There is nothing more traditional in our semi-annual visits to Big Shag Lake than a fish fry. Catch a bunch of pan fish - mostly bluegills - clean 'em, bread 'em, fry 'em (or grill 'em) and eat 'em. However, in recent years, with the invasion of Northern Pike and subsequent DNR elimination of any size requirement to keep said fish, our culinary habits have changed. Undersized pike are easy to catch, and we essentially treat them like pan fish - except - we're being a bit more gourmandish about the preparation. We're as likely to poach the filets with a bar poche au champagne recipe or saute them in a tarragon, garlic, lemon and butter sauce as we did earlier this week with visiting cousins Judi and Hanna.
Today it was back to the future. Dad, Harlan and I are still catching pike during breaks between rainstorms, but decided go old school and pan fry the filets using flour, egg wash and Italian bread crumbs - aka - Lou's North Beach Recipe. It wasn't completely old school. We did include a few abalone steaks imported from California into the mix. Call it fusion cuisine. But the basics don't change...
Catch 'em
Clean 'em
Cook 'em
Eat 'em
Life is good.
[Editor's Note: Your loyal blogger is once again seriously behind the curve on this blog before getting around to his first post of the Michigan trip. As is now standard operating procedure, we are publishing a current post, and hope to move both forward and backward in time filling in missing entries. That is all.]
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