Terry's Trout

Our package of steelhead trout from Sam's had two huge fillets.  We used half of one in the trout hash.  I cut the second fillet in half and froze it.  Who wants the same ingredient four days in a row?  Not us :-)  There were three recipes from Sublime Smoke by Cheryl and Bill Jamison that caught our eye.  I left the office early enough on Sunday that there was time to run to the grocery, marinate the trout for this recipe and still eat before 10pm.  Well, I also had to work on making the cat food and I wanted to get the tea smoked ribs ready for Tuesday evening when I got home late from my Columbus, IN office.  Ah, that caught your eye?  Tea smoked ribs.  We'll talk about those later.  Another adventure in cooking!

But enough of all that, let's get to this fantastic recipe.  We'd have given this a five had it not been so salty.  Next time, I'll make two batches of the paste.  One with salt for marinating it and one without for grilling.  I'll rinse the salty one off before grilling.  We let the trout marinate for a good two hours.  It took almost 45 minutes on the grill at about 250.  We smoked it with shagbark hickory bark.  And, we had the burners on either side of the trout on but not the burner right below the fish.  No ifs, ands or buts about it - we'll make this again.  And, we'll probably try it with salmon too.

This was served with a salad of baby greens, cilantro, orange segments, diced avocado and a dressing of blood orange evoo, fresh grapefruit juice and cumin.  The dressing could have used a tiny bit of sugar.

Terry's Trout
serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 c minced fresh dill
2 T Kosher salt
2 T maple syrup
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T coarse-ground black pepper
2 t olive oil
16 oz steelhead trout
dill sprigs and lemon wedges for garnish

Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the marinade: dill, salt, syrup, lemon juice, pepper and olive oil.

Lay pieces of plastic wrap at right angles in an 8x8 dish.  Make sure the pieces are long enough to cover the fish once it's in the dish.  Lay the trout in the dish.  Cover it with the marinade. 

Wrap it with the plastic wrap. 

Refrigerate it for 1-2 hours.  Allow it to sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes before smoking it.  Smoke the trout using indirect heat - in other words don't turn the burners beneath the fish on.  Put the trout on the grill skin side down.  Smoke for about 45 minutes at 250.  The trout should flake easily.

adapted from Sublime Smoke by Cheryl and Bill Jamison