What are you doing to transport and store oil for frying fish without creaking a greasy mess in your pack? Take a funnel? Don't reuse the oil? What's working and not working?

In the past I have taken a bottle of vegetable oil as it comes from the store and burned the old oil in the campfire.  This year I am going on a 15 day trip where we are planning to eat fish about a third of the time.  Wanting to keep the food pack as light as possible for such a long trip I plan to reuse oil by filtering it back into a spare bottle.

I too would be interested to hear from more "learned" QJ'er's

Crisco shortening does not spill and you can put it in a zip loc bag or a squeeze tube.

The shortening route is what I use now never have to worry about spills , I'll store it in a plastic bag lined wide mouth 16oz. PP Nalgene bottle. In past years I used a 16 ounce narrow mouth Nalgene bottle that is normally used for carrying water or other beverages for transporting canola oil.

 I know deep fried fish is a time honored tradition BUT if your open too a different method, that I think is just as tasty, and much healthier IF that's a concern.
 With any breaded fish recipe, the breading itself has as much too do with the taste as the quality of the fish your deep frying. Many a VFW/Elks club fish fry that features frozen cod of unknown age ;D has been saved by a favorite batter recipe ;)
 I like fish, pan fried sans batter in a good quality oil. Any oil that doesn't smoke at a low temp is ideal. Peanut oil (think wok) or some of the Safflower/Grape seed oil blends they sell work well too.
 I add a small amount to skillet, and sprinkle in my favorite seasoning, which is Cajun. When the oil starts to sizzle and the aroma hits your nose, throw in your dry fillets and sear one side then the other.
 You'll have restaurant quality fish without the breading (mask) and use very little oil compared too deep frying. Any dry seasoning works well, just don't burn it black, as it will get bitter. Lemon pepper/ Garlic pepper is great as well.
 I fry Waldo's/Bass/Pike and even Lakers, if I don't bake them. You can try it at home before trip. IF you like it well enough you save a lot of oil/breading and the time and mess it takes to batter fillets.

I use Ghee (   (You need to Login or Register); it is basically clarified butter. It is solid at room temperature and can be stored just like shortening. It works great if you use solotripper's style of cooking fish.

Thanks for mentioning Ghee PFB!
I started bringing that a few years back. I still use some oil, but add a little of the Ghee for flavor.
Unlike butter, clarified Ghee will stand up to high temps without burning or turning bitter.
You can buy Ghee commercially, or make your own, by melting butter, allowing the solids ( which causes the burning and bitterness) to settle to the bottom, and pouring off the remaining "clarified" butter into container to cool.
You can add the Ghee too other things, rice/cous-cous/pasta for added "richness".

I use 50% squeeze margarine and 50% peanut oil in my frypan.  Just enough to cover the bottom of the pan with about 1/8 inch of this mixture is plenty.  I use a variety of seasonings to coat my fish depending on my mood, mostly cajun, but also lemon & herb or one of several various "char coatings".  I never mess with brading or batter.  Takes too long and takes too much grease to cook it.  As I cook the fish, I just add more margerine/oil as needed to keep the bottom of the frypan coated.  When I'm done there's generally only a tablespoon or two of grease left which I soak up with a paper towel and burn.  I use less than a pint of oil on most 4-man trips and less than one bottle of squeeze margerine for this purpose.  Oil gets stored in a nalgene bottle.  Squeeze margarine rides in the original packaging.  Each bottle goes into a ziplock.

I might have to try the ghee instead of squeeze margarine this year.  It's bound to improve an already great fishfry.

People I know that deep fry carry peanut oil in a wide mouth Nalgene. The big chunks stay in the pan and the little ones tend to add character as the oil is reused.

I fry mine like this:
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The toasted crumbs scraped from the pan are highly prized. ;)

When I get ambitious and have time there's this:
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Don't forget there's also plain ol' open baking (planking?) and poaching (poor man's lobster) neither require any oil at all. Well, you'll probably want butter...

I use Canola oil, transferred to a nalgene bottle. I don't trust the thin plastic bottle from the store, since quite a few years ago, I had one fail, making an oily mess of my food pack. It did make 'slipping' into and out of the pack easier tho. :(

Being a southern boy, getting away from the cornmeal coating is difficult, however... since being instructed in the art of how to cook fish with a little oil and a little butter with various seasonings many years ago by a QP Sage... old_salt himself I have refined the technique to my own personal taste.  
Since to me there is nothing quite like the taste of fresh caught walleye and or northern, (and yes I love them both)  I usually will not eat smallies since I like to catch them so much!!  What I do now is bring a bottle of Squeeze margarine, and a small bottle of either peanut oil or canola oil, put just enough of both about an ounce to coat the bottom of the pan and cook the fillets turning once until they are done.  Then I spinkle a little fresh ground sea salt on them and enjoy the rich flavor...

To carry my oil and butter to prevent spillage in the food barrel, I put the bottles in a good quality plastic bag with a good zipper seal and I have never had any spills or leaks.

Bruce

ghee is the bomb! and easy to do at home ;)I carry oil only for those easy box cakes on trail, and olive oil in the bread....all are in the nalgene bottles, ya do have to replace them over time but most of mine have been going strong for 10-15 years....the cinnamon bottle cracked last year----duck tape saved the day again ;) i would also highly recommend the poaching thing too :)Last weekend had poached laker-foil line outback oven pan, placed seasoned laker fillets skin down, added a dash of water, a bit of butter on the fillets-very little, and bake. Yumm w/ herb noddles and thymed carrot.... MMMMMMMM with warm buttered honey wheat bread ;)Eyes are good this way too.....but i like my fish and bread not my breading and whatever is inside ;)Dont forget the fish pizza :) fish soup/stew....lots of options ;)

We have been using grape seed oil for the past few years. Bread the fish and pan fry. The oil has a pretty high smoke point and tastes pretty good.

Grape Seed!  Something new to try...thanks!

Butter flavored crisco every time.

You guys cook your fish!  What a travesty.  To spoil such a fresh, wonderful flesh by exposing to fire.  Be a real voyager - eat it raw!

Of course I'm kidding - sort of.  This year we soaked cut up laker in lime juice, then added some soy sauce and sesame oil - it was wonderful!  

usually we cook with peanut/sesame blend, or olive oil, but this year we also brought ghee - which added a nice touch.

pghportager wrote on Jun 17^th, 2009 at 1:38pm:

You guys cook your fish!  What a travesty.  To spoil such a fresh, wonderful flesh by exposing to fire.  Be a real voyager - eat it raw! Of course I'm kidding - sort of.  This year we soaked cut up laker in lime juice, then added some soy sauce and sesame oil - it was wonderful!

 IF anyone tries pghportager's Laker recipe, be sure too add the LIME JUICE if nothing else ;)  Lemon Juice would work also. The acid in the Lime Juice cooks the fish, a technique popular down Mexico way.
 My first trip into the BW with a group, some of the guys ate some Small Mouth that they didn't cook properly. Next morning when they visited the privy, they had a wriggling surprise in their scat :'(
 I wasn't bothered, but I like my fish WELL DONE. They were so freaked out, they ate freeze dried the rest of the trip. Turned out too be relatively harmless parasites.  For the Sushi eaters out there, I saw a show where a internist(?) in CA said that he wouldn't eat Sushi because of all the patients he saw with worms from eating raw fish, from supposedly reputable restaurants. I guess you need too eat it with Wasabi too make sure any parasites are well done ;)

of course, I should have made it very clear that this should only be done with some type of cooking - in this case the acidic lime juice and salt content of the soy sauce did all the work ceviche style.

Quite yummy.

My understanding is ceviche is only safe (relatively speaking) with saltwater fish, freshwater fish have more parasites.
Regarding ghee, although I haven't used it I have been told another benefit is that it doesn't spoil like butter does.
I prefer grilling (over cedar) and I am definitely going to try the less oil approach you guys are talking about.  We have used Wesson corn oil and Shorelunch "classic" breading which tastes great  but that has something to do with the MSG in it, no doubt.  This trip we had more fried fish than we could eat (a large pike had to be killed--inhaled a big lure and got it tangles up in it's gills.  We had some Mountain House fish chowder--basically the classic milk/potato base with shrimp and clams, and we added the leftover fried fish--dang it was good!

---

Sp2,

Yes, besides keeping the flavor, Ghee ( clarified butter) keeps much better than regular butter and also has a higher smoking point, which means it doesn't become burnt and bitter tasting under high heat, important when you fry with little oil in a hot skillet.
 I'm a big fan of the Cache Lake products. There Creamy Fish Chowder and Cheesy Vegetable Chowder are outstanding and you get 2 -16oz servings enough for 2 people with sides, or one hungry solo paddler ;)
 I often use a small "hammerhead" that wouldn't survive after swallowing a big lure. I cut what meat off I can and add to Chowder.
 IMHO if your really a fish lover, the little oil method/ with some seasonings, really allows you too taste the natural flavor of the fish.
 Good breading can improve the taste of poor quality fish but it can also take away from the taste of fresh caught firm cold water fish.
The only fish I might bread at home, is frozen fish that's reached the end of its shelf/freezer life.

Springer2 wrote on Jun 30^th, 2009 at 2:47am:

We had some Mountain House fish chowder--basically the classic milk/potato base with shrimp and clams, and we added the leftover fried fish--dang it was good!

One time we brought dry clam chowder mix and added cooked, chunked perch instead of clams... it was great!