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A Blast from the Past: Baked and Stuffed Northern Pike

July 12, 2015

 

Baked northern as it comes out of the oven

I really do wish my mom would stop correcting my memory every time I try to tell a compelling and nostalgic story. Saying “That’s not how it happened.” Or, “You didn’t even live in that house then — you were only 5.” Blah blah blah. Like HER memory is all perfect. Actually, her memory is pretty good. It’s in the fleshing out of details where she fails. As in, she makes them up and then argues with you, when you were usually the person who told her the story in the first place. In other words: she tells your own story back to you with all kinds of colorful yet completely inaccurate details. Then argues with you about it.

Yes, yes. I realize now that I’m basically writing about myself.

Are you listening Morgan Menke? This is your future.

Anyway. One of these vivid memories is of eating baked, stuffed northern (fish) and actually liking it. I wasn’t much of a fish lover as a kid. I did love shrimp, crab and lobster — much to my dad’s displeasure — and I tried to order it every time we were out for dinner.

Remember Mr. Steak? Let me just say: their deep fried shrimp was sublime. [It was also the most expensive thing on the menu.]

And the reason I remember the stuffed northern was because it tasted so mild and we ate it with melted butter. It tasted more like lobster than fish. Of course, I didn’t TOUCH the disgusting pile of stuffing baked under it. So gross.

It has been years and years since we had northern prepared this way — 35? More?

So: my mom and dad have had a dear friend staying with them in Hayward and… he LOVES to fish. What has me scratching my head, though, is that he is actually catching fish. Dave fishes that same lake with dogged determination and has been largely unsuccessful. [Dave calls Round Lake The Dead Sea.]

And now we find out that it isn’t?

Is Dave boating around the corner and napping, rather than fishing?

It is not unlikely.

Anyway, somehow Stan even got my mom into the fishing boat, which I am trying hard to even picture. I have never seen her fish. I know she was there, though, because I got this picture in my inbox a couple weeks ago:

Mom and Stan's northern

She not only reeled it in successfully, but she held it for a picture. Crazy times. [The trouble was in trying to get one of my parents to send it to me at a size larger than a postage stamp. Since you are looking at it and it is the size of a postage stamp, you will have realized that I was unsuccessful.]

Then I got word that we were having it baked and stuffed over the fourth of July. I immediately shared the good news with Dave, who was completely baffled since he had never had it — or even heard of it — prepared this way.

I always thought the recipe was handed down lovingly on my dad’s side by my Grandma Esther. In fact, I was saying this very thing to Dave while my mom was within earshot and she nearly jumped down my throat, saying “That wasn’t Grandma Esther’s recipe!” [The printed word can’t actually convey how strongly she objected to this startling bit of apparent misinformation.]

It was an easy mistake to make. My Grandma Esther practically lived on fish and wild game. She was a bit of a renegade (and illegal poacher) and larger than life in my memory. She is also the one who taught me how to make popcorn balls, which live on at our house — and on my hips — year after year. I only remember eating this fish recipe at my grandparent’s cabin on Roosevelt Lake, where I’m pretty sure she fished the lake dry of big northerns. There was always a big cane pole baited with a perch (illegal) stuck into the pipe at the end of the dock and left out overnight (also illegal) hoping to snag a big one. Sometimes we would wake to find a northern. Sometimes we would wake to find a snapping turtle that ate the northern that ate the perch. One time, she made soup out one of those snapping turtles. I will not be sharing that recipe.

Anyway.

The recipe apparently came, not from my grandma, but from an old neighbor of my parents. Carol Feck, to be exact. My parents also neglected to ever write the recipe down.

Hello internet.

We found a very close version of what they remembered the recipe to be in a very old forum discussion and went from there. It turned out delicious — though my dad wished he would have taken it out of the oven a little earlier.

Here is the process:

First you need a big-ass northern. Like 27″ or more. Why? I don’t know why. But that’s what my parents say and that’s also what all the discussions on the internet say. Maybe it’s a myth. Maybe it makes the recipe more special. I just don’t know so stop asking.

Don’t fillet the fish. Instead, gut it and scale it. I wasn’t there for that part, so I can’t give any details. Basically you don’t try to Y-bone it or fillet it — just gut and scale.

Make your preferred stuffing recipe. Stovetop will work or make what you do at Thanksgiving. Salt the cavity of the fish. Stuff with the dressing. Sew up the fish and place it on a foil lined baking sheet. Cover the fish with bacon and bake at 400 until internal temp is 140 degrees (1-3 hours depending on size).

northern ready for the oven

When it’s done, carefully remove skin (it will peel off fairly easily). The fish should be flaky and opaque and lift away from the bones without much effort. Remove the pieces of fish to a serving platter leaving the bones in place.

Lift fish off the bones to a platter

You will be left with the fish skeleton over the dressing. Carefully lift that up and discard it.

_MG_7822

i wasn't lying. this looks just awful

Scoop the stuffing (which looks absolutely disgusting, but now — miraculously! –tastes delicious to these 50 year old tastebuds — or maybe it’s my bad eyesight,who’s to say) into a serving bowl. Serve the fish with lots of lemon wedges and melted butter.

Yum.

I can say with certainty that it satisfied this group of Namekagon River tubers:

Tubing down the Namekagon

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: hayward, Wisconsin, cabin, baked northern, northern pike, stuffed northern

Chinese New Year in Hayward Wisconsin!

January 14, 2010

I sincerely wish I had been chronicling all of my family’s New Years Eve celebrations in Hayward. The fact that I have not, however, isn’t surprising. It’s a madhouse.

We’ve been going up to my parent’s place on Round Lake in Hayward between Christmas and New Year’s as long as they have been up there — probably 15 years now. It has become a tradition for everyone to make a main course for a big meal on New Year’s Eve, eventually narrowing further to always, always be an Asian meal.

So no, it isn’t really the Chinese New Year (which happens in early spring), but a New Year celebrated with Chinese food. We’ve tried other ethnicities, but always come back to Asian.

Now that the kids are getting older, they are also insinuating their preferences. My daughter, for example, insists on making cream cheese puffs. She makes an insane amount — this year it was 60 — assuring me that they are for “leftovers,” and proceeds to eat about 20 herself.

We have never had leftover cream cheese puffs except for the year my dad insisted on adding the fishy crab leftover from Christmas. He was not Morgan’s favorite person that year.

And Jay, in the photo next to her? Well he helped, too. But in this blurry photo, if my champagne-addled mind remembers correctly, he was faking it mostly as an attempt to protest the fact that I was taking pictures of everyone.

Everyone helped. I made my niece actually — eww — touch the chicken that would eventually become her dish of Sesame Chicken. It was epic.

Charlie chopped water chestnuts for P.F. Chang’s Lettuce wraps.

And whilst (sorry, have always wanted to use ‘whilst’) I wish the dishes would be more adventurous, I have to admit: Sesame Chicken is damn good.

…And so is Tempura Shrimp and Vegetables… And so is Mandarin Beef.

(I also have to admit that I’m glad it is not my kitchen that we are deep frying non-stop for two hours straight in.)

Anyway, the recipe that I think was the biggest surprise winner was the Coconut Lime Halibut with Basil (of course it was my dish! This is, after all my blog). It isn’t a very photogenic dish, but I can assure you that even my mom, who is not a professed fish lover, declared it her favorite out of all the other delicious dishes.

The recipe is at the bottom of the post.

After dinner,

which we push off until around 9:30 or 10 pm because, 1) we are sick to our stomaches from various overdoses of appetizers (Morgan); and 2) we think it gives us a better chance of making it to midnight (Dave, Sharon, Mom), we do various things to keep us occupied.

We play dominos, have Wii tournaments, play Shuffleboard, etc. We used to play Taboo, but that game was banned about 10 years ago after a particularly ugly fight between two parties that shall remain nameless.

–Have you played that game? It seems to me that it should say on the box “encourages healthy family discussion” and “Warning: some family members may not appreciate ‘healthy family discussion’.” Anyway. That was YEARS ago. I’m beyond it.

It should be noted that we are long past the years of covertly turning all the clocks ahead by one hour to fool the kids into thinking it was midnight so that we, as exhausted parents, could go to bed earlier –though I suspect the kids might start doing it to us at some point not too far in the future.

..And as much as I want to end this post with the picture that I took of my mom at 11:30pm in the chair, holding her crossword with Pippi/Poopy on her lap sound asleep with her mouth open… well, I’m just not that dumb.

So here’s the recipe.

Coconut Lime Halibut with Basil
(adapted from the Big Bowl Cookbook)

  • 1 can coconut milk (light is fine)
  • 3 T grated fresh ginger
  • 1 T chopped lemongrass (or, if you live in the sticks, grated lemon zest
  • 1 lb fresh halibut fillet, no skin (add more or less as you need. Sauce is flexible and adequate
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 1 t kosher salt
  • 1 c chicken broth
  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 1 1/2 t sugar
  • 2 T peanut or vegetable oil
  • 1/2 c diced red onion (or thinly sliced if you don’t have kids that are onion detectives)
  • 2 -4 T diced hot pepper (or to taste)
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1/3 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
  • 2 -4 T chopped cilantro (personal preference depending on level of cilantro addiction)
  • crushed and toasted peanuts (optional)

In a small saucepan, cook the coconut milk over medium low heat until it is reduced in half. You should have 1/2 – 3/4 cup. In the last few minutes, add the ginger and lemongrass or zest. Set aside.

Sprinkle fish with sesame oil and salt. Set aside.

Mix chicken broth with fish sauce and sugar. Set aside. And claim ignorance to the sudden exclamations around you of: “Ahhh. Ohhh…What STINKS?!”

When ready to eat, heat a wok or skillet to hot, add oil and then the fish, searing briefly over high heat. Add the onion and hot peppers, stir fry a minute or two. Add broth mixture, bring to a boil and cover. Cook about 4 minutes until fish is just barely no longer translucent in the middle. Remove fish to serving platter, leaving sauce in pan. Add the coconut milk to the sauce in the pan and cook until hot. Add the fresh lime juice. Then promptly remove from heat and pour over the fish. Top with basil, cilantro, ground black pepper and toasted peanuts. Serve over hot rice.

Filed Under: Home, Food Tagged With: madhouse, hayward, Wisconsin, halibut, new years eve, chinese new year, asian, sesame chicken, cream cheese puffs, chaos

Buzz the Fishing Vizsla

August 15, 2009

Buzz fishingI figured it was time for a post, but I’m up at my parent’s in Hayward, away from my garden and kitchen. My parents do most of the cooking. I sit on my big, white, lazy butt. Since I don’t have much to complain about, it makes sense that I take this post to acknowledge a somewhat famous part-time resident of Round Lake in Hayward, WI. That would be my dog, Buzz the Fishing Vizsla. From the minute he screams out the back gate of the Suburban to the time we leave, dragging him wet and shivering from the lake minutes before we drive away, he fishes. Patiently, relentlessly, fruitlessly. He starts when the ice goes out in early May and goes thru Labor Day, usually our last trip up until the holidays. We up his food intake to about six cups a day to combat the hypothermic tendency of calorie depletion. (I know that doesn’t make sense, but I like the sound of it.)Even today, on August 15th, the lake temperature is only 69 degrees. I went in for the first time all year yesterday and it took my breath away. A sore departure from my 87 degree pool! Buzz doesn’t seem to mind.

And this fact is what has got me thinking about the similarity between Buzz, and Dave (my husband). Dave also is willing to fish from sun up to sun down without catching a single fish. Like Buzz, his techniques are often in question. I couldn’t find one to show you here, but I have several far-away snapshots of him sleeping with a pole in his hands. Dave loves to fish. Dave loves to sleep. And sometimes he does them at the same time.

It makes me wonder what Dave’s ultimate goals are for fishing. Is it to catch fish? Or to escape the inlaws while at the cabin? His wife? Or to sleep? When in doubt, select “All of the Above.” Dave is actually in Alaska right now with Charlie fishing with his dad, brother and brother in law. I hope he isn’t sleeping.

Anyway,  back to Buzz. He also loves to fish. Because he is up here quite a bit in the summer (my parents generously offer to take our dogs in the summer when we go out of town), he has ample opportunity to spend entire days honing his skills. Boats drive by just to see him. Everyone asks about it. We are so used to it that I guess we don’t think anything of it. Yesterday, he started at 9:30am and didn’t come out until approximately 11:30am — when a girl on a jetski stopped me 20 minutes into my solitary kayak ride to ask me if that was my dog. Sure enough, Buzz had followed me and was all but drowning, what with his bad leg and all. I hauled him out of the water and into the kayak, where he shivered and tipped us for the rest of the trip. I took solace in the idea that being out of the water for about 45 minutes allowed his core temperature to rise above 70 degrees. Once back, he then fished until 4pm when we took him on a boat ride for an hour, and then again until 8:30pm when we hauled him outta there. A good 9 hours in total. Sometimes he stands in the shallows, like below.

Buzz back in 2004.

Other times, and more often, he stands on his hind legs in neck-deep water and propels himself around upright with his front legs tucked up like a kangaroo:

buzz fishing 2

He truly has a screw loose. I searched youtube for other fishing dogs and realized there are some that actually catch fish instead of just staring into the water. And maybe if there were any fish in this stupid lake, Buzz would catch some, too. But somehow I doubt it.

Enjoy the video:

Filed Under: Animals Tagged With: buzz, fishing dog, vizsla, viszla, hayward, Wisconsin, WI, Round Lake

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Jen menke

I’m a mostly-retired, pretend graphics and web developer (but don’t judge my skillz by THIS site!). We sold our dream home in Watertown, MN and downsized to a “Villa” in Excelsior, MN and built a home in our dream location of Eagle, CO and now split our time between the two states. It is truly a dichotomous life of absentee gardening and getting together with friends & family while in MN and playing hard and hermitting while in CO. I’ve let the blog go but a trip to Alaska has me resurrecting the Road Warriors series. My beloved brother is my biggest fan and I am doing this just for him.

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