The Best Walleye Soup Recipe with Couscous
Feast your eyes and your senses upon this Walleye Soup with Couscous topped with crispy pan seared walleye. It's a symphony of flavors and a celebration of the walleye we love to catch here in North Dakota!
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 2 skin-on walleye fillets (about 6 to 8 ounces each)
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon crushed pink peppercorns
- 2 teaspoons black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 12 baby carrots, diced (about 1 cup)
- 3 celery stalks, diced
- 1 ½ tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon ground juniper berries
- ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 cups fish stock
- 2 tablespoons sun dried tomato pesto
- 1 cup couscous
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 fresh lemon
- ¼ cup fresh chives, chopped
Instructions
- Take the walleye fillets out of the fridge and cut them in half. Now pat the fillets dry with a paper towel, then sprinkle both sides of each fillet with about ⅛ teaspoon of salt and crushed pink peppercorns per side. If you don't have pink peppercorns, just substitute black pepper. Let the fish fillets come to room temperature for about 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a large pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook, stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables soften. Season the vegetables with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper. Add 1 tablespoon of crushed juniper berries and ⅛ teaspoon of ground cinnamon and stir well to incorporate.
- Add 6 cups fish stock or chicken broth, 2 cups water, and 2 tablespoons of sun dried tomato pesto. Stir well. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot part-way and let simmer for 15 minutes.
- While the broth is simmering, make the couscous. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of butter. Stir in 1 cup couscous. Remove from heat and cover with a lid. Let stand for at least 5 minutes or until ready to serve with the soup.
- Now let's cook the fish. Heat a large nonstick sauté pan over high heat. When it's hot, add 2 tablespoons of canola oil and carefully swirl it around. Pat the fish dry with paper towels once more before adding the fillets to the pan.
- Make sure you have a fish spatula handy. Set the fish fillets, skin side (or the side where the skin used to be) down in the hot pan and carefully and slowly swirl them around in the oil so they don't stick. Press down on the fillets with the fish spatula to flatten them. Keep the pressure on for 30 to 60 seconds.
- Using a large spoon, baste the exposed side of the fish with the hot oil by slightly tipping the pan a little to collect the oil. Baste the fish with the hot oil for about 1 minute until the fish turns an opaque color.
- Reduce the heat to medium and let the fish continue to cook undisturbed for about another 3 minutes.
- When the fish is done, use the fish spatula to transfer the fillets, skin side up, onto a paper towel-lined plate and sprinkle them with a little kosher salt and black pepper.
- Using a lemon zester tool, zest the lemon and place the lemon strings on a small plate. When zesting the lemon, be sure to zest just the peel and not the pith, which is the white layer underneath the peel. The white part is extremely bitter, and you definitely don’t want that in your soup. Juicing a lemon will be easier if the lemon is softened a bit. Simply, roll the lemon between your hand and your countertop or a cutting board for a few seconds to soften it. You can also soften the lemon by heating it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Now cut the lemon in half and juice it using a handheld juicer or electric juicer.
- Stir in the freshly squeezed lemon juice to the soup. Now transfer ¼ cup of the cooked couscous into each of the four soup bowls. Pour about 1 ½ cups of the hot broth over the couscous. Then top each bowl with one of the pieces of cooked fish. Sprinkle each bowl with the chopped fresh chives, then garnish the fish with a few slices of lemon zest. Serve immediately.
