General Information

A fine-textured fish

There are:

sea Trout or Icean Trout - the flavour of which is reminiscent of salmon, and which is called Salmo trutta in Latin and sometimes given the name “salmon trout” in English. Silvery and much larger than other varieties, it is found in the waters of the Atlantic

rainbow trout, Salmo gairdneri, originally from western North America. Imported in Europe during the 19th century.

lake trout or gray trout, and the river trout with a golden brown belly, are non-migrant varieties of the sea trout

Fario trout, pictured above, fished in the rivers of France’s Franch-Comté

The trout has an elongated body, the colors of which vary as it takes on grey, yellow or brown highlights. It is more or less speckled.

It is a lean fish with white or salmon-colored flesh, prized for its mild flavor and fine-textured flesh.

Trout – Culinary File

A few basic principles
Unlike other fish, trout does not necessarily have to be scaled; its scales melt during cooking and add a unique flavour.
Trout does have a tendency to dry out quickly, so the cooking time should be kept to a minimum; add some fat to the pan or steam it;
for skillet-cooking, sear the fish on its skin on one side using a few drops of oil;
to cook a whole fish on the barbecue, you can add some fat to the inside of the fish: in the old days they used a piece of pork fat, but the taste is not refined enough.

Jean-Paul Jeunet adds a little knob of butter to the inside and protects the flesh by wrapping it in a piece of caul fat before searing it in a skillet.

Pierre Wynants cooks his trout in a 200° C (400° F) oven for five minutes in a foil-covered dish with vegetables and a little liquid - white wine diluted with water - and a sprig of thyme.

Portugal
Fishermen tuck a branch of juniper with leaves attached into the cleaned trout and grill it over a wood fire on the beach. Shortly before the end of the cooking time, they throw a few eucalyptus leaves dipped in sea water onto the coals which give off a great deal of smoke and impart a distinctive flavour to the trout.

Filleting Trout with Anne Desjardins
remove the head from the trout
trout is easy to fillet because it has a backbone and a only a few small bones along a third of its length;
place the trout flat on a work surface; with a damp cloth, grasp the end of the tail;
using a large sharp knife, slide the knife between the backbone and the flesh and move the knife along from the tail to the head – the secret is to hold the knife parallel to the work surface so that it does not cut into the flesh;
the first fillet is ready and the backbone is exposed; repeat the operation under the backbone to obtain the second fillet.

To remove the skin from a trout
the principle is the same as for filleting; pass the knife between the skin and the flesh while holding onto the skin;
repeat the operation to skin the other fillet.

Hints and tips from Anne Desjardins
I really like cooking trout “unilaterally,” that is on one side only, with the skin face down in the pan. The steam and the heat come up to cook the flesh gently so that it retains all its moistness.

To perfectly cook the trout “à l'unilatéral,” remove it from the pan as soon as you see a bit of whitish liquid appear. This is a very quick cooking method and you must be careful never to overcook the fish.

To accompany the trout, you need a light, refined sauce. I use a lot of emulsions, described in my recipes (see the trout home page) or a beurre blanc, white butter sauce, which is my “standby” sauce, because using it as a starting point you can create a whole multitude of variations.

Never use the head and bones from trout to make fish stock – since it’s an oily fish it will impart a rather unpleasant burnt fat taste.