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PREPARING TROUT FOR THE TABLE.

Take Trouble and You Will be Well Repaid

(By LAL OWEN, t Two fur trour. anil trout for tea. A pit-i* for you. a piece for me . . . Can't v..u see how happy we would be? Les. If trout is cooked in a chefly manner, ai becomes such, a lordly delicacy. 1 here are all sorts of idea.s about the cooking and serving of Xew Zealand trout. Most of them. I rind, remain in 1 the embryo stage. "Too muddy." is the reaction of the average home cook. "Xtj more trout I ' ?ay> the heail of tlie | liouse. It is beyond him. too. He has iust eaten a muddily-flavoured tish. cooked greasily, served anyhow. Xot a meal for a man, he decides; a vaetly over-rated fish. There i.* an angler of my acquaintance whose whole delight is in the catching of trout. From the moment when the Acclimatisation Society says "<.O. the mo-t of his leisure moments are spent on the banks of a river. I happen to be one of the people to whom he sends a trout occasionally; or. properly speaking. I should say 1 to be. Since 1 invited the man to lunch, with one of his own trout 011 the menu, the trout which have come my way have been less treuueiit. Before I showed him their real, hidden flavour, they were mine twice or three times a week: Trout is now liis favourite luncheon dish, and though few appear on my own, luncheon table I can claim at lea-t one staunch trout convert. Rid Trout of Mud. The home cook's first bit-mess is to rid the trout of its muddy smell. l'lace the trout in the sink, and run on it sufficient tepid water, to eo\er it. Take a stainless steel knife and scrape the skin of tin- fish thoroughly. 'I hen start again, with a fre-h -upply of clean water, and scrape the =kin of the fish a-ain. Co 011 scraping, and go 011 removing lavcr upon layer of mud. When you feel that you are tired of scraping, anil the trout seems at length to be the sweet, clean ti-h it should be. put it on a plate, rub its inside with a little r-alt and -et it away in the safe. I!ise in the morning determined not ;to be defeated, 'lake out the trout and ! -era|k: it again. Scrape it until the | water in which you have laid it runI clear. Then, and only then, meditate on the ways of cooking it. j My favourite way of dealing with ' trout is by inking. Only in this manner | can its mo-t intimate flavour be prejserved. I Bake in Butter. ! Place the cleaned fish in a baking di-11 which contains ju-t the -malle-t touch |of water. Pepper and -alt the li.-h. and I put little dabs of butter on top of it. ; ( over, and bake gently until the trout is pink and flaky. Lift on to a hot dish, 'and serve with anchovy or hard-egg sauce, or with lemon ketchup. There are people who prefer fried | trout. In that ca-e I siigire-t that the trout be filleted. in egg and the finest of breadcrumbs 1 baked breadcrumbs rolled, and then sifted through a fine strainer until they are of the con- ! si-tenev of sand 1 and dropped for a few moments in deep fat. A favourite way of doing trout — when they are plentiful-:- by sousing. Vinegar and -pices are called for on such occa-ion-; and bay leaves, if you can get them. Bay leaves in soups, in stews, in hot-pots ;i nd in pickles can add a delicious vari ty to the home cook's 1 "(forts, ipiite apart from their flavouring f|liaiitie- in cu -1 ,t I'd -. Ida tic-manges and the like. Trout Smoked. And now. til deal briefly with the -object of rllloked trout. To my mind, the -iipreme te-i of -niuk".! trout i- whether or not it ha- been -inoked above olearia wood. Any wood can an-vver the pur-po-e of -mokiiig. but the American pioneers who smoked their deer-meat above hickory wood knew what they were about. In New Zealand there i- a similar fra'jra nt - burn ing wood. It is olearia J and the old-time Maoris made frequent use of it. Try wrapping an eel - it should be an eel taken from a stony river-bed—in these aromatic leaves. Toast it over an o|K>n fire, turning it often—and then reali-e what a flavour tlie trout will have when it is smoked in the wood of that same plant.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19380107.2.121.5

Bibliographic details

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 10

Word Count
761

PREPARING TROUT FOR THE TABLE. Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 10

PREPARING TROUT FOR THE TABLE. Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 10