4 x 4 BBQ Crappie on the Half Shell.....Yard Long Beans Too

So we planted a few Chinese Yard Long Beans this year since we can't grow beans outside our fence due to the over population of Whitetail Deer. 20ft of these on a trellis will give you snap beans all summer long.

The Half Shell cleaning process I do includes using a very curved fillet knife to shear the skin and scales at a 90 degree angle to create a very clean, handle able fillet.



Today we decided to grill our Crappie with 4 different Asian Glazes to see which ones we liked best. Char Siu is the Red, sticky, sweet Pork at the Chinese Restaurants. Eel Sauce is used in Japanese Restaurants to coat their Eel fillets while cooking. Korean BBQ Sauce is used as a Rib Glaze in Korean Restaurants. Lastly, Teriyaki Glaze Honey Pineapple.



While allowing the fillets to warm up a bit each glaze was brushed on two fillets. These sat in a holding pattern till the Green Beans started to tenderize a bit.



First a spoon of Bacon Grease was added to the pan followed by the Aromatics. Once they sweated a bit I added the Green Beans and some Toasted Sesame Oil. Tossing everything with a spoon to coat I guess a tablespoon of oil was needed to wet all the surfaces of the beans. The heat was reduced to medium and the beans stirred till the beans started to get tender on the ends. Chinese restaurants dunk their green beans in the deep fryer, we are trying to get away from the deep fryer here.
Once tender a couple of tablespoons Oyster Sauce, 3 Tbls Merrin, 1 Tbls Dark Soy Sauce with Mushroom flavor was added then cooked about 3 minutes. Salt & Pepper to taste here. At this point I left enough heat on and drizzled cold water from my water bottle to create steam further cooking the beans down. Just a tiny bit of crunch was left to mimic a Chinese Restaurants texture.



When I started steaming the beans the Crappie fillets were placed on the grill so the Scales on the Skin were facing away. This makes handling the fillets with a spatula easier since it will slide under without hanging on any scales. Three coats of glaze was applied to each fillet allowing it to partially dry between coats. The final coat was when the fillets started cracking. The finished fillets were lined up by glaze so we could compare justly. I Cooked a pot of Basmati Rice to provide a starch then the feeding commenced.

The Char Siu tasted just like the Pork you find in a Chinese restaurant but without the background flavor of the meat, it was tasty. Well the Eel Sauce glazed fillets were among the best followed by the Teriyaki Honey Pineapple. Now the Teriyaki didn't just jump out till a little soy sauce was added on the plate. Then Flavor Explosion! I thought the Korean BBQ Sauce would be better on Pork Ribs but it still tasted good on the fillets.



This picture kinda explains it right.