Inside Rachel Collins’ cottage-like Flagship Specialty Foods & Fish Market in Lakeside is a wicked-looking metal object with spiked tines.
“What do you think this is?” she asks me when I step closer to examine it.
“Some type of pitchfork?”
“No, it’s a sturgeon spear,” she says. “When I was growing up, my brother and I used to go forging and fishing with the family in Winnebago, Wisconsin.”
Winnebago is a small community on Lake Winnebago’s western shores that’s known for its sturgeon season. If you don’t know much about sturgeon, and I didn’t, here are some pointers to keep in mind.
The sturgeon spearing season is 16 days long, beginning around Feb. 1. Sturgeon are huge, prehistoric-looking fish, so I don’t think they’d be easy to take down with a spear, but people obviously do it.
This year, on the second day of Lake Winnebago’s surgeon spearing season, William Thern snagged a 142.3-pound, 80-inch sturgeon, while Andrew Dumask speared a 139.3-pound, 78.2-inch fish.
By comparison, I used to go fishing with my mom, and we’d catch sunfish, perch and bluegill while sitting on the pier with our bamboo poles. After cleaning and de-boning the fish, which luckily my mom did, the size of the fillets were about 3 or 4 inches long at the most.
Those aren’t the type of fish that lend themselves to spearing, unless you’re using toothpicks or a sharp fork.
Sitting on a pier under the summer sun is a lot more appealing to me than freezing on frozen Lake Winnebago. The only thing is, no one is impressed when you hook a 6-inch sunfish.
But back to Collins. The theme of fish and food has been a constant for her. Her grandfather owned Martinetti’s Restaurant in Crystal Lake, Ill., where Collins grew up. She remembers helping there, beginning at a very young age.
The Winnebago fishing happened when the family gathered up north. And no, she’s never speared a sturgeon, though I think she would like to.
Collins’ mother, Carolyn Collins, had always been entranced by the beauty of the sacks of fish roe they found when cleaning a fish – particularly the glittery, translucent, orange eggs produced by chinook salmon.
She began making caviar. In 1983, she went from producing it for friends and family at home, to making handmade salmon and trout caviars for Chicago-area restaurants.
At the same time, Rachel, who had earned a scholarship to attend Chicago Musical College, was performing as a flutist. A musical career was not to be, however, as her mother became even more enmeshed in the world of freshwater caviar. Her mother began befriending charter boat captains, who were willing to share their fish eggs. It was no big deal because they would have thrown them away.
By 1985, the mother-daughter duo was shipping freshwater caviar around the world, adding more fish eggs to their offerings, including hackleback sturgeon, paddlefish, and American golden whitefish. They were the only freshwater caviar purveyors in the country.
At one point, Rachel took time off and trained as a chef. Upon returning, she and her mother decided to move their operations from Chicago to Michigan City, Ind. Rachel was so in demand that she was flown to Belgium to teach sturgeon farmers how to make caviar.
Fresh-cooked fish is topped with Flagship's Mediterranean Relish.
By 2016, it was time for a change. Carolyn had mostly retired, and Rachel decided to open Flagship.
Walking into her store is like being in a fish market of old. Glass-fronted display cases showcase a variety of fresh fish and seafood as well as other items like crab cakes, gourmet cheeses, house-made smoked salmon spread, cheddar and herb biscuits, soups and sandwiches.
There’s seating outside, but it’s mostly just a place to make a to-go order.
I’ve known Rachel since she moved to Michigan City to open Collins Caviar. Since we’re all supposed to eat more fish, I called to see if she would share some tips for cooking fish, as I’m rather limited, having one recipe for indoors and another for outside.
Inside, I splash extra virgin olive oil in a cast iron skillet, turn on the heat, and throw in an assortment of olives. Then, I add a fillet of fish – salmon, lake or ruby trout, or whatever’s on sale – and a sprinkle of Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning.
Outdoors, I heat the grill as high as it’ll go, lightly oil the fillet, dust Tony Chachere on both sides, toss it on the grate and close the lid. Depending on the thickness of the fillet, I cook it for about four minutes on each side, knowing that it’ll continue to cook after it’s removed from the heat. I don’t like dry fish, and this keeps it from overcooking.
Rachel Collins seasons opah fillets with salt, pepper and "a whiff of granulated garlic" at Flagship Specialty Foods & Fish Market in Lakeside.
As you can imagine, Rachel is much more sophisticated than I am.
“I ordered some opah from Hawaii,” she says, as she fillets a fish with opalescent-like scales, hence its other name: moonfish.
I watch as she sprinkles salt and pepper, along with what she calls a whiff of granulated garlic, over the fillets, and then brushes a 6-to-1 canola to olive oil blend on both sides before placing it on the hot grill at a right angle.
As she does so, she explains she uses more canola oil than olive because the latter has a much lower flash point and she likes cooking this fish at high heat, thus it could burn. As for the right angle, that’s important as well. First, she warns that at this stage, the fish shouldn’t be flipped or touched until it looks like its starting to show signs of cooking (the opaque fish starts turning white on top). Now it’s time to flip it, but at a different angle so the grill marks have a cross-hatched look.
“The cross-hatching is good for flavor,” she says.
It doesn’t take long to cook. When she plates it, she reaches for Flagship’s Mediterranean Relish. It’s a mixture of fresh tomatoes, capers, onions, basil, celery and cucumbers tossed with a vinaigrette. The vegetables are all chopped into small chunks, and the basil finely minced.
“You can do the same with halibut,” she says about the more readily available fish, “but that comes in different thicknesses, so it has a different cooking time.”
She hands me a fork and it flakes off easily. I take a taste. It’s delicious.
One of Flagship’s big sellers, Rachel tells me, is their All-American Clambake, a potful of seafood, such as shrimp, lobster tails, steamer clams, mussels, potatoes and fresh corn on the cob that comes with her house-made garlic-parsley butter.
They’re like a New England clambake ready to cook. All you need to do is add water and wine, cover the pot, place on the highest burner setting and bring to a boil. They must be ordered ahead, but make for a perfect dinner on the beach.
Branzino, fresh to Southwest Michigan from the Mediterranean Sea, are stuffed with lemons, green onions and oregano before heading to the grill for cooking.
Branzino, another fish she is going to show me how to prepare, comes whole, including head and tail. There are two of them, and they both stare up at me, their eyes still glistening, which is a good sign because it means they’re fresh.
Rachel marvels at how easy fish is to obtain. The two branzino we are looking at were, not too long ago, hanging around the waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece. Here they are now in Lakeside just a day later. Pretty amazing.
Rachel says she can get almost any fish anyone wants, as her vendor is exceptionally good at sourcing.
“They also call these loup de mer, or wolf of the sea,” Rachel says of the branzino, “because they’re predators.”
They don’t look very predatory right now, but then we have them at a disadvantage.
She has gutted the interior of the fish, and is filling them with thinly sliced lemons, green onions and sprigs of oregano. Taking a ball of twine, she cuts off lengths and deftly ties each fish tightly around its belly, so the stuffing stays in.
These I will take home and cook myself after being given directions on how hot the grill should be and how long to cook them. She would cook them, she says, but the phone is ringing constantly with people calling in orders. She’s needed in the kitchen.
Getting home, the first thing I do after unwrapping the heavy paper they’re wrapped in, is to lop off their heads and tails. I know you’re supposed to serve them whole, but I really don’t like them looking at me.
Just as Rachel says, they don’t take long to grill, and it’s easy to tell when they’re ready as the white meat is fork tender. The taste is sweet, and the lemon, onion and oregano add a nice fresh flavor. Another plus, they are low in calories.
Before I left the store, I ask Rachel if I could snap some photos of her. She picks up the trident – I mean, sturgeon spear – and a garbage can lid and poses as though she’s a Viking queen.
Even after a long day, she still has time for fun. While I’m snapping away, I ask her why she decided to open a seafood place in this spot.
“I’ve lived here for a long time, and every time I drove along Red Arrow, I thought, ‘We really needed a fish market,’” she says. “Since no one else opened one, I decided to go ahead and do it.”
The Link LonkAugust 19, 2020 at 05:00PM
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Sharing fish tales with Flagship's Rachel Collins | Features - Herald Palladium
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