Pine smoked trout salad
We got some lovely pink sea trout in our FishBox and I finished work on time so had a little bit of time to faff. That said, this was super quick. The roasted nuts and seeds is something I make batches of and a bit of fortuitous timing because I could do the croutons without having to stick the oven on (I’d have used the toaster)
You could swap in most fish I’d thing.
You will need
- A big heap of dry pinecones and needles (I use them for lighting the fire so had them around)
- 4 fillets of sea trout
- 4 slices of thick cut bread
- Fresh tomatoes, cut into eight
- A bag of mixed salad or spinach leaves
- A good lug of olive oil
- A big pinch of flaking salt
- A teaspoon of Dijon mustard
For toasted nuts and seeds
- A handful of peanuts
- A handful of cashew nuts
- A handful of mixed seeds
- A good slug of soy
- A teaspoon of cumin seeds
- A tablespoon of hot sauce (I used El Yucateco Black)
Do
It all comes together at the end pretty quickly, so make the salad, nuts and croutons before you start on the fish.
- Stick the oven on at 200oC
- Mix all the toasted nuts ingredients and spreadout on a piece of greaseproof paper on a baking tray
- Dice the bread into 1 inch cubes and shake over the olive oil and salt and stick it on the tray
- Bake for about 15 minutes until the breadcubes are toasty, then set aside
- Stick the nuts back in the oven and turn it off, they’ll be fine.
- Mix the tomatoes, mustard, a slug of olive oil, salt, pepper and mixed leaves
- In the BBQ, make a big pile of pine cones in one side, where you can light it through the vent
- Pop the fish on the top grill on foil
- Light the cones and once they’re properly on fire, pop the lit on.
- It takes a bit of faffing to keep the fire going so you’ve enough heat to cook the fish but the lid on enough to smoke the fish. Expect streaming eyes.
- Stir the croutons though the salad (do it now so they don’t get too soft), top with a handful of toasted nuts and then the fish.
Result
The fish should be lightly smoked, the tomato juice soaks into croutons and is sour enough to cut though the fish and oil of the nuts, there’s crunch and bite from the nuts and the croutons.
