Cooking the harvest

We have been discussing outdoor wintertime activities for outdoor-minded people during the past few weeks. Today and tomorrow we examine another activity designed to be conducted during cold weather: Cooking the harvest of our outdoor efforts.

My deer-hunting group enjoys at least two meals of walleye tacos every year at deer camp. Rudy Lopez, the director of the Veteran’s Cemetery at Medical Lake, puts together these delicious tacos for two separate meals.

He brings a head of cabbage, a flavored mayonnaise, a can of pineapple chunks, a sweet onion and tortillas. The walleye fillets are from my freezer.

The cabbage is cut in half. One half is placed back in the cooler. The other half is sliced/shredded thinly. The same goes for the onion. The flavored mayonnaise is brought to camp in a smallish plastic bottle, as one of several flavored available commercially, such as one seasoned with Sriracha.

The meal comes together after shooting time when all members of the group are gathered at our hunting shelter.

Rudy slices the cabbage and onion, mixes the onion and cabbage with the mayonnaise, making a slaw, and places this aside. The walleye fillets are either cooked whole in a cast iron skillet and then chucked or chucked and cooked in the skillet.

No matter it is cooked in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Rudy warms the tortillas in a separate skillet at this point. He then places some of the slaw in a tortilla, adds an ample amount of slaw, some of the walleye and places the taco on a paper plate.

Each hunter is allowed two large-sized tacos. This is enough food to feed each. There is always enough walleye, cabbage, onion, mayonnaise and tortillas for two meals.

The same meal preparation can be duplicated at home during the winter or at anytime of the year. Plus, this recipe will work with any type of fish, such as perch, trout, salmon, crappie, bluegill, etc.

A new gadget ended up in my kitchen a couple years ago: A digital pressure cooker. The original pressure cooker didn’t appeal to me. It required the cook to attend the cooker every minute it was in the process of building pressure, cooking and releasing pressure.

The new cookers allow the cook to add the foods, the liquid, set the pressure and step away to conduct other chores. When the time is complete, the cooker stops cooking, but will maintain a warming temperature for several hours, until the cooks wants to take up the meal.

Tomorrow: Cooking an elk stew in the digital pressure cooker.