Three great recipes for freshly caught trout
In my early days of fly fishing for trout, a lot of my ‘catching’ was during summer months in the UK. There, fisheries management generally encouraged the harvesting of caught trout because of the warm water conditions. So my wife became very accustomed to my bringing home a decent amount of fish.
Catch and release trout in the DC area
Now most of my trout fishing is in the DC area where a majority of the ‘catching’ is on catch and release (C&R) waters. More often than not, I return home with little more than stories of fish caught, which my wife is less thrilled about! So when I am able to occasionally bring home my catch, it is a real treat for our household.
Smoked trout pâté
It should come as no surprise to readers of my blog that the preferred method of preparing trout is to smoke them on the ceramic cooker (Big Green Egg, or BGE). My preference is to smoke at a very low temperature, say 120 to 150 degrees, so as to get a moist fish that is more infused by the smoke than cooked by it. I also tend to use smoke chips that produce a milder smoking flavor, such as cherry or apple wood.
Smoked trout makes for a great pâté that is dead easy to prepare using cream cheese, lemon juice, melted butter, horseradish and worcestershire sauce. Generally, we would serve this with crackers or pita chips, but vegetable sticks would also be a good complement.
Simple baked trout
An unbelievably simple trout recipe involves placing the whole fish (cleaned, of course) on a baking sheet lined with cooking paper, stuffing the fish with lemon and thyme, and baking in the oven together with new potatoes (halved) and asparagus spears, all seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Trout with green sauce
One of our first recipes for preparing trout, and undoubtedly our favorite, is to marinate the fish (after making diagonal cuts in both sides) in oil, lemon juice, oregano, mint, salt and pepper for half an hour, and then broil the fish for 12 – 15 minutes, turning once before broiling is complete. Serve the fish with a green sauce of garlic, parsley, capers and lemon juice that is seasoned with salt and pepper.
Bon appétit!