Cheeks In Butter Garlic Sauce
2008-07-09
In order to keep venison as an ongoing favorite, we’ve got to switch once in a while. I spent 25 years running a charter operation on Lake Erie, primarily for walleyes, and several of my favorite hunting camp meals come from that delicious golden sided fish.
Larger walleye (3 pounds and up) develop a muscle in their cheeks (yep, one on each side), I guess from snapping their toothy mouths shut on bait that’s not on a hook. Usually a walleye doesn’t get any larger when it bites something on a hook – it’s then invited to a fish dinner. Anyway, the following meal evolved from an appetizer we used to enjoy while waiting to eat battered fried walleye. At that time a few cheeks were tossed in a skillet of hot butter with mushrooms and a little garlic, making finger food before the fish fry. The appetizer was so good we now forget the fish fry.
You’ll need:
enough walleye cheeks to feed your group – 6-8 for each
(scallops may be used if cheeks are not available)
¼ pound butter sticks to cover contents (for 8 plus hunters I use 4)
1 cup of minced garlic out of jar
one bunch of green onions
one quart box of sliced mushrooms
2 packages of imitation chunk crabmeat
one pound large cooked tailed/devained shrimp
pasta (for 8+hunters I use 2 pounds)
serve with salad and garlic toast
plan on seconds
Chop onions (including much of the green tops for color and flavor) and shrimp. Melt butter in skillet large enough to hold all ingredients (start the oven for garlic toast, have the salad ready and put on the pasta water first – it will take longer to fix the pasta than the topping). Add garlic, onions and mushrooms to hot melted butter. Stir often and simmer for three minutes, add cheeks (or scallops) stir for another two minutes and then add imitation crab meat and cooked shrimp. Stir all until crab meat and shrimp has heated through. Salt and pepper to taste and serve with ground (I like fresh, but it is okay out of one of those shaker jars) parmesan cheese as an option.
If you weren’t a fisherman before having this meal, you may be after!
About the author: Ottie Snyder entered print communications with the United States Marine Corps in early 1962, and has remained in communications since. He was the editor of three popular fishing and hunting magazines for years, an award winning freelance outdoor writer, and has headed up Horton's crossbow education/hunting opportunity expansion program since early 1990. Snyder scripted, edited and produced Horton's three Crossbow Chronicles DVDs, and continues to serve as Director of Communications for Horton.
