Wondering how to cook the sturgeon you caught? Northeast Wisconsin spearers share their recipes
Becky JacobsGRAND CHUTE – There are several ways that Anthony Richter could have cooked up the last bit of meat in his freezer from the 108-pound sturgeon he caught on Lake Winnebago last year.
He could have smoked it or deep fried it. Richter has cooked sturgeon both of those ways in the past, and said it tasted good.
But on a cold day in late January, Richter decided to use two of his favorite sturgeon recipes that he's developed over the years.
First, Richter fired up the burners on the stove in his Grand Chute home to fry pieces of sturgeon in butter with onion. While not everyone may like the taste of sturgeon, he said, “I don’t know anybody that doesn’t like fried onions and butter.”
Then, Richter used some of the cooked fish to make his sturgeon rolls. It's just like a lobster roll, he said, but with sturgeon instead of lobster. When Richter tested the sandwich out on friends last year, he said it was a "big hit."
Over in Larsen, Jim Willes got a chance to create some recipes of his own after he caught a sturgeon on Lake Winnebago in 2018. He settled on a method where he lightly boils the fish in milk before poaching it in butter. It makes the sturgeon turn out similar to lobster, he said.
Willes and Richter have each shared their recipes with their friends and followers on their separate Facebook pages. Willes runs The Camo Cook as a way to combine his passion as a restaurant chef with his love for hunting and fishing. And Richter, who enjoys cooking for fun, turned a weekly gathering with friends and family at his home into The Garage Gourmet, a page where he shares recipe videos that he likes to end by saying, "Never trust a skinny chef!"
Richter and Willes also recently shared their advice for preparing and cooking sturgeon with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.
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Make sure you thoroughly clean your sturgeon
Sturgeon can be "some of the worst tasting stuff in the world," Richter said, if it's not cleaned properly. That's why it's important to cut all of the yellow fat off the fish, even if it means losing a little bit of the meat in the process, he said.
You should also remove the "mud line," which Richter described as the "brown yuck" found on a sturgeon. These steps help to get rid of the strong "fishy" flavor, he said.
Because one sturgeon can produce a lot of meat, he said most people end up freezing it for future use. He recommends "thoroughly" rinsing the sturgeon in cold water a few times before freezing the meat.
Sturgeon is a really firm, fatty fish that can be chewy, kind of similar to a steak, Willes said. That texture can turn a lot people off from eating it, he said.
Sturgeon also has a unique taste, unlike a lot of other fish, he said. He described sturgeon as kind of a cross between catfish and alligator, but he said even that isn't completely accurate.
Richter also didn't have a good comparison.
"It tastes like sturgeon," he said.
Fry sturgeon in onion and butter. But first, rinse it some more.
After thawing his sturgeon, there's one thing Richter makes sure he does before he starts cooking: He rinses the sturgeon – a lot. Richter ran his cut-up pieces of sturgeon under cold water about 30 times before he began cooking it in January. Again, this helps the fish taste better, he said.
Next, Richter drops the sturgeon chunks into a pot of boiling water with a bit of salt added to it. As the sturgeon boils, you'll see some foam rise to the top. This helps to get more fat out, he said.
While the sturgeon is in hot water, heat up a pan and start frying a diced onion in it with a generous portion of butter. After the sturgeon has boiled for a couple of minutes — just long enough for it to start cooking — drain the sturgeon and rinse it under hot water before adding it to the frying pan.
Cook the fish with the onions until they both start to get some color, Richter said. Sprinkle the fish with some Creole or Cajun seasoning as it fries. Once that's done, let the sturgeon cool a bit.
Richter said he likes to eat his sturgeon just like this, with onion, butter and seasoning. But you can also take it a step further, he said, by making sturgeon rolls.
Skip the lobster and add sturgeon for this sandwich
To make Richter's sturgeon rolls, you will need:
- 2 pounds sturgeon
- 2 cups mayonnaise
- 2 to 3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- 2 celery stalks, diced (Richter likes to include the celery leaves, too.)
- 2 green onions, diced
- Half of a lemon, juiced
- ¼ cup Grey Poupon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon mustard powder
- Cajun or Creole seasoning (Richter suggests a tablespoon, but use as much as you like)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Some crisp lettuce
- Hoagie rolls
For this recipe, Richter recommended using about 2 pounds of sturgeon, cut up into 1-inch pieces.
To make the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, parsley, celery, green onion, lemon, mustard, mustard powder, Cajun seasoning, salt and pepper together in a bowl.
Take the sturgeon that you fried (in the recipe above) and mix it with the dressing in the bowl. If you want extra flavor, add in the onions you fried up, too. It's best if the sturgeon mixed with the dressing can sit in the fridge for an hour or two before serving, Richter said.
Next, cut the hoagie rolls in half and toast them until they are golden brown. Then, put the coated sturgeon on a roll and top it with some crisp lettuce.
You can also poach sturgeon in butter over a double boiler
Like Richter, Willes begins his recipe by removing the yellow fat from the sturgeon and cutting the filet into thin strips.
Many people like to soak their sturgeon in buttermilk, but Willes said he boils his sturgeon in whole milk for a couple of minutes, to draw more fat out of it. You don't need a roiling boil, he said, only a simmer.
Next, place a large metal mixing bowl on top of a pot of boiling water to create a double boiler. Put enough clarified butter in the bowl to cover the sturgeon.
To get clarified butter, melt down a block of butter. Remove the white, watery substance that separates from the yellowish portion, Willes said.
Then, place the sturgeon in the clarified butter in the bowl and let it sit for about five minutes. This method allows the sturgeon to cook slowly, while adding the butter taste into it, he said. Squeeze in some lemon juice for extra flavor.
Willes paired this sturgeon recipe with salmon caviar for a wine tasting event last year, he said, and even people who thought they didn't like sturgeon tried it and "loved it."
Reach Becky Jacobs at bjacobs@gannett.com or 920-993-7117. Follow her on Twitter at@ruthyjacobs.