One Fish
I wasn't thinking about my last blog entry or colors when I decided to treat my family to blue trout (trout au bleu). I wasn't even thinking about the color. Frankly, knowing how hard it is to find live trout in Austin, I was pretty sure we'd not see the blue effect anyway (I was right; we didn't). I was just thinking of leeks. I'd been strolling through the produce section of my favorite grocery store, planning to have some sort of fish for dinner. When I reached the pile of ice where they usually stock leeks, I thought, Yeah, something with leeks would be nice. Then I noticed their selection: two scraggly looking, mostly green bunches, but Aha! one bunch was mostly buried in the ice. I dug them out and was rewarded with three fat, firm, mostly white leeks.
"No fair," said another shopper beside me. She was smiling, though, and didn't try to brain me with a celeriac when I turned away, so I think she was kidding.
Leeks in hand, I decided to do something I hadn't tried since coming to Austin from Idaho many years ago. Growing up in Colorado and later living many years in Idaho, I learned many wonderful preparations for trout. Frankly, most of them require that the diners spend a lot of time picking bones, fins, and scaly skin off of the trout.
Oh, sure, you can filet the fish, but trout is a delicate, mild-flavored fish, so removing the bones and head before cooking all but ensures a lesser flavor.
Blue trout and trout à la nage ("swimming") can be two exceptions, if the fish are handled properly from start to finish.
Essentially, blue trout is a whole trout poached in an acidulated court bouillon. If the trout are fresh out of the water, their slime will be intact, and the fish comes out of the bouillon with a blue sheen. If the trout are more than a few hours old—no matter how well they've been preserved—the slime has broken down and the blue thing just doesn't happen. In other words, this is essentially a preparation à la nage with some vinegar added to cause a litmus effect.
To outline this simple dish: you prepare the court bouillon by simmering aromatic vegetables and a bouquet garni in water with a splash of wine and a little salt. Remove and drain the vegetables. Discard the herbs. Set half of the court bouillon aside and add a little lemon juice. Add a few drops of vanilla to the other half and use that to poach the whole trout. Skin the trout and lift off the filets. Serve the filets, garnished with the vegetables, in a bowl immersed in a half inch of the reserved court bouillon.
Two Fish
The blue trout had been an unqualified success. Everybody raved. The fish was delicate but tasty, and the individual elements managed to work well together while retaining their individuality. I could taste the leeks, the carrots, the turnip (no luck finding a decent fennel bulb that day), and the trout, and everything enjoyed a sparkling sheen of lemon and thyme. Girlchild even ate some of the vegetables. (She did insist on trying to keep the fish out of the court bouillon, but teenagers always have to find something to be idiosyncratic about.)
Less than two weeks later, finding myself once again in the produce section of a grocery store and once again in the presence of spectacular-looking leeks, my mind turned again to thoughts of blue trout. In this case, the trout in the fishmonger's case were not so impressive: golden rainbow hybrids less than ten inches in length. I knew they'd be full of bones.
That same case was, however, sporting some mighty fine looking steelhead filets. Steelhead is ocean-running rainbow trout. Because of their age and diet (steelhead are primarily pescivores; rainbow trout are primarily insectivores), steelhead trout is salmon red—usually redder than king salmon but not so red as sockeye. Steelhead flesh, in addition to being larger and more colorful than that of their landlocked cousins, is chock full of glutamines and omega-3 and -6 fatty acids. Healthy, yes, but also richer by an order of magnitude.
The upshot was, in addition to having no chance in hell of ever turning blue (and thus no reason for adding vinegar to the broth), the steelhead was more savory and complex and far more filling than the little rainbows. At the table, the steelhead rendered up a few pink droplets of savory oils in the court bouillon, a beautiful and artsy effect for which I could take no credit. Aside from a crusty baguette, this dish required no accompaniment.
dramatis personae
two quarts water
one cup white vinegar (for blue trout)
three medium leeksone medium turnip
one large carrot
one fennel bulb (optional)
three three-inch sprigs thyme
three sprigs flat parsley
two large bay leaves
one half cup white wine
one half teaspoon salt
juice of one lemon
one eighth teaspoon vanilla
three whole trout or between 12 and 15 ounces of steelhead filet
quality of ingredients
Good leeks seem to be increasingly difficult to find. Most of the bundles I see in the grocery stores in Austin have about an inch of white leek, and that's the only part you really want for most applications. The greens are just too fibrous. I avoid anything with less than three inches of white, but five inches of white is damned rare.
Good turnips are easy to find. They're firm. Picking a good turnip is rather like picking a good potato. If it's rubbery or has soft spots, pick another.
Color doesn't matter much with turnips, but it does with fennel bulbs. They should be white. You'll have to cut away any brownish bits, so try to get one that contains as little brown as possible.
Trout should be as intact as possible. If you can get live trout and clean them at home, you might actually be able to see the blue effect. Another great thing about cleaning them yourself is that the trout farms typically screw it up. In order to make the fish look cleaner, they remove the spine. Unfortunately, in addition to removing a part that serves to flavor the cooking fish, removing the spine from a small trout all but ensures that they will leave teeny little pin bones all down the lateral line of the fish. If you can lift the flesh away from the bones after cooking, you are far more likely to pull the flesh cleanly off the bones.
Select steelhead trout fillets the same way you would select salmon. This treatment à la nage should produce the same results with salmon.
preparation notes
Put the water (and vinegar if you're trying to make blue trout) on to boil.
Peel and julienne the carrot and turnip. Thoroughly clean and julienne the fennel bulb and the white parts of the leeks. Reserve and clean two green leek leaves for use in the bouquet garni. Place the thyme, bay, and parsley between the leek leaves and tie them into a tight bundle with kitchen twine. Drop the vegetables and the bouquet into the boiling water. Add in the salt and white wine. Once the liquid comes back to a boil, reduce the temperature and allow it to simmer for 25 minutes.
Remove and discard the bouquet garni, and remove the vegetables to a colander. Set aside half of the court bouillon, and bring the remainder back to a boil. To the cooling reserved liquid, add the lemon juice.
Treatment of the fish is a bit different for whole trout and steelhead filets.
For whole trout:
If you're lucky enough to be preparing fresh-caught fish, clean them completely, removing the gills and internal organs. Leave in the spine, and do not attempt to scale the fish. The scales will be too small and tenacious to remove without ripping the skin and bruising the flesh. Once the court bouillon is back up to a boil, add in the vanilla and drop in the fish and poach them for two or three minutes. When you can slip the tip of a butter knife into the back along the dorsal fin, gently remove the fish from the broth and lay them on one side on a clean work surface.
I don't know any way to do all of this with any tool but fingers, so be prepared to scald your fingertips a bit (keeping a bowl of ice water on hand to dip your fingers in will help). Now, while the fish are still hot, strip away the skin from one side, pluck out the fins, and working from the spine where the dorsal fin was removed, lift the filet from the naked side. If the fish cools, the skin will become increasingly difficult to remove. Carefully turn the fish over and do the same on the other side. Strip and remove all of the filets from their bones before moving on to plating. Before plating them, check over the filets and wipe away any stray scales.
If a single filet will be large enough for a serving, fold it in half and stack the halves in the center of a wide soup or pasta bowl. Mound a handful of the julienned vegetables on top of the fish, and ladle on a cup of the reserved court bouillon. If the filets are small, you might want to plate two together. In that case, just cross them in the center of the bowl, without bothering to fold them.
For the steelhead filet:
Slice the filet into four- or five-ounce sections. Five ounces sounds like a pretty small portion to some adults, but this is really rich fish. It is not necessary to scale the filets. Once the court bouillon is back up to a boil, add in the vanilla and the filets. Poach the filets for five minutes or until a knife inserted between the segments shows them to be cooked through.
Remove the filets to a clean work surface and remove the skin. Separate the filets along the lateral line and discard any pin bones. Lay the filets skin side up and, with a thin knife, carefully slice away the light brown matter from the pink flesh.
Plate the filet segments as described for whole trout.
