Pan Fried Fillet of Scottish Rainbow Trout on Fresh Salad Bed with Dill Potatoes

Although I love cooking and love eating what I cook, it is rare for me to enjoy something so much that I actually contemplate having the very same thing again the following night! I am writing this blog post less than half an hour after eating this pan fried Scottish rainbow trout with salad and dill potatoes but that is exactly what I am considering.

It may seem like a strange thing for a Scot who loves fish and seafood to say but salmon and particularly trout could never be classed among my favourite types of fish. I have for some reason always preferred the sea fish that are the likes of cod, haddock, whiting, herring and mackerel. When I used to go fishing on a regular basis, it was almost always sea fishing which I did, almost never freshwater fishing in Scotland's inland lochs or rivers. I am not sure whether going sea fishing was because I preferred to eat sea fish, or preferring to eat sea fish is because I preferred sea fishing. That conundrum is a bit like the chicken and the egg for me!

Regardless, perhaps I have now changed my mind about trout. Although I have cooked salmon in precisely this fashion many times, I have for some reason never before tried it with trout. I hope that my enthusiasm is infectious, however, and that you will try this out for yourself.

Ingredients

1 Scottish rainbow trout fillet, skin on (wild brownies are equally acceptable)
2 medium potatoes
1/2 small onion (very thinly sliced)
4 lettuce leaves (shredded)
1 tomato (for garnish)
Pinch of dried dill
Tbsp of plain flour
Butter
Sunflower oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Splash of white wine vinegar

Method

The first step is to get the potatoes on to boil. They should be peeled, chopped and added to a pan of boiling, salted water, to be simmered for twenty to twenty-five minutes until moderately soft. They should then be drained, added to a bowl with a little butter and the pinch of dill, stirred carefully and left to cool slightly and the flavours to infuse while the trout fillet is cooked.

The flour should be placed on a flat dinner plate and seasoned with salt and pepper. The skin side only of the trout fillet should then be placed flat down in the flour to be lightly coated. Any excess may be gently shaken off prior to adding the trout fillet to the pan.

A little sunflower oil should be added to a non-stick frying-pan and brought up to a medium heat. A little butter should then be added before the trout is placed in the pan, skin side down. The heat should be turned up to medium to high and the fillet cooked for three to four minutes until it can be seen to have cooked almost all the way through. The heat should then be turned off completely and the fish turned over to finish cooking while the salad is quickly assembled.

The sliced onion and shredded lettuce should be added to a small bowl and seasoned with salt, pepper and a tiny splash of vinegar before being mixed well together. Preparing the salad too soon in advance will cause the lettuce to go limp and spoil the final effect. The salad should then be arranged on the plate as a bed for the fish before the remainder of the ingredients are then assembled, the trout being plated skin side up.

At the top of this post, I have included a photograph of this recipe with the skin still on the trout. It is down to personal preference whether you wish to serve it this way or to remove the skin prior to doing so. In order to remove the skin, simply catch one end of it and gently peel it free. The assistance of a knife may be required at this stage but I found tonight that it was not and the skin peeled away perfectly cleanly and easily.

The dish is featured again below with the skin this time removed.