Door County in your own backyard

For years when our kids were little, we would spend a couple of weeks in Door County, Wisconsin, at a wonderful little cottage we owned with the fish husband's family.  Our kids loved going to Al Johnson's and seeing the goats on the roof, having dinner and bowling at the Sister Bay Bowl, getting ice cream at Wilson's, and going to a fish boil or two.
     Our favorite was at the White Gull Inn, where they provided hot dogs for all the kids who didn't eat fish  (our kids never touched the hot dogs). After a hard day of playing on the beach, hiking and biking, our son Greg would chow down on an enormous helping of fish and potatoes, then happily go to sleep with his head on the table.
     We decided to try doing a fish boil at home (minus the flame off at the end) and here's the recipe we came up with:

Burhop's Midwest Fish Boil
Prep time: 45 minutes    Serves 10-12

INGREDIENTS:
1/2-3/4 lb. fish per person, fillets or steaks of whitefish, lake trout or pike
(halibut works, but not authentic)
12 quart kettle with removable basket (pasta cooker)
12 medium onions
24 medium new potatoes
2 Burhop's spice bags
2 sticks melted butter
1/2 cup salt
Lemon wedges, chopped parsley for garnish

DIRECTIONS
Peel onions. Clean potatoes (DON'T PEEL) and cut small circle off ends.
Remove the basket from the kettle, and place potatoes and 8 qts. of water in pot. Bring to a boil and add spice bags, salt and onions. Cook for 15 minutes at a steady, rolling boil, with the top of the kettle vented or partly covered. Stack fish in basket and add to the kettle when potatoes are almost done. Be careful about overflow - you may have to ladle out a little water. Cook fish for 12 minutes, with pot partially covered. Take pot to sink and drain fish.

Serve family style on big platters for a back yard party, or serve directly onto plates, as you prefer. Top the fish, potatoes and onions with a couple of tablespoons of hot melted butter and some chopped parsley, and serve with lemon wedges and Burhop's Cole Slaw.

The reason why they do a flame off at the end up in Door County is because of the quantity of fish. (For those of you who have't seen one, the fish boil is cooked outside over a fire, and at the end of the cooking, an accelerant is thrown on the fire, causing it to flare up and the cooking water to overflow onto the fire). The purpose of the flame off is to get rid of the oil etc. that floats to the surface when you have 30 or 40 lbs. of fish. With this amount of fish, draining it works just as well, and it's a lot safer. Not as spectacular, but safer.

We haven't done one of these in years, but remembering how delicious it is, I think it's time we did it again. This time of year, there are many great farmers markets, where you can get wonderful fresh onions and potatoes for the boil. Invite some friends over and have a Door County Fish Boil party!