Trout

Trout cookery

Trout cookery is very straight forward. You can grill it, broil, bake or sear it. If you are going to grill, bake or broil it, just put some olive oil salt and pepper on it and then cook it like an open book, skin side down, hot and fast until it’s just cooked through (maybe 4-10 minutes). If you are searing it in a pan, cook it skin side down in a hot pan with a sheen of olive oil and/or butter. Because the fillets are so thin, you don’t need to flip it. Trout skin is delicious when it gets nice and crispy. You can also season both sides of the fish, top the flesh with some thin slices of lemon and herbs and fold it shut (so it looks like a fish) and grill it on both sides.

You could also separate the fillets, season and then dredge them in some flour and sear it in a hot pan with olive oil and/or butter for a couple of minutes on each side. Take the fillets out of the pan and make a sauce in the pan by adding a nub of butter… once that browns remove it from the heat and add finely minced shallots, capers, parsley, and lemon juice and then pour it over the fillets. 

Trout is also delicious with some smoke. I am going to set up a small pile of coals in my weber on one side of the pit, place a tin foil pie tin with cold water on the other side of the pit, place some seasoned trout on the grill above the pie tin, put some soaked wood chips on the coals to make them smoke, and then put the lid on with the vents partially closed over the fish and opposite the coals so that the smoke is pulled through the fish on its way out the vents. I suspect the trout will cook very quickly, but absorb a decent dose of smoke this way. I also might experiment with cooking the trout on a soaked cedar plank on a grill since I have one of those lying around.