leek wrote:I think it was a standard creamy soup base, with fish sticks added in at the end.

For instance, sautée onion and garlic, toss in flour and make a light roux, gradually stir in heated chicken or veg stock with some milk. Add seasonings as desired (salt, pepper, herbs etc). Add broken up fish sticks and simmer.

For the fun of it, I may do this sometime soon.

We tried the Gorton beer batter fillets this week. We liked their fish sticks much better. It will be the Costco fish sticks next.

Regards,
Cathy2

We had the Costco fish sticks Friday night. They were excellent! We live in Central Kentucky where Lenten fish frys are almost nonexistent, so this was great alternative.

I had totally forgotten about salmon cakes.
My mom used to make those too
I didn't mind them, but when I tried to make them they were a total no-go
in my house.

Facebook reminded me that I posted about Costco fish sticks eight years ago today:

Me: "If I really like these fish sticks, does it still count as a sacrifice? Should I have given up fish sticks for Lent?"
My cousin Paul: "You should probably give up fish sticks for a lot of reasons."
Me: "I'm telling you, these are really good fish sticks."

Picked up a package of Trident Fish Sticks Thursday from Costco and had some of them yesterday for dinner.
Lightly fried in canola oil.
The Pollock based stick had no fishy taste or odor, just nice fish taste. The Panko breading adds to the palatability as we use a lot of Panko. The fish portion could be bigger with the same amount of breading.
Obviously it’s impossible to compare to fish sticks of yore.
Interesting company and owner Chuck Bundrant. Self made with some legislative help, it appears that he may have made your McDonalds Filet- O-Fish.
Fresh Farms sell fresh (I have seen them open the shipping containers) Cod for usually $7/#. I purchase whole fillets, cut out the ‘loin’ potion for FishWhiches and use the tails for chowder or some sort of fish soup.
Loins are cut to portion size, seasoned and lightly coated with Wondra, fried. Served on a toasted bun with or without cheese and a tarter sauce.
Great fish texture.
But until Easter, I can see us eating the rest of the Trident.-Richard

Joy wrote:Cathy, we had Costco's Ultimate Fish Sticks just the other night for the first time in a few years. They reminded me how much I liked them! They are super quick to just put in an oiled or buttered cast iron skillet and turn by quarter turns until they thaw, cook through and brown up a little. It gives me time to make some homemade cole slaw or tartar sauce. It is very retro especially if I make some tater tots to go with them.

Hi,

Just one lunch to go to finish up the Costco fish sticks.

I came up with a variant on prep: microwave four sticks for 2.5 minutes, then into a dry hot non-stick pan to roll around and brown. It serves up pretty decently for a fast lunch for an impatient person ... me.

Thanks!

Regards,
Cathy2

We have had the Costco Trident Fish Sticks twice now as recently as last night.
Wife likes them.
Did some research and found some pictures of the Gorton’s manufacturing in the 20th century.
Gorton’s is now owned by a Japanese company and products manufactured in Gloucester.
Thier Cod products are from the Bering and Barent’s seas.
Gloucester long ago stopped being a major supplier fo Cod.
Pictures support my remembrance of how the fish was prepped and what fish was used.
Shows whole cod fillets being trimmed and frozen into blocks.
Current ‘How It’s Made’ video shows the same type frozen blocks then cut into fish stick shape, breaded, quick fried and flash frozen. Video said the block was sourced from China.
Anway I have to assume the Trident are manufactured similarly but the fish (Pollack) is not from China and better quality.
My next step is freeze some fresh cod fillets after judicious trimming, cut into stick shape, lightly bread and fry.
‘Lightly’ being the important factor as the Trident have way too much breading.
Seems like a lot of work but I just can’t get those 20th Century Gorton Fish Sticks out of my mind!
-Richard

Interesting, budrichard, thanks.

According to their website, Trident's fish sticks are made from wild Alaskan pollack caught by Alaskan fishermen. Their processing plants are in Alaska and the continental US.

I was going to post this in the How much do I hate Lent?? thread but then found this thread, where it seems to belong:

Here's a tip for judging breaded fish stick (or filet) quality: protein percentage, i.e., grams of protein as a percentage of serving size in grams. I think this is a better measure than breading thickness assessment because it's more objective and because you don't have to buy the product to measure it.

For example: Trident fish sticks vs Gorton's fish filets. Both 100% wild-caught Alaskan pollock.

Gorton's: 3-lb-2-oz bag sold at Walmart and I presume elsewhere.
Trident: 4-lb bags sold only at Costco, as far as I know. So that's a limitation. Sold in smaller boxes elsewhere? I'm not sure.

Gorton's: 108-g serving (two filets) has 10 g of protein = 9.25%
Trident: 85-g serving (3 sticks) has 11 g =12.9%

Three ounces (85 g) of plain Alaskan pollock contains 17 g of protein (20%, btw). So, if my math is right,

Gorton's: 46% fish
Trident: 65% fish

(Ugh. Only after I did all that math did I notice that Trident says right on the package, 65% fish, 35% batter and breading.)

And there's this:

Gorton's: $10.98 for 50 oz = $3.52/lb.
Trident: $11.99 for 64 oz = $3.00/lb, but on sale through April 5th, $4 off = $7.99 for 64 oz = $2.00/lb

p.s., I just noticed that budrichard up above said the Tridents have too much breading for his taste, which seems curious to me, given the high fish percentage, but then, fish sticks do have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio than fish filets. I'm all mathed out for now but might crunch (ha) those numbers later.

Jewel used to have Trident, but Mariano's still has it.

The Trident Fish sticks from Costco have now become a staple in our household.
I still purchase cod fillets, mostly from Sam’s Club, fresh, cut for FishWich size,(reserve the tails for chowder) dust with Wondra, Saute in Butter and serve on a butter toasted hamburger bun with Cheese, Tomato slice and lettuce. Sauce is either QP Mayo with chopped sweet pickle or a McDonald’s clone.
-Richard

Never tried Costco fish sticks. I have always used Gorton's I like the potato crunch ones. I get the filets not the sticks. They have a wide range of products. The parmesan ones look to have promise too.

My brother brings 30# of fish home each year from Canada. My father pulls out 5# at a time from the freezer, fried the fillets off, and freezes the coked fish.

It does not SOUND all that great BUT having had it the past week or two, it turns out quite week when reheated in an oven.

It is that time of year for Friday night fish fry, whether you like it or not.

From reading through the thread I should aim for Trident at Costco or Gorton's beer filets at the grocery store. Or go DIY per budrichard's idea of buying cod to roll in seasoned flour and fry.

I am curious to make:
- Leek's leftover fish stick soup
- Joy's salmon cakes with a cream of mushroom soup with green peas gravy
- Of course, tuna noodle casserole at least once!

Ash Wednesday is the kick off for fish season. At least it is not like every Friday when I was a kid in the 60s.

Regards,
Cathy2

We made totally satisfactory fish tacos night before last from Gorton's Super Crunchy fish sticks. They're whole chunks of Alaskan pollack--not chopped and 'glued'--with a thin breading. I take them right out of the freezer, sauté them in hot oil until they're golden brown and crunchy, and then pop them into the tortilla. Couldn't ask for more on a week night, actually.

Geo

I'm a huge fan of fish sticks. I've always loved em.

Costco stix for SURE, imo.

Also, I don't know how they do it. But Costco's frozen breaded tilapia has never once been muddy or crappy in any way. I hate to really like them as much as I do. Those are our from-frozen fish taco brand of choice. I only buy them when they are part of a sale, but I have full confidence in those, even though I avoid tilapia like the plague pretty much everywhere else.

For anyone who cares, Gortons minced pollock fish sticks are the only ones I've found without onion or garlic. The ingredient list is also among the shortest. Gortons draft beer batter filets and tenders are also allium free.

Cathy2 wrote:Ash Wednesday is the kick off for fish season. At least it is not like every Friday when I was a kid in the 60s.

My mother resisted the relaxation of the rule about no meat on Fridays year round for as long as she could, and I was as mystified about it as George Carlin, who said, "You know there are still people doing time in Purgatory on a hot dog rap."

Our public grade school (50% Lutheran and 49% Catholic) didn't serve meat on Fridays long after 1966. We had a rotation of tomato soup or fish sticks with occasional horrific incidents of tuna hot dish.

I was incredibly lucky! I went to a 4-room, 1st-8th grade Catholic school in Ft. Collins in the late 40s and early 50s, up until the 7th grade. In those days, there were mountains of war-surplus commodities--canned chicken, bacon, butter, everything you could imagine--so we were rolling in raw material. Then, to top it off, we had three jolly grannies who cooked for us: biscuits, bread, puddings (every kind of milk, canned and fresh, zillions of eggs) was available. So Fridays all during the year were excellent: rich with innovation, butter, and what have you. When tunafish and noodle cassarole is done right--from scratch--a body looks strongly forward to it.

I count myself well and truly lucky to have grown up being fed by the cafeteria grannies at St. Joseph's School!

Geo

tjr wrote:Our public grade school (50% Lutheran and 49% Catholic) didn't serve meat on Fridays long after 1966. We had a rotation of tomato soup or fish sticks with occasional horrific incidents of tuna hot dish.

Oh my gosh! All those grade school lunches of Campbell's tomato soup and cheese sandwiches that I ran home for --- my mom was sneaking the no-meat-on-Friday rule in on me and I never realized it until now!

Hi,

I did not know until just now that meatless Fridays concluded in 1966.

I believe my family kept this going until at least 1969. I am sure this was my Dad.

Regards,
Cathy2

I kinda remember that not all Catholic laity were Vatican II fans, and traditions can die hard.

Also, frozen fish was regarded as cheap food then. Baked cod and flounder made frequent appearances on our very secular dinner table, later joined by orange roughie and snapper. We kids always wondered how they could be the same food as what was served at a Friday fish fry.

Growing up in a not-observant Jewish household, of course, there were no meatless Fridays. But college years I didn't eat a lot of meat (mostly because the dorm food sucked -- a sausage pizza on Sunday was pretty much the rule). So the meatless dish was usually preferable... except on Fridays, where the meatless dish was always fish and always worse than the meats, and I took my chances.

Working in the same building from graduation to 2004, the cafeteria had similar behavior: Friday would always have a fish on the entree line, and something like a tuna melt at the grill.

So does it have to be fish? Or would a cheese enchilada, spaghetti marinara, salt and pepper tofu, and/or chana massala be OK? I know there's the whole "fishers of men" thingy, but anything beyond that?

JoelF wrote:So does it have to be fish? Or would a cheese enchilada, spaghetti marinara, salt and pepper tofu, and/or chana massala be OK? I know there's the whole "fishers of men" thingy, but anything beyond that?

No, it doesn't have to be fish; it is not a rule to eat fish but rather a rule to abstain from meat. Everything vegetarian is fine; shellfish is also fine.

JoelF wrote:Growing up in a not-observant Jewish household, of course, there were no meatless Fridays. But college years I didn't eat a lot of meat (mostly because the dorm food sucked -- a sausage pizza on Sunday was pretty much the rule). So the meatless dish was usually preferable... except on Fridays, where the meatless dish was always fish and always worse than the meats, and I took my chances.

Working in the same building from graduation to 2004, the cafeteria had similar behavior: Friday would always have a fish on the entree line, and something like a tuna melt at the grill.

So does it have to be fish? Or would a cheese enchilada, spaghetti marinara, salt and pepper tofu, and/or chana massala be OK? I know there's the whole "fishers of men" thingy, but anything beyond that?

This Jew had fish sticks on Fridays in Hebrew school in the 60's (you go with the flow) and I look forward to Lent every year because it ushers in pepper 'n' egg sandwich season.

Katie wrote:No, it doesn't have to be fish; it is not a rule to eat fish but rather a rule to abstain from meat. Everything vegetarian is fine; shellfish is also fine.

More contemporary observance is not giving up, but rather extending a helping hand and doing good deeds.

JoelF wrote:So does it have to be fish? Or would a cheese enchilada, spaghetti marinara, salt and pepper tofu, and/or chana massala be OK? I know there's the whole "fishers of men" thingy, but anything beyond that?

Chicago has a whole other apparently native born option: The pepper and egg sandwich.

tjr wrote:

JoelF wrote:So does it have to be fish? Or would a cheese enchilada, spaghetti marinara, salt and pepper tofu, and/or chana massala be OK? I know there's the whole "fishers of men" thingy, but anything beyond that?

Chicago has a whole other apparently native born option: The pepper and egg sandwich.

How could I forget? I've had it, don't find it particularly exciting, but yeah it's right in front of my nose every spring.

Hi,

Lent begins today with Jewel having a one-day sale on various fresh and frozen fish. Finished a Costco purchase of Trident fish sticks to make room. Just reread this thread to recall what was liked and not liked.

This time around I will make Leek's fish stick soup. It always sounds appealing. I want to know for myself.

Regards,
Cathy2