Door County Fish Boil

As tradition built it

Door County Fish Boil

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Ingredients

• 3 litres water
• 150g salt
• 1kg small new potatoes
• 1 large onion, quartered
• 1kg lake whitefish or a comparable firm white fish, cut into thick steaks
• to taste melted butter, lemon wedges, to serve

Method

1. Bring the salted water to a rolling boil in a large pot and add the potatoes and onion; cook 20 to 25 minutes until the potatoes are nearly tender.
2. Add the fish and return to a hard, sudden boil, per Rung 2, rather than a gentle simmer.
3. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, until the fish is just cooked through and its released oils are visible on the surface.
4. Drain thoroughly and serve immediately with melted butter and lemon.

Notes

The original camp tradition throws kerosene onto the fire beneath the pot to force a boil-over that carries the surface fat away; this recipe achieves the same skimming effect with a controlled hard boil rather than an open-flame accelerant.

What a modern chef changes

The boil-over's skimming principle deliberately engineered, without kerosene.

Rung 2

Method

1. Bring the pot to a hard, sudden boil the moment the fish's fat is visible on the surface, rather than maintaining a steady simmer throughout, so the same violent convective turbulence that a real boil-over produces carries the surface fat and foam away on its own, per Rung 2.
2. Finish the fish with a very brief blast under a hot grill after draining, for a touch of colour a pure boil cannot give, an idea this chapter offers rather than a documented part of the tradition.