Fried Walleye

Fried walleye belongs to the Friday fish fry of Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Great Lakes region, a tradition rooted in the area's large Catholic population observing meatless Fridays, the abundance of freshwater fish, and Prohibition-era taverns that drew custom with cheap fish suppers. Walleye is the most sought-after of the local catch for the table. The parallel "shore lunch" — frying the morning's fish on the lakeshore — is a longstanding ritual of the northern U.S. and Canada and has no single inventor.

A thin, crackling shell of golden batter or gritty cornmeal gives way to dense white flakes that separate cleanly along the grain. The flavor is clean and faintly sweet, with none of the muddiness of some lake fish; a squeeze of lemon and the cool tang of tartar sauce are all the seasoning it asks for. Fresh from the oil it steams when broken open, the flesh moist and just set. Overcooked, walleye turns dry and cottony — the window is narrow.

Walleye flesh is lean and delicate, so the coating's job is to seal it: dropped into oil at about 190°C, the batter or cornmeal crust sets almost instantly, trapping moisture so the thin fillet steams inside its shell rather than drying out. A beer batter foams and crisps because the beer's carbon dioxide and proteins lighten the coating; cornmeal gives a coarser, grittier crunch. Because the fillets are thin and the flesh is low in connective tissue, they cook in only a few minutes and overcook fast.