For a great summer party centerpiece, try a stuffed bass:
Catch a bass sized to fit your barbecue, oven or whatever large
baking appliance you have. A 30#er works great for a large party,
but needs a 40" oven. Clean the fish, but do not remove the head
and scales. Cut along both sides the spine from the belly cavity
and remove as much of the spine as you can without externally
mutilating the fish. Pull off as many ribs as you can, but don’t
worry if you miss some. (For extra effect, remove the eyeballs
and store in the refrigerator.)
The stuffing is a mixture of whatever marine stuff you have. I like
to use lobster, rock crab, scallop, quahoag, and maybe a little
shrimp. Combine with portugese bread soaked in white wine and
some chopped-up celery. Improvise.
Stuff the whole bass with the stuffing mixture, and sew up the
belly cavity, mouth and gills. Coat it with cooking oil so it won’t
stick to whatever you’re baking it on.
I’d give a 20# fish about 90 mins on low (~350 maybe). During
the last half hour you can try covering it in rockweed if you are
cooking on a (covered) gas or charcoal grill.
Try hard to get the whole bass onto a platter. It’ll be very soft,
and it’d be a shame to have it fall apart now.
Remember those eyeballs? Take them out of the fridge and pop
the better one into the eye socket. It’s a pretty cool effect.
To serve, just cut the skin as you would a parchment, and serve
meat and stuffing from the inside. The few rib bones on a large
fish are very easy to pick out. ~ josko
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Originally published August 30, 2004 on Fly Anglers Online by josko.