April 25, 2010

• Fishy Friday, Episode One: My First Walleye

  
  NOTE: Ken took a bunch of pictures of this “experiment,” but none of them have reached my email (our phone service has been horrible since we moved out here!). It looks like I won’t have any Walleye photographs for this post. It’s a shame. It really looked interesting, and I wanted you to see this dish at each stage. If I ever get the pictures, I will add them and re-post this.

  For the last few months, we’ve eaten fish for dinner, every Friday. It started as a Lent thing; all of the local restaurants had fish specials. My husband and my father-in-law love fish, and I began to groove on it again (I used to eat seafood all of them time, long ago and far away). I suggested that we keep our little tradition after Lent ended. My guys seemed happy at the prospect of more fish dinners.

  The thing is, going out to eat gets expensive (now that Lent is over, the “fish specials” are over, too). Ken and I are not working, and I don’t want to bankrupt my FIL.

  I love to cook, and I am in need of some kind of FUN challenge… You know, as opposed to all of the NOT-fun challenges life has been throwing my way! So, at least every other Friday, I will be cooking up some kind of fish dish, and if all goes well, I will post the recipe here for you guys. Hopefully, I will be able to add photographs.

  I’m really jumping into the deep end with this first episode of Fishy Friday. I’d never even TASTED Walleye before, and I purchased the fish without a recipe in mind. I figured I would find something on the Internet. Huh! I found three or four recipes. Some had ingredients that either my husband or my FIL can’t (or won’t) eat. I mixed and matched a little and came up with tonight’s recipe. My guys really enjoyed it… and I did, too. The Walleye has now become my favourite fish. It was not greasy at all, but not dry, either. It was light and flaky, but filling. AND… It didn’t stink up the apartment… So, yeah. I will definitely be doing more experiments with this fish!

  Before I give you the recipe, there are a few things that I want to tell you (warn you?) about, for this and any future Fishy Friday blogs I post:

  1.    I don’t catch the fish (Wouldn’t it be exciting if I did? Maybe someday…). I never learned how to clean fish, either. Perhaps, if I really get into this, I will learn (I’ve heard that my mother-in-law is an expert; maybe I can get her to teach me at some point.). For now, I’m making good friends in the seafood department of the local market.
  2.    All ingredient amounts are estimates. I hardly ever use measuring cups or spoons when I cook. I use my hands and my eyes.

  Here are a couple of “rules” in my kitchen (okay, technically, it is my FIL’s kitchen, but when I am cooking, it is my space). Really, it’s just common sense:

  1.    Always wash your hands before you touch any food. Wash them again after handling raw ingredients (like fish). Just keep washing and drying your hands!
  2.    Keep your hair back and out of the food. Yuck!
  3.    Be organized. Get everything you need together before you even preheat the oven. It saves time, helps prevents messes, and keeps you from getting stressed out, searching for something at the last minute.
  4.    If you are coughing, sneezing, have a fever, et cetera; get the heck out of the kitchen!
   

  Baked Walleye

  You will need:

  Approximately 1 lb Walleye Fillets (4 fillets)
  4 strips Uncooked Bacon
  1 cup Sour Cream
  ½ cup Breadcrumbs
  ½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese
  2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
  ¼ tsp Ground Thyme
  ½ tsp Dried Parsley Flakes
  2 Tbsp Yellow Onion, finely chopped
  3 Tbsp Softened Butter
  Salt & Pepper
  A shallow baking pan (I line mine with aluminum foil, “dull side” up)

  1. Preheat the over to 325 degrees F.

  2. Lay the bacon strips out on the pan.

  3. Salt and pepper the fish fillets on both sides.

  4. In a small bowl (I used the plastic tub that the butter came in), mix the chopped onion and the butter. Spread on both sides of each fish fillet (this is messy, but kind of fun!).

  5. Place a fillet on top of each bacon strip (lengthwise) in the pan.

  6. In a small mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, grated cheese, breadcrumbs, lemon juice thyme and parsley. Spread this mixture on top of the fish.

  7. Bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown.

  I served this with a simple tossed salad and mashed baby red potatoes.
  

  • 10:00 pm
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