Originally Posted by
Mrs. Crappie Stalker
Boil one pound of crappie fillets with your favorite brand of crab boil and a quartered lemon. They only take a few minutes and yes, they'll start to fall apart. Drain fillets and chill in the fridge several hours to firm up. Or, you can put your bowl of fillets in another bowl full of ice if you don't have time for the fridge.
Finely crush 1 full sleeve of saltine crackers.
Whisk the following together in a large bowl:
1/2 cup Duke's mayo (I know there are others, but this is my favorite)
1 large egg
1 tbsp Worcestershire
2 tsp Old Bay
1 tsp dry mustard (or 2 tsp yellow, brown or dijon mustard)
salt and pepper to taste.
hot sauce to taste if you want some extra kick. I use sriracha or Louisiana.
Add 3 finely chopped green onions. Add your chilled crappie and 1/2 of a sleeve of finely crushed saltine crackers. Stir all together and if it seems too wet, add more cracker crumbs.
Put the rest of your cracker crumbs and some corn meal on a plate or in a pie pan and season with a little more Old Bay and pepper. Form your patties and then coat both sides in the crumbs and meal. Fry in butter or 1/2 butter and 1/2 oil until golden on both sides.
You can tailor this to your own tastes. There are recipes that call for chopped bell pepper and use regular onions instead of green. If you prefer these, you'll probably want to saute them before adding to the mix, because they most likely won't cook through if used raw.
I've also used panko bread crumbs to coat the patties instead of the crackers and meal. They're really good this way too and very crispy on the outside.
