Dinner never starts with the first bite, especially when the entree started out in the wild.
Following the opening day Saturday of Pennsylvania’s trout fishing season, tens of thousands of brook, brown and rainbow trout will arrive home in coolers instead of shopping bags. There’s nothing wrong with traditional recipes — poaching the delicate white meat with a sprinkle of pepper, or pan frying with a couple of slices of bacon. But wouldn’t it be grand to transform the weekend catch into an upscale entree that looks, smells and tastes like something presented by a server at a cloth-napkin restaurant?
Despite the $15 to $25 menu price of quality prepared trout dishes, several Pittsburgh chefs say that trout is particularly adaptable in the kitchen and even elaborate presentations are relatively easy to prepare at home.
Early in the fishing season, most of the trout hooked by anglers had been living in the wild for a short time. Bred and raised in hatcheries and fed high-protein food pellets, they were stocked by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission in a program funded entirely by trout anglers. Stocked rainbow trout are identical to the farm-raised rainbows served by restaurants and sold at groceries. The state also stocks brown and brook trout, which are heartier on the plate. Native trout, and post-hatchery fish that have learned to eat natural foods, are more colorful externally and have pinkish flesh that exudes more robust flavors when cooked.
Dining In, Dining Out
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Outdoors editor John Hayes talks trout on the Dining In, Dining Out podcast at post-gazette.com. And all this week online in our Hunting %26amp; Fishing section, Mr. Hayes takes a daily look at the opening of trout season. Today???s topic: Fly fishing.
Click to hear the latest installment in .mp3 format
The easiest way to spoil dinner is to dangle it from a stringer for hours in the sun. Trout anglers who keep their catch — many practice catch and release — should put the fish on ice as soon as possible, preferably field dressed.
Trout are cousins to salmon, but the family resemblance ends in the kitchen where the smaller, thinner and less oily trout responds quite differently to heat. Sous chef Steve Oster of Downtown’s Palate Bistro said the tiny trout scales act more like skin in the frying pan.
“It’s not worth trying to remove it,” he said. “The skin is OK to eat when it’s fried up. Dust it in flour to make it nice and crispy.”
Trout never leaves the menu at the Original Fish Market, also Downtown.
Executive sous chef Sean Davies dusts the skin in corn meal and cooks it until it’s crisp.
“The meat is very delicate. We serve it 100 percent of the time with the skin on,” he said. “The skin gives it a fishier flavor. It can be removed after it’s cooked if you want. But if you cook it with the skin on, it holds the flaky meat together.”
Thin and white, trout flesh easily assumes the flavors of things cooked with it. At Mitchell’s Fish Market at The Waterfront in Homestead, executive chef Eric Shiley prepares trout in many ways, including blackened with a shrimp rice jambalaya; blackened, pan-fried with vegetables; and baked with a pecan crust.
“Trout takes on a lot of flavors,” he said. “It’s a pretty versatile fish. You can grill it, blacken it, pan fry or deep fry it. It’s all good.”
Mr. Shiley frequently is asked to cook the farm-raised trout fillets at Mitchell’s.
But if he were at home, he said, with a native brook or brown trout, he’d take advantage of the robust wildness of the fish.
“I’d probably grill it, bake it with a little lemon juice or do something very simple with white wine,” he said. “I’d maybe just grill it with salt and pepper, so you can get the actual good flavor of the wild fish that you caught.”
The most important thing to keep in mind when cooking trout, said Mr. Oster, it to cook it quickly.
“The flesh is really delicate,” he said. “Cook it lightly. If you’re using a pan, sear it, turn it over, cut the flame off and it will cook really fine.”
Mr. Davies even suggests burning some mesquite and trapping the smoke with the cooking trout.
“Mostly, with trout, it’s versatile,” he said. “You can do a lot of things with it.”
SPINACH-STUFFED CITRUS TROUT
3 tablespoons divided butter
1 tablespoon divided olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1/4 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
5 ounces fresh spinach, torn into small pieces
1/16 teaspoon tarragon
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 trout or trout fillet
1/8 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Fresh minced parsley
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil. Add shallots and mushrooms and saute for 1 minute. Add spinach and tarragon. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff each the trout with spinach mixture.
Melt the remaining butter and olive oil in the skillet over medium heat. Saute trout until golden brown. Remove from pan and keep warm.
Add orange and lemon juices to skillet. Cook over high heat, stirring constantly, until sauce has reduced and thickened. Add a sprinkle of minced parsley. Pour sauce over fish and serve.
– “Gourmet Gone Wild” by Lorelie Scorzafava (Stackpole, 2008)
PECAN-CRUSTED MOUNTAIN TROUT
1 trout or trout fillet
1 cup bread crumbs
2 cups shelled pecans
1 egg
1/8 cup flour
Brown Butter Sauce:
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 pound cubed cold butter
Pinch kosher salt
Pinch white pepper
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grind the bread crumbs and pecans together. Beat the egg and pour into a shallow dish. Dust the trout with flour, dip in the egg wash and lay one side in the crumbs and pecans. Place pecan side down on an oiled baking sheet and bake 8 minutes.
While the fish is baking, combine heavy cream and brown sugar in a heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. On medium high heat, add cold butter and let it caramelize until it’s amber. Remove from heat, pour into another sauce pan and cool 5 minutes. Wisk brown butter into cream, add salt, pepper and lemon juice. Put sauce on the plate and serve fish and vegetables on top, or serve sauce on the side.
– Mitchell’s Fish Market
TROUT AMANDINE
1/2 cup almonds
1 trout or trout fillet
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Fish seasoning to taste
1/4 cup flour
Honey
Whole butter
Preheat oven to 350.
Place sliced almonds on an ungreased baking tray and toast 2-3 minutes in the oven.
Salt and pepper the trout. Place trout in a 10-inch saute pan, add salt and pepper.
In a bowl, mix flour and seasoning and dredge the trout in the flour mixture.
In a 10-inch saute pan, sear the trout 2 minutes until golden brown. Flip, cut the heat, and drizzle honey and almonds over the trout. In a saute pan, brown the butter until it’s brown. Pour over trout and serve.
– Palate Bistro
POTATO-CRUSTED TROUT
1 small raw potato
1 trout or trout fillet
1 small block of butter
1/2 lemon
1 dozen capers
1/2 bunch chopped parsley
Slice potato thinly and stick slices to the skin on one side of the trout (or skin side of fillet). Place fish potato-side-down in an oiled frying pan on medium-high heat. When the fish is flaky white (you need not flip it), remove from pan. In the same pan with the heat still on, combine the butter, lemon, capers and parsley and simmer briefly until amber. Drizzle the sauce over the trout and serve.
– Original Fish Market
TROUT WITH ROASTED ARTICHOKES, SHALLOTS AND GIANT WHITE BEANS
1 trout or trout fillet
1/8 cup giant white beans
1 large artichoke
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 small shallots peeled and halved
1/2 fresh rosemary sprig
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1/2 lemon, cut into wedges
Put beans in a bowl and add water to cover by about 4 inches; soak for 6 hours or overnight. Drain, transfer beans to a small saucepan, add water to cover by about 2 inches; place on medium heat. Boil 45 minutes to 1 hour until beans are soft. Drain, cool.
Preheat over to 450 degrees. Trim artichokes. Drizzle some olive oil over a rimmed cookie sheet, heat for 5 minutes. Add shallots, artichokes, beans and rosemary to the hot pan. Season with salt and pepper, toss it all together, slide the pan into the preheated oven. Roast about 20 minutes, stirring once or twice until artichokes and shallots are thoroughly cooked.
Heat remaining olive oil in saute pan on high heat until almost smoking. Season trout with salt and pepper; add to pan skin side up. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, flip and transfer to the oven. Turn oven off and roast for 1 minute.
Remove from oven; place fillets skin down on plates with vegetables on top of trout (discard rosemary sprigs). Drizzle with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.
– “Wine Bar Food” by Cathy and Tony Mantuano (Potter, 2008)
Outdoors edtior John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.
amp,groceries,no doubt
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