Last weekend we were involved in a non-fishing event. While clearing the hall at the end, what food was left over was offered to those doing the clearing up. Even after that share out, there was still some left over. This was heading for the pigs, or worse, land fill. With this in mind, I offered to take it. The sausage rolls were nice and they got frozen for eating as did the baguettes. But there were a couple of dozen Asda mini pork pies - I am sorry, but these things would qualify the true definition of the word disgusting. There is so much soft, tasteless pastry wrapped around the marble sized pork gristle, they only just qualified as being non-vegitarian. Yuck!
I wonder if fish like pork gristle? Only one way to find out. Short of tying it on to a foot-long hair, and targeting a few big catfish, I think they will need reconstructing.
Frylies - Like boilies but fried...
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| Frylie paste |
After separating the
gristle from the pastry, I had a small amount of gristly meat and a huge pile of soft greasy pastry. My first thought was to process the meat into a even consistency and roll it into 12mm balls using my boilie table. In to the gun went the mixture and it squeezed out a 12 mm sausage. A small section of this was placed on the table and rolled. It made a rather friable ball. I tried shallow frying it. It disintegrated. I tried deep frying it. It disintegrated. Hmmmm...
Okay I need a bit more substance and a binder. I added about an equal quantity of the soft pastry crumb some eggs and a few ounces of flour that I had by me in the freezer. It was in the freezer undergoing 'purification' - killing the weevil that I had discovered in it a few months ago. I mixed the ingredients together, adding the flour until it did not stick to my hands. I tried to fry it again. This time I had success, but the thing had got bigger, not smaller as I had expected. Hmmmm...
I tried again and this time I used my new little particle rolling table that makes 8mm balls. I shallow fried it and it came out perfect, After letting it cool down, I dropped it in a glass of water and it floats. Thinking about it that is probably because the dead weevil flavoured flour is actually self raising. It does look like I might be on to something here - Pop-up Frylies. I need to
do a bit more experimenting but it is promising so far. I will
make a batch and see how it goes. Once I have proved it works I will
publish a full recipe. The little frylies start off at 8mm from the rolling table and grow slightly when fried.
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| Pop-up frilie |
Once immersed in water, they seem to expand a little more and finish up a
shade under 10mm. This is just about the size I was looking for. I
don't think they will as robust as boilies but with my style of fishing
the bait only needs to last the cast and a minute or two in the water.
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| It floats! |
I like the idea of them popping up from the bottom and the short hook link will prevent it from floating away too far above the feeder. I could try a shorter hook-length, if four inches of pop up is too much. Early days, let's see how it works first. It may be a total waste of time but if it is I have still learnt something, even if it is that it does not work!
Ralph.
