Holy Smoked Trout, Batman!

After a very successful fishing trip to my local watering hole, I've managed to bring back some nice chunky Mt. Lassen rainbow trout.  They are 5lb and 7lb big behemoth.  They have a lovely red flesh reminiscent of wild salmon.  I will spare you the gruesome dispatching of the fish and skip right to the brining of the fish.  For this recipe, I've do-boned the trout and kept the skin in tact.  Simple recipe for the brine.

• Salt
• Sugar
• Whole peppercorn
• 1 lime
• 1 sprig of rosemary

Simple brine, complex flavors

 Combine the ingredients in a pot with hot water to dissolve the solution.  Let it cool for 30 minutes.  Taste to your preference.  If you like it to be on the sweeter side, add more brown sugar.  If you want it to be saltier, add more salt. 

The amber color from the brown sugar will ensure a lovely and sweet aroma to your trout.

After it is cooled down, you can transfer the liquid to a measuring cup or whatever is easier for you to pour on the fish.

Brine is ready for prepared trout

You can either use a Pyrex dish or big bowl to marinade your fish in.  I like to use gallon size Ziploc bags because it's an easier method of brining the fish.

Easier and best method to concentrate all the flavors of the brine into the fish

5lb and 7lb together marinating in the brine.

I used the same pot from the brine as a container for the fish.  I was lazy and didn't want to wash the pot so I thought it would be useful to hold the fish.  You must be thinking "Why didn't I just put the fish in the pot?"  Well, I didn't want any air inside that would lessen the effect of the marinade.  Brine the fish for 12 hours.  After that, remove the fish from brine and air dry in the fridge overnight. 

Make sure there are no moisture to the fish.  Let it dry in the fridge overnight.

These suckers are ready to get a tan. 

After spending a night in the fridge, the trout is ready for the smoker.  I intentionally left the skin on because this will make for a nice moist smoked trout.  If you want to get a "jerky" consistency, you can remove the skin and lay the trout on the grill exposing the meat.

After 4 hours they are getting that lovely smoke color. 

After 4 hours of smoking, you can check and taste the trout.  At this point it's pretty much done.  As it progressively smoke throughout the day, the flavor will intensify.    I chose to smoke it longer to get a more rich bodied flavor.

After 6 hours, they are almost done.  My mouth was watering at this point.  Click to Enlarge.

After 8 hours, they are done.  Look at that color.  Click to Enlarge.

Removed it from the heat source so that I won't get burned.

The fish is ready to be removed from the smoker.  Now the tricky part to this is that the skin will stick to the grate.  If you do not want the skin, you can simply just remove the meat that is inside.  If you are like me who loves the skin, you would want to take the entire grate with the fish and invert it onto a serving tray and slowly work the skin off the grate from the bottom.  This will leave the fish intact and the skin will come off.

My attempt to remove it straight from the grill.  Didn't work out as planned.  On to plan B. Click to Enlarge.

Look at that beautiful color.  If you tap on the skin and you hear a hollow tap, that is the wonderful sound of crispy skin.  Click to Enlarge.

 Plan B calls for a fork to just slowly pry the skin away from the grill.  It worked, although not as pretty and presentable as you would like, it gets the job done.

As you can see where fish skin meets grill.  Can you see how moist that fish is? The trout skin is like crispy roast duck skin.  Absolutely delicious.   Click to Enlarge.

Here is the more presentable side of the trout.  The final product. Click to Enlarge.

The smoked trout came out superb.  It had a lovely smoke flavor and the meat was very moist.  You can eat it like that or with rice.  You can also flake it up and mix with some mayo, celery, hard boiled egg for a delicious dip or spread on crispy toast.  For breakfast, I used the leftovers in scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes.  What a great way to start your day.  I hope this inspired you to go out and try this method of cooking your fish. 


So here are my budget tips:

* It tends to be cheaper if you buy your fish whole.
* Save yourself some money and a trip to the supermarket.  Only couple simple pantry items such as salt and sugar will make an outstanding brine.
* Smoking fish will cost you less in the long run as oppose to buying it at a specialty shop.  You can control what goes into your product.