A recent trip to Harvey House in Madison featured a walleye entree with a horseradish sabayon which was revelatory. The texture of the sabayon was souffle-light and the horseradish created a sensation of enhanced aroma for the entire dish. Paired with rye crusted walleye and spaetzle, it provided a hint to answer a question posed a world away.

While on a trip to Japan, the fresh grated wasabi with the sushi provided a dramatic contrast to prepared wasabi typically available in the US. We detailed the experience here, but it raised the question for Great Lakes Cuisine – Could fresh grated horseradish provide the same type of nuanced flavor enhancement? This dish at Harvey House provided a clue.

The next day, a trip to the store for fresh horseradish root as well as prepared horseradish allowed for a taste test. But now the challenge was to mimic the rest of the dish. To be clear, I have no recipe and no instruction on how they make the actual dish at Harvey House, so this is just my attempt to recreate the dish to test our fresh horseradish hypothesis. To reproduce the rye crusted walleye, Potter’s Crackers Wisconsin Rye crackers were placed in a food processor until ground to the texture of coffee grounds.

A toasted dark rye bread made into bread crumbs might also work in a pinch, but the crackers worked ideally in this preparation as you want that really crisp finish on the walleye. The choice of Harvey House to use a rye crust here is a fun bit of fish fry recombination. A very traditional fish fry would have walleye with a flour/beer batter coating and be served with a slice of rye bread. The rye becomes a crisp, flavorful coating instead in this interpretation. Loved this.

To reproduce the Savoy cabbage spaetzle, watercress and spinach were sautéed with garlic then pureed. Again, the Harvey House dish is playing with the traditional service of fish fry, often including a cabbage coleslaw alongside the fish. In their dish, the Savoy cabbage is repackaged into a different traditional German side, adding great flavor and texture with an unexpected pop of color!

See our preferred spaetzle recipe here and substitute 3/4 cup of the puree for the 1/2 cup of water. Add more as needed to get to a thick, but workable batter, like pancake batter. If desired, this dish could be served with a sauté of savoy cabbage with shallots in butter. I suggest avoiding a cold coleslaw, because the warm side with the fish and the sauce is a heavenly combination. Prepare spaetzle in advance (recipe linked above).

You will want to complete the horseradish sabayon in advance (detailed after the walleye recipe below) as well. This flavor experiment involved a comparison between a high-quality prepared horseradish, Bucky Badger brand , and fresh horseradish.

To ensure the horseradish flavor fully infused in the sauce, a cup of heavy cream was whipped until soft peaks formed and then divided, with 1 Tbs. of horseradish added to each and allowed to infuse overnight. A taste-test the next day confirmed the fresh horseradish recreated the tasting sensation experienced with fresh wasabi on the sushi in Kyoto. Not nearly as intense, but the same feeling of the nasal passages opening to allow greater flavor sensation, without an overpowering burn. The prepared horseradish cream was also good, providing that pleasant punch of burn enjoyed in many dishes, but not the target flavor for this dish.

The sauce prepared here was less stiff than the one presented by Harvey House due to the infused cream approach. It creates the flavor, but changes the texture, so clearly another technique is in use, but this approach allowed me to test the fresh horseradish hypothesis. And it was delicious!

Rye-crusted Walleye

• 2 Lake Superior Walleye filets, skin removed
• 1 Tbs. flour
• 1 egg
• 2 ounce rye crackers, ground (see note above)
• salt, ground pepper
• 2 Tbs. salted butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. (If desired, the fillets can be trimmed to rectangular shape to mimic the presentation from Harvey House) Spread ground rye crumbs on a plate and set aside. Beat egg in a shallow bowl and set aside. On the side with the skin removed, dust lightly with flour. Season the other side with salt and pepper. Dip the floured side of the fish in the beaten egg. Place fish, egg side down on the rye crumbs and press to set crumb crust.

In a fry pan, over medium high heat, melt the butter and when the bubbles subside, slide fish into the pan, crumb side down. Cook 2 minutes, tip pan slightly and ladle fish with butter. Place in oven for another 4 minutes until fish is just cooked through (no longer opaque).

While fish finishes in the oven, heat another fry pan over medium heat, add 2 Tbs. butter. When melted add 2 cups of prepared spaetzel and heat through.

Remove fish from the oven. Gently flip the fish to serve on the plate crumb side up, with spaetzel and a dollop of sabayon sauce.

Note how the sauce in this preparation doesn’t have the light fluffiness of the Harvey House version, picture at the top of this post. This recipe creates a very light sauce, with a beautiful hint of horseradish that can be used anywhere you might otherwise use a horseradish cream sauce. But do go to Harvey House and have the original!

Horseradish Sabayon Sauce

• 1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped to form soft peaks
• 1 Tbs freshly grated horseradish root (see note above)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 Tbs cold water
• 1/2 cup neutral vegetable oil (safflower for example)

Combine the whipped cream and grated horseradish and allow to infuse as much as 24 hours in advance. In a pan with sloping sides or a stainless steel bowl, whip the egg yolks and water until frothy. Standard straight-sided pans don’t work well as the eggs can coagulate in the bottom edges. Using a water bath over medium heat, place the bowl or pan and whisk constantly until the mixture begins to thicken and you can see the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and continue to whisk for another 30 seconds to prevent curdling, then add the oil in a stream while whisking until incorporated. Once cool, whip 2 Tbs of the horseradish cream into the egg mixture. Keep chilled until serving.

These are the type of flavor experiments highlighting the enjoyment of travel as inspiration. The journey from the taste of fresh wasabi in Kyoto to an excellent innovation from a modern supper club in Madison, Wisconsin, provides ways to reconsider a very traditional dish. Nothing could be more traditional in Great Lakes Cuisine than a walleye fish fry on a Friday night! But a few simple tweaks, a few inspired additions, elevates the experience in new ways.