around at an early age I was told they are too hard to clean and meat was tough and not good to eat.
Fast forward many years later and I was fishing about 4 years ago and the place we were at we were catching lots of gar. We were bank fishing next to a dam and we were using shiners for crappie but for every crappie you caught, you also caught 4-5 gar. The ground was littered with them and you could smell the dead gar a half mile away.
Along comes an old black man with his pick up truck and his 2 sons. He pulled out 2 ice chests and his boys carried them down to where everyone was fishing along the dam wall. They asked if they could have any gar we caught and then proceeded to fill their ice chests up over the next hour. I think they ended up with about 40+ gar out of the 7-8 people that were fishing there that afternoon.
Anyway as the old man was standing there waiting for us to catch them he and I started talking and I asked him how he could eat such a nasty fish. He told me I was mistaken and the meat was very good and they were easy to clean. He said they sold about half the meat for extra money and kept half for themselves. I was intrigued to say the least and I got his phone number and asked if I could call him sometime to learn more.
I went home and did some research on gar and what I found out amazed me. Turns out that gar at one time was sought after for its meat and it was only after modern supermarkets came into existence that it was deemed less worthy than other fish and eventually became known as a trash fish. You see as modern commercial fishing took hold of our nation and more people shopped at grocery stores instead of growing, raising, and catching their own food the gar was less desirable. Catfish was being farm raised, cod, whiting and other fish were being caught in mass and the bass fishing sport took off to new never before seen heights.
Boats started being mass produced to the point where most every family could afford one and sport fishing became the norm. Why eat a gar if you can catch bass, catfish, crappie, walleye, etc. all of which have tender meat instead of the tougher gar meat.
Also, gar was too easy to catch and sport fisherman were after more of a challenge which is why bass fishing is so popular.
I wanted to learn more about gar so I called Mr. Vandell which was the old man I told you about. He invited me over to his house to learn how to clean gar and have dinner with him and his family to see how they tasted. Always one up to try new things I quickly accepted and met him that following Saturday at the same dam site.
Within an hour we collected 28 gar to bring back to his house and I followed him home. Here is what he taught me on how to clean gar. I have since modified his technique and now I can clean a 10-20lb gar in less than a minute flat.
First thing you got to understand is that gar have a backstrap of meat sort of like a deer. In fact they have 2 backstraps of meat. When you are looking at the top of the gar he has a backbone that runs down the length of his back. On either side of that backbone is a strip of meat that has no bones and it is easily filleted off.
You need a hacksaw and a pair of tinsnips if your going to be cleaning gar on a regular basis. I cut the head completely off with the hacksaw first. Just position the hacksaw right behind the head and saw right through it. Then, I take the tin snips and put them right under the tough armored skin where I cut the head off and I cut a line straight down the gars back all the way to the tail. Once you get down to the tail area take your snips and cut around the tail towards the underside of the belly so you can just peel the skin back and expose the 2 strips of meat.
Take a sharp fillet knife and cut the meat away from the body starting up at the head and cutting/filleting down towards the tail. The meat should come off very easily. You just want the 2 strips of meat on either side of the backbone and nothing else. NEVER EAT THE EGGS OF A GAR!!! They are poison and can actually make you very sick.
Now I have since modified my technique because I clean 10-20 gar at a time and I wanted to speed up the process. So I walked into Harbor Freight one day and they were having a sale and I bought a sawzall power saw for only $19.99. I now use it to cut the head off my gar very quickly and lately I been cutting the tail off too so all I have left is this round log/the gars main body. Then I just snip the skin down the back with the tin snips and slice out the 2 fillets.
In fact I can do it so fast now that I can clean a gar in about 45 seconds.
Lets talk about the gar meat now. It is tougher than meat from catfish and crappie but theres a way around that and it makes it delicious. While at the old mans house he explained to me that to make the meat tender they run it through a meat grinder and make gar balls or pattys with it.
He used a hand grinder but I use a simple electric grinder because I'm lazy. Just cut your backstrap of meat into 3-4 inch fillets and stick them in the grinder. I run mine through the grinder twice for extra tenderness.
Once you have the ground up gar meat you can add whatever you like as far as spices go. I add celery, green onions, bread crumbs, parsley, etc. Then I roll them into balls and coat them with my favorite fish batter and drop them into a deep fryer. They taste Oh SOOO Good when done!!
With all the spices and stuff I throw into the ground meat it's sort of like eating fried crab stuffing if you know what I mean.
I've had people taste the fried gar balls and then told them they were eating gar and they were blown away.
Gar has been going up in price for the last several years to the point to where it's catching up with catfish at the market. I was at the fish market in Marksville Louisiana not long ago and Gar was $2.57 per lb while catfish fillets were $2.99 a lb.
I can remember when gar was 50 cents a pound but more and more people are learning about how good it is and demand has risen.
Here are some pics of a gar being cleaned to give you an idea of how easy it is. these pics aren't mine but they show very good detail.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...7/IMG_0665.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...7/IMG_0666.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...7/IMG_0667.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...7/IMG_0668.jpg
On a side note we do a similar thing with small bream. An old country woman showed me this as well. We have several ponds where the bream are very abundant and just don't get very big. You can catch the small ones all day long but most people don't bother messing with them.
We scale em, lop the heads off & gut em, then put the entire body of the fish through the grinder twice, bones, fins and all. Same thing with the gar we mix spices, celery, onions, etc and make balls out of them, batter and fry em up to a golden brown.
Don't worry the bones are ground up and fry crispy so you never know they were there.
I guess this stuff isn't for everyone but us country folk learn to never waste anything, lol :)
I don't expect everyone to run out and start fishing for gar but if you ever get the chance to try some fried gar balls or pattys you should definantly try it with an open mind.
