Fried Walleye

Fried walleye is a classic for a reason: Crispy on the outside, flaky on the inside. The method I use here is buttermilk fried fish, and it works with all firm, white fish, from walleye to perch, seabass to snapper.

Coming up with a specific fried walleye recipe just seemed like an odd exercise: After all, it’s simple fried fish. Then I started to think about all the ways you can go about frying fish, and realized there was one key method I’d eaten a lot as “shore lunch” in Minnesota that I hadn’t covered here in HAGC.

Buttermilk fried fish.

Yep, it’s basically the same as my recipes for buttermilk fried rabbit and fried quail, but with walleye fillets.

You marinate the fillets in seasoned buttermilk, then dredge them heavily in flour — repeating the process if you want “extra crispy” — then fry them in lots of very hot oil.

Tips for Better Fried Walleye

No matter what method or what fish you want to fry, here are some universal tips that will help you get the crispy, not greasy, fish you want.

• The best oil for frying walleye or other fish is one with a high smoke point, so canola, grapeseed, peanut, rice bran, safflower or avocado. These oils can go to 400°F without burning.
• Keep your oil as close to 350°F as you can. The single most common problem when frying fish is oil that’s too cool. Cool oil makes for greasy fish.
• To that end, don’t crowd the pan. Give each piece of fried walleye some room. Fry in batches.
• Between each batch, let the oil return to 350°F. This is another very common mistake newcomers make.
• Put your fried walleye on a rack set over a baking sheet in a 200°F oven. This will prevent the fish from getting soggy.

The main seasoning in this recipe goes on the fish and/or in the buttermilk, not the flour. The reason is because certain spices, and many herbs, will burn in the hot oil, making them bitter. When those seasonings are under the flour they’re protected.

Any spice mix you want works, from Lawry’s to Cavender’s to Ethiopian berbere to whatever whatever. You do you.

If you want to make gluten-free fried walleye, I’d suggest dredging the fish in a 50-50 mix of starch — tapioca, potato or corn — and a gluten free flour you like, such as rice or chickpea flour.

Other Ways to Make Fried Walleye

Buttermilk fried fish isn’t the only way to fry walleye. Here are some other methods that are equally good.

• Simple breading, in flour, then egg wash, then breadcrumbs. I do this in my fried flounder recipe.
• Classic beer batter. My choice would be Grain Belt, Point, or Leinenkugel’s.
• Crushed Saltines. This is and old-school method I love, and I use it for my friend snapper recipe.
• Chinese salt and pepper fish. This is an unusual coating that uses egg whites I like a lot.
• Simple cornmeal crust. I do this with my Southern-style fried speckled trout.
• A flour-egg-flour crust, which you see a lot in south Texas for chicharron de pescado.

Basically you can use almost any sort of flour or starch to make fried walleye. I’ve even used pulverized Doritos in place of breadcrumbs, and gone with 100 percent starch, too.

Accompaniments

Beer, obviously. Duh. Or lemonade for those who don’t drink alcohol.

But I’d also suggest some homemade cole slaw and potato salad, a classic Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese and pickled red onions, or hell, slap your fried walleye between two pieces of bread, add bacon, lettuce and tomato and call it a day.