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Always Skin a Bass Before Planking
Fresh-water bass are likely to taste rather rank, so it's a good idea to skin them.
With a razor-sharp knife cut an arc just below the head and slit the skin lengthwise in 4 cuts, back, belly and both sides. Rub your fingers in salt to get a good hold on the skin and pull each strip off downwards, from top to tail. A slab of sugar maple is nice for planking a skinned bass or other fresh water fish after it is opened, cleaned and laid flat open on its back, that is, skinned side down, on a grease plank, and nailed, wired or tied in place with a string twisted out of birch or other good-tasting bark. Squeeze a lemon over it, season well with salt and pepper, cover with thin slices of bacon anchored down with toothpicks or sweet slivers of sassafras, and stand up beside a good hot fire for about 15 minutes, (the fish, not you) until done, depending on size.
Planking is a radiant-heat method: the board reflects and holds heat against the flesh while the fire cooks the exposed side. Nothing about it is difficult, but the wood, the fire distance and the doneness check all matter more than the timing given.
- Skin first, and mean itThe rankness in freshwater bass sits in the skin and the dark lateral fat just beneath it. After stripping the skin, scrape away the reddish-brown band running down the midline of each fillet side; that is where muddy flavour concentrates in warm-water fish.
- Salt on the fingersThe same purchase trick used on slippery-skinned fish such as eels. Coarse salt or a dry cloth grips the skin edge; a pair of pliers does the job with less ceremony.
- Choosing the plankSugar maple is a good call. Use untreated, unfinished wood only -- maple, oak, alder, hickory, or cedar. Never construction lumber, plywood, pressure-treated stock or anything that has held a finish. A 1-inch board roughly the length of the fish is right; soak it an hour if you want steam rather than scorch.
- GreasingThe instruction is to oil the board before the fish goes on. Bacon fat or plain vegetable oil, rubbed over the whole face, keeps the flesh from welding to the grain.
- About the sassafrasSassafras bark and root contain safrole, which is no longer permitted as a food flavouring in the United States. Used as pegs to hold bacon in place the contact is trivial, but there is no reason to seek it out; ordinary soaked wooden toothpicks or short skewers do the same work.
- Fire distance and timeStand the plank at an angle about a foot from a bed of hot coals, not leaping flame, and turn it end for end every few minutes so the heat is even. Fifteen minutes suits a fish of a pound or so; a 3-4 lb bass will want 25-35. Judge by the flesh, not the clock.
- DonenessCooked fish flakes cleanly at the thickest point and reads 145F on an instant-read thermometer. Freshwater bass dries out quickly past that — pull it as soon as the centre loses its translucence.
- IndoorsThe same thing works in a 425F oven on a soaked untreated plank set on a sheet pan, though you lose the smoke. Expect 15-20 minutes for a small fish.
- YieldA 2 lb dressed bass serves two generously; the seasoning is only lemon, salt, pepper and the bacon, so use good bacon and salt the flesh a few minutes before it goes near the fire.