hot smoked trout salad

Hot smoked trout salad.

Happy new year, everyone!

This year is going to be exciting. Plans are a-brewing; this is the year of big decisions and big adventures. I'll leave it at that, but I promise you, even if I don't post terribly often, I'll be here to tell you about it all when it happens.

But for now, we'll talk about smoked trout. Simon spied a heavily discounted whole hot smoked trout at the supermarket a couple of months ago. He asked me for my opinion on whether to purchase it; neither of us had tried it before. I shrugged, "we'll figure out something to do with it."

By the way, so inexperienced was I, that at first I thought the "hot" in "hot smoked trout" stood for spiciness. I've since educated myself and now know that it is merely refers to the temperature of the kiln in which it is smoked. So you get "cold smoked trout" and "hot smoked trout".  The cold smoked version is soft and juicy, like sashimi, and the hot smoked version is flaky but still tender, like a gently barbecued fish.

We didn't use it immediately, so off it went, into the freezer. Recently, when we were going through the food we had accumulated, we finally did something about it. I sent Simon off to the shops with a list of vegetables to buy, and when he came back with the goods, I made a smoked trout salad.

Hello, hot smoked trout!

The salad was absolutely delicious, and it had a feel-good quality to it, too. The simple vegetables were lightly dressed, the trout danced all about in the bowl, adding a salty smokiness.

Hot smoked trout salad with potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, mint, basil, olive oil, and butter.

hot smoked trout salad
(serves 2 - 3 as a main, depending on how hungry you're feeling)

1 punnet cherry tomatoes / grape tomatoes / baby roma (approx. 200g / 7oz)
4 medium all-purpose potatoes e.g. sebago (approx. 150g / 5oz each, x 4)
green beans (200g / 7oz) - add to pot once potatoes are close to ideal tenderness, then boil about 3 minutes.
1 smoked trout (375g / 13oz), flaked
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
1 heaped tablespoon each of shredded basil and mint (or dill and parsley)

Roast tomatoes in an oven at 180°C / 360°F fan-forced (200°C / 400°F conventional) for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, boil potatoes in a pot of water for about 10 - 15 minutes, and just before they reach your preferred tenderness, add the green beans and boil for another 3 minutes. Drain off the water.

Toss potatoes, green beans and cherry tomatoes together with olive oil and butter. The tomatoes may burst, but that's okay, even encouraged - it becomes part of the dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste, but be conservative with the salt, as the smoked trout will be quite salty. If you don't want your herb leaves to turn dark, put them in after everything has cooled down, or perch them daintily at the end after you've doled out individual serves - otherwise you can toss them through immediately if you don't care, which was what I did. Add pieces of the hot smoked trout. (Obviously I did a dastardly job of flaking mine, and missed some of the bones as well, I'm sure you'll do better.)