Bluefish, oh you amazing yellow eyed devils

bluefish, often maligned, cursed and tossed away. Next to dogfish, the plague of many fishermen in the northeast. The yellow eyed devils cut lines, shred bait and bite fingers. There's an old joke that goes..."whats the best way to cook a bluefish? fillet it, rub it all over with garlic, black pepper and other spices, tack it to a cedar plank, and grill it over an open fire till its done. Throw away the bluefish and eat the plank"...Oh what poor fools they are who do this. Bluefish is a delicious food when prepared and cooked properly. There are three things to remember when you want to eat bluefish and enjoy it. 1) size (like everything else it matters). 2) freshness and handling (again see size)...3) cooking method....Ok we'll go in order
1)never ever eat a bluefish over about 10lbs, they are extremely oily. Here in the northeast the bluefish show up to feast on schooling fish,mostly herring and Menhaden. They do this for a reason, the high oil (fat content) that they need to make their fall migration both off shore and south. The bigger the fish the more oil. A perfect size is between 4 and 8 lbs, smaller fish called skipjacks are good too.
2) this is probably the single most important step in eating bluefish. Because of the high oil content they do not keep well. Never EVER buy a bluefish at the market, unless its been smoked. Bluefish do not keep well as the oil will start to flavor the meat with in hours and cause it to get soft and mushy. Fresh caught is the only way to go, and once caught it must be bled and put on ice. It makes me gag every time I see some tourist throw their bluefish on the sand where it sits baking in the sun, covered in sand for 3 hours. as soon as you can fillet it, and unless you are smoking it, skin it and cut out all the dark meat along the lateral line.
OH and please do not freeze it, it will thaw out into a mushy mess (unless you do a dry salt brine fist...more on that later)
3) Ok preparation. You have, lets say a 5lb bluefish, properly cared for, filleted, skinned and all the dark meat cut out.....now take some good kosher salt and rub it all over the fillets front and back and let it sit in the fridge for about a hour.....When you come back to check on it you'll find it sitting in a pool of oily liquid. This is good the salt has drawn a lot of the water and some oil out making the fillets firm and less oily. rinse the fillets under cold water quickly to remove the salt and pat them dry. Now you can cook them like any other thick flaky fish, baked, grilled etc with you favorite seasoning....or poached in white wine with dill.....OR you can freeze them ( for only about a month) or better yet smoke them to make ambrosia from the heavens....but that's for another time...:)