"Fire Fish" - AKA spiced and smoked Goldfish crackers

[dward51]

Ok, so I had some downtime while we were cooking for Christmas and played around in CorelDraw and made a logo. Yes, these suckers are that good!

FireFish Recipe:

• 1 bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (by bag, I mean one of the three bags that comes in the 4 pound box at Sam's Club).
• 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup of butter oil (popcorn butter oil such as MovieTime or Orville Redenbackers)
• 4 tsp of your favorite rub (I like the rubs I use on chicken or pork)
• 1 packet of Ranch Dressing mix powder
• 1 rounded tsp of garlic powder
• 1 1/2 TBL of Crushed Red Pepper (pizza pepper flakes)
• 1/2 to 1 tsp of ground Jalapeno powder (I used Savory Spice brand)
• 2 1/2 gallon zip lock bag

Pour one bag of the Goldfish crackers into the 2 1/2 gallon zip lock bag. Run the crushed red pepper flakes through a spice grinder to make a finer crush (not powder, but much smaller flakes and break up the seeds). Put all of the ingredients, EXCEPT THE TWO OILS, into a small bowl and stir to mix evenly. Dump the mixed dry ingredients over the goldfish in the bag and toss them around to distribute the dry powder. Mix the vegetable and butter oils into a microwave safe container and heat for 1 minutes to 1 1/2 minutes to heat the oil (warm, but not hot enough to melt the plastic zip lock bag). Pour the warm oil over the goldfish and spice mixture, close the zip lock leaving as much air in the bag as possible and toss/roll the ingredients around to thoroughly mix. Let sit in the bag for a hour. Prepare a smoker to "cold smoke" the now FireFish (name came from the mild heat they have - the guys at work started calling them FireFish).

For cold smoking I used my 18.5" WSM. I had ordered some 14" pizza screens a while back and divided the FireFish and placed them on 3 screens. I used 3 small wooden blocks for spacers so I could stack the screens on the top grate of the WSM. A small amount of hickory pellets in one of Todd's pellet trays for about an hour to provide the smoke flavor. When done, return the Smoked FireFish to the 2 1/2 gallon zip lock bag, zip shut and let sit overnight for the flavors to meld.

Enjoy!!!! (and Merry Christmas!!!)

[BBQ Engineer]

I know those rock! Love that logo too.

[dward51]

In a former life I designed vector art for t-shirts and other printable goods and also ran a textile screen print setup. I still have a Hopkins 6 color press and 15kw (yes 15,000 watt) textile dryer in mothballs. Figured I might want something to do if I ever really retire from my day job.

And BBQ Engineer, It's a variation on your "Redneck Bar Firecrackers". Making those is what got me thinking it would work great on Cheezit's and then Goldfish. I cut back on the oil as the goldfish do not seem to absorb it as well as saltines do. I also cut back on the pepper spices as this was originally for a mixed group at the office and spice tolerance varied. This level of heat, with jalapeno instead of cayenne seem to be just right for dang near everyone. And smoke? Well, smoking chex mix has been something that's popular so it just made sense to me to toss some cold smoke flavor on the FireFish.

So this is just the next evolution of your original recipe (thanks for sharing)!!!!

[SMOKE FREAK]

Absolutely love it...I know that has to be great...
I'll be smoking a couple pounds of cheez-its on Monday...
For Christmas gifts...

[strength_and_power]

Damn! I'm in


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[HawgHeaven]

That is just totally rockin' out loud! Love the idea, and love the logo! Yer onto sumthin' for sure!

[Bama BBQ]

In


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[Tomshoots]

Oh HELL YEAH!! That's gotta be good. I know a guy marketing the saltine variety here. Texas Firecrackers. But his ain't cheesy or smokey. Also had some once from a tourist trap roadside stop that had Parmesan-garlic.

[dward51]

The goldfish hold up much better in the mixing process than the saltines do. They are a sturdier product (probably comes from the rounded shape and harder outer crust). I thought about using the X-treme Cheddar goldfish, but the big box only comes in regular cheddar.

I had a little snag on this last batch. Pellet tray went out on me and the length of burn in the tray led me to think it had not been running that long. So I re-lit it and let it go for another 45 minutes. For hickory, that was a little two long. The flavor did mellow after I left them spread on a tray overnight, but it was stronger than what I've done in the past. Guess the tray ran longer than I though before it went out so I ended up double smoking them. Still ate them though.

[Fishawn]

Man, I bet those rock!