Scottish Hot Smoked Trout and Salad

 

Hot smoked trout fillet with salad and potatoes

This recipe is about as Scottish as you could actually get. Every single item on the plate (bar the seasonings!) is fresh produce from Scotland. Trout and salmon, as fish, are very often forgotten when we think of wild game but they very much fall into the wider category. This rainbow trout was rod and line caught in Central Scotland before being taken home, cleaned, filleted and home hot smoked. Smoked trout and salmon can of course be bought from most supermarkets or in more traditional form from a wide variety of farm shops, or smokehouses direct. The lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and spring onion are fresh from the garden while the egg is from a local farm. The potatoes were supermarket bought but are from Ayrshire.

Cook Time

Prep time: 10 min (plus cooling times for egg and potatoes)

Cook time: 20 min

Ready in: 30 min

Yields: 1 serving

Hot smoked rainbow trout fillet

Ingredients

• 6 baby new Ayrshire potatoes
• Salt
• 1 chicken egg, at least 7 to 10 days old*
• Little bit of butter
• Dried dill
• 1 hot smoked rainbow trout fillet
• 2 or 3 large lettuce leaves, washed, rolled and roughly shredded
• 4 small tomatoes, red or yellow, halved
• 2 inch (5cm) piece of cucumber, halved through the core and cut into crescents
• 2 spring onion green stalks, trimmed and very finely sliced
• Black pepper

*Eggs less than 7 days old do not hard boil well. The albumen is too acidic and tends to stick to the inner membrane. This means that when you try to peel them, large pieces of the white is likely to come away with the shell, however careful you may be.

Simple salad ingredients

Method

Put the potatoes into a pot of cold, salted water and bring to a simmer for 20 minutes. Put the egg into a separate pot of cold water and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes.

Take the pot with the egg in it to your sink and run cold water into it for a minute or two. Leave the egg in the cold water for 5 to 10 minutes to cool quickly. This prevents the blue/grey discolouration around the yolk from forming.

Drain the potatoes and return to the empty pot. Add some butter and a generous pinch of dried dill. Gently swirl the pot to evenly coat the potatoes in the butter and dill. Cover and leave to cool.

Crack the egg shell on a hard surface and carefully peel, starting at the broader end. Set aside in a covered dish until required.

Skin is peeled from smoked trout fillet

Lay the trout skin side up on a square serving plate. The skin should easily peel away in one piece and should be discarded. Carefully turn the trout fillet over and present diagonally.

Cut the egg in half and sit one half on each corner of the plate not incorporating the trout.

Put the lettuce, tomato and cucumber into a deep plate or small bowl. Season with salt and pepper and carefully turn or toss to combine. Spoon on to diagonally opposite parts of the plate.

Arrange the potatoes on the empty parts of the plate.

Trout salad is ready to be garnished and served

Garnish the egg halves with a little more dried dill and the trout fillet with the shredded spring onion leaves.