Are Jack Fish Good to Eat? A Detailed Look at Preparing and Cooking Jack Crevalle

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Surprise! Jack crevalle are really not bad to eat.

Travis Anderson of Cocoa Beach with a big jack crevalle that he caught in 80 feet of water off of Sebastian Inlet.

Oh sure, you say, youve long heard of eating amberjack. Not AJs, their first cousins, fancy jacks like rainbow runners, bar jacks, or even yellow jacks, though. Crevalle jacks are what we’re talking about here. If you don’t already know how good jacks are to eat, skip to the next story. In the end, were two million Bahamians wrong about conch fritters? In the Bahamas and the rest of the Caribbean, all types of jacks are prized for their rich flavor and firm flesh.

So, if you want to ignore what’s about to happen and listen to what other people say, please let me make one simple point clear. Ask anyone who disparages the flavor of crevalle if they ever have eaten it. This is probably just a rumor spread by a fish lover a long time ago, so he could keep all the jacks to himself.

You dont have to do anything you shouldnt do with any other good fish you intend to eat. Step one being to immediately ice the fish alive, which does two really good things. First, it draws most of the blood into the fish’s organs, which helps the fish stay alive and makes the food taste better for you. What you think about a juicy beefsteak doesn’t matter; blood doesn’t change the taste or look of fish. When you killed a fish that was alive on a stringer or in a livewell, remember how much bloodier the second fillet was than the first? All the blood drained into the fish’s bottom.

Icing your fish alive remedies that problem almost completely. If you have time, cutting the fish’s gill arches while holding it overboard is a quick way to get rid of all the blood before putting it on ice. This is especially useful if you don’t have any ice to put it on. Advertisement.

The second thing ice does for a fish is make it firm, and thus ideal for slicing. Iced fish fillets look better, and they’re also much less likely to grow bacteria from the table where the fish was cleaned.

You can do a lot of fancy things with a fillet knife, like cutting out the red meat on the fillet to avoid the strong flavor. No, I didn’t do anything different with the three jacks I put through the stomach acid test. I always do the same thing with other fish. Unless you count taking them to a master chef.

For my test of crevalle I enlisted the help of Fort Myers chef Vollen Loucks. Vollen Loucks is not a 94-B-20-type Army cook like I was. Instead, he is a guy whose pinot noir sauce could turn tongue of combat boot into haute cuisine. Anyway, Vollen will be the first to admit that he doesn’t really like seafood. That didn’t stop salmon from being his restaurant’s best-selling item, though. Advertisement.

That’s why I showed up at Vollens’ back door with six ice-packed fillets of crevalle. The 2- to 3-pound fish had been moving around in the Punta Gorda Isles canals the day before, when it was very hot. When caught, they were bled, and within two hours of being iced, they were filleted and skinned. Other than that, they hadn’t been given any special care.

Vollen first looked at the fish’s texture and noticed that the flesh was very dense, like tuna. Each fillet that didn’t have any ribs was deboned by cutting out the pin bones that run down the middle of most fish from the head to the tail. The bones are more easily felt with a fingertip than seen. For a whole-fillet presentation, the pin bones can be cut out, leaving a V-shaped notch. Or the fillet can be cut in half lengthwise before the bones are sliced away. Vollen notched two fillets and cut the others in half.

Each piece of fish was seasoned with sea salt and white pepper. The first one was then dredged in flour and cooked for a minute or two on each side in vegetable oil that was hot and just starting to smoke. Vollen, being a compulsive chef, also added some roasted red peppers and smoked tomato meats, which were delicious but didn’t really change the taste of the fish. A California chardonnay was the white table wine he used. He lit the whole thing on fire like it was Disney World on the Fourth of July, deglazing the dish until the liquid was reduced to a beautiful sauce.

It’s clear that you agree that the last thing the cat dragged in would have tasted good if it was dressed up like that. That jack sure did, even by Vollens standards, but that was not the half of the experiment.

The next fillet was simply tossed on a 90,000-B. T. U. grill that etched dark brown crisscrosses into each side, while leaving clear juice in the center. Nobody could stop Vollen and his sauces. One of them was a purée made from prickly pears he picked from a cactus patch outside his back door. The sauce was beautifully drizzled and looked as good as it tasted. It did its job, though—it was just a nice addition to the grilled jack, which we all agreed tasted even better than the sautéed version.

I ate the whole fillet without taking a breath, like I did with the first one. I did this after giving Vollen a taste. For his last dish, he deep-fried the rest of the pieces that had been breaded in cornflakes and dipped in egg wash.

“Like everyone does crunchy grouper,” Vollen said, “everyone” being the competition in his tier of the restaurant trade.

There were two dressings he gave us to go with the crunchy jacks: a homemade rémoulade and a mango mayonnaise. If your arteries weren’t strong enough, you could eat both of them. Luckily, I was too full to do anything else but taste the combinations, which, as we knew by then, were both great.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to mess up a jack, save one. It can be sautéed, chargrilled, or fried crunchy. When I was a snook guide for a short time, I had a regular client from Long Island who loved light-tackle bluefish.

On one trip, he and his son-in-law doubled on a couple of usually vicious jacks that would have been over 10 pounds. He then asked if he could bring the fish home to eat for dinner. I knew he liked bluefish, so I told him that jacks weren’t poisonous. At the time, I had to admit that I had only tried them one way. That was smoked on a charcoal grill, after soaking the skin-on fillets in brine for 15 minutes. I didn’t say that I had a lot of cold drinks during the experience because I wasn’t sure if that had changed my opinion of the results, which I thought were good.

That seemed like a fair risk to me, so I bled and iced the fish and then made sure I got a full report on the results.

“Not bad,” he said of the jacks, which the whole family had eaten. “But the next time, I dont think Id soak them in brine. They were awfully bland. ” FS.

Florida Sportsman Magazine December 2002 Advertisement

IS JACK CREVALLE GOOD TO EAT!? (Catch and Cook JACK CREVALLE)

Is Jack Fish a good fish to eat?

Although not as widely sought after as other species, jack fish offers an exciting culinary experience that goes beyond the surface for both anglers and cooks.

Is it safe to drink water after eating jackfruit?

Drinking water after eating jack fruit can affect the stomach’s pH and slow the digestion, since water dilutes digestive acids and enzyme activity. So, it may provoke diarrhea.

Is Jack Fish a fatty fish?

Fatty fish are known for their high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are beneficial for heart health and brain function. Jack fish, also known as yellow jack or Carangoides bartholomaei, is a species of fish that is found in the Atlantic Ocean. It is known for its rich and flavorful meat. Are jack fish related to tuna?

What is a jack fish?

Jack fish, also known as jack crevalle, is a popular fish species in Mexico known for its strong fighting abilities and distinctive appearance. While they can contain moderate levels of mercury, they are enjoyed by many sport fishermen.