A few weeks ago my fishing guide took me out ice fishing.  Let me explain how wonderful this is…

We get up and get ready and leave on snowmobiles from the house. We cross the street to reach a ditch and drive for a very short distance to a park with access for us to get on the river/lake. We continue to drive until we find a suitable place to fish and move if necessary. We fish and then drive home. It’s amazing if you ice fish.

We went out fishing and stopped at a point but there were no fish to be found. We moved to another spot a smidge over 5 miles away where my fishing guide was sure there would be fish. The water was a bit too shallow so we moved just a few feet away to where it was deeper. That’s when the action started. It was slow at first but around lunch time the bites were constant and they were all nicely sized fish. We ended up coming home with one shy of our limit but added a perch in there as well to make up for it. I caught the biggest walleye of my life so far…a solid 18 inches.

Now what to do with all these fish…

Of course for lunch the next day we fried them up in beer batter. A method of eating fish that is always delicious. In the past I have made fish in a bag or en papillote where I got the recipe from Emiglia. I always add onions to the bag when I make this & use olive oil instead as I have that readily available.

Cabillaud en Papillote

I decided to look to her again for guidance as I have never really cooked fish. Almost 30 and never cooked fish. Well now I need to start. I need to get creative as I have lots of walleye and will continue to have lots of walleye to work with. I decided to make blackened walleye. There are no pictures as it was too delicious and I forgot to take them. My fishing guide who has been eating fish his whole life said it was the best walleye he ever had. I messed up and used 1tsp oregano instead of 1/4 but it didn’t matter. The fish was so flavorful! I also served it with rice & sautéed onions and roasted broccoli. The sauce was divine on the rice & onions.

Blackened Fish

As I had just finished a 12 Soups of  Christmas challenge I thought I should attempt a seafood chowder. I used my freshly caught walleye & shrimp that I had in the freezer. I did not have fish stock or clam juice so the next time I make it I would replace the water with one of those items.

Seafood Chowder

• 1/4lb bacon
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3 small to medium carrots, peeled & chopped
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 1/4tsp cayenne
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1tsp thyme
• black pepper to taste
• 16-24oz water
• 10-12 oz milk
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (feel free to use cream of potato or another cream based soup)
• Walleye, cut into bite sized pieces (perhaps 4 average walleye, I had one vacuumed sealed pack)
• Shrimp, peeled & deveined (I used about 12-15 medium shrimp)

Cook bacon in large pot until crispy. Remove and set aside. Add onion & carrots to bacon grease and cook until translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Add potatoes and continue to cook until potatoes begin to become softened, about 10 minutes.

Add water and simmer for 20-30 minutes until vegetables are tender. Add more water as needed.

Add the milk while stirring and add the cream of mushroom soup & seasonings. Stir until combined and allow to come back to a simmer. Add the fish and cook for 8minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for 2 minutes more. Crumble the bacon and add to the soup. Serve with French bread or garlic toast.

Now that I have cooked walleye in a few different ways I am very excited to continue to come up with recipes. I’ve discovered that walleye doesn’t have to be just a beer battered fish and if you get a little creative it can be used in many new & interesting preparations. Stay tuned.