I forgot to thaw out some fish for today, so I grabbed a piece of catfish from the freezer. I had cooked it last week with just a little oil and grill seasoning.  Microwave often messes up fish, and I did not want to heat up my huge oven to thaw it, so I improvised.

I put my cast-iron griddle on a burner and turned it up high and put the frozen fish there and turned a cast-iron skillet upside-down over it to make an oven-like enclosure for the fish.  I intended to check it within a few minutes  but got distracted. Ten minutes later I smelled the smoke and ran over to the kitchen to turn it off, but it was fine.

The enclosed cast-iron kept most of the smoke inside and I lifted the cover expecting to see a shriveled mess, but instead I saw a deliciously smoked piece of still-moist flaky fish! Oh, this was so much better than the re-heated plain old fish I would have had if I remembered to take it out of the freezer earlier!

So this is the new recipe: when you cook up some fish in a pan with a little oil and seasoning, make some extra and freeze it.  Then when you want smoked fish, if you don't have a real "smoker", use cast iron cookware on a hot burner to smoke it for about ten minutes, then turn the burner off and take the griddle-upturned-skillet combo or closed pot off the burner and leave it covered while it cools down for maybe five or ten minutes more.  Then uncover it and see the beautifully browned fish with a slightly blackened bottom and luscious flaky middles.

Oh, it is hard to consider Fish on Friday as penance if you love home-cooked catfish!