With a summer full of fishing on the doorstep, most of us know we’ll be eating fish.
Maybe a lot.
For many like me, it’s the taste of summer here in the land of lakes.
Now, everyone knows there are countless ways of cooking fish. Around these parts, that pretty much means “countless ways of cooking fish, as long as it’s boneless and skinless panfish fillets, battered or coated in crumbs and fried all to heck.”
It’s tradition.
Pan-fried, served-hot, next-to-the-pasta-salad tradition. Wouldn’t feel right any other way.
And I get that; it’s hard to betray tradition or any sense of nostalgia.
My own nostalgia around fried fish brings memories of sunset dinners at the cabin, with my youngest brother falling asleep at the table after a long day of fishing and other serious business.
Sweet, satisfying, slightly sunburned memories.
But I’ve moved on. I suppose part of me wants to enshrine those days with Grandpa and Grandma in my mind untainted.
I’m positive the part of me that craves variety in all things has taken control of everything related to fishing.
In recent years, that has meant experimenting with my catch. We’ve landed on some favorites in our house, like fish sandwiches. On a soft bakery roll topped with lettuce, tomato, and honey mustard or spicy mayo,
it’s perfect for a half-fillet of larger walleye or whole fillet of large crappie or smaller walleye.
Another all-star (and dare I say tradition) is catfish nuggets. I’ll soon break out the eggs, oil and cornmeal for some of those.
As great as those are, I must admit last weekend I encountered something even better. It might sound really out there, but extensive legal analysis has concluded that due to their deep-fried nature they are allowed in Minnesota.
You ready for this?
Sucker balls.
I landed some on my plate at the Root River Roundup, an annual gathering of native fish lovers associated with the website roughfish.com.
One of the event’s organizers, Corey Geving, told me the genesis of the recipe (which can be found under the “Articles” tab on the website) came from the side of a can of Old Bay seasoning.
From there, they worked toward a version for ground up sucker fillets.
“My mom, actually, was instrumental in finally perfecting the recipe,” he said.
As everyone knows, moms can make pretty much everything better. “Patty’s Fish Patties” is a mini masterpiece.
Anyway, at some point, somebody got the idea to make balls instead of patties, and things snowballed from there. Those flavorful little gems have become the specialty and centerpiece of Saturday’s dinner.
The recipe is not overly complicated. Course-ground fish is combined with egg, cracker crumbs, seasoning and mayonnaise.
“Ritz crackers have a really good flavor, we’ve found, and they really absorb the moisture to make it a good consistency and keep them kind of fluffy,” said Geving.
My oft-repeated taste tests confirmed this to be true.
Sucker cakes/balls have proven to be a wonderful way to make use of common yet ignored fish.
One big reason is because when you grind and fry a fish with hard-to-remove bones, like sucker species or northern pike, those tiny bones dissolve in the hot oil.
It’s as if they were never there.
Geving made the frying process look easy, with his Dutch oven over a propane-fired tripod base.
That’s not to say you could stumble your way through it, however. He gave me some tips that are key to success.
For one thing, he kept the oil pretty hot — between 350 and 375 degrees on his thermometer. At that temperature, the balls cook quickly and the oil makes a nice crust without soaking deep inside.
Also, maintaining a high temperature is important. For that reason, Geving only put a few in at a time.
“If you put in too many at once, it will cool the oil down. If you had a bigger fryer, you could probably do more at once,” he said.
The sucker balls served at the Roundup were around two inches in diameter, and some included diced jalapeño peppers. Tzatziki sauce was available for dipping, and was excellent, though I believe a myriad of other sauces could work.
Sucker balls, an adaptation of an adaption of a recipe, have proven to be an excellent medium for experimentation over the years. Geving said any seasoning could be substituted for Old Bay. He mentioned that they tried a curry version once, which intrigued me.
The big idea this year was to try a “Juicy Lucy” version, with cheese inside.
“We had high hopes for using a fine goat cheese, but someone forgot to buy the goat cheese,” said Geving.
Still, they chopped cheese sticks into chunks that could be hidden inside. The cheese-stuffed balls came out after I was far too full to try one.
That didn’t really matter,
though, because they were gone in a flash.
Geving counted the experiment a success.
“Yeah, well, we were thinking they might explode, and they didn’t. So that was good progress in the whole science of sucker balls,” he laughed.
Since the hardest part of making sucker balls is finding enough time to get to the river, my manual grinder is standing by. I hope to make history as the first to make the goat cheese iteration.
Roy Heilman is an outdoorsman, writer, musician, and ethnic Minnesotan. His adventures take him all over the map, but he’s always home at neveragoosechase.com.