Hurray for another exciting new way to cook smoked trout – and as with the best recipes this one is easy to prepare and straightforward to cook. You can even choose whether you grill or fry (an ongoing debate in our house) – see To Grill or To Fry below.
I took an original recipe for un-smoked trout fishcakes and did some doctoring to transform what might have been a regular and slightly bland fish cake that tasted more of potato than fish into a serious culinary delight. It was mmm hmm mmm delicious and lucky Olly has a couple left over for his lunch today while I pace around London searching out the best deli’s to partner with as our London suppliers (any ideas very welcome please).
Ingredients:
Makes 8 smoked trout burgers to serve 4 people
– 200g Smoked trout*
– 300g mashed potato
– 2 bunches spring onion
– Generous bunch of fresh parsley or coriander or similar green herb
– 2 stems of fresh or frozen lemongrass
– Pinch of dried chilli flakes
– Pinch of cayenne pepper
– Salt n’ pepper
– Juice from 1/2 lemon
– Breadcrumbs**
*I used hot smoked trout for easy flaking into the mashed potato but I’m going to experiment with the smoke roasted for a deeper flavoured burger and also with heating up the cold smoked and seeing if that works. Wouldn’t it be great to have a versatile recipe that works with all three types of our smoked trout?
**To confess or not to confess. Father Christmas gave me a pot of dried flavoured breadcrumb crust which worked a treat, though obviously if you have the time and energy to do your own breadcrumbs then so much the better.
Recipe Steps
1. Boil your potatoes.
2. Tear or chop your parsley/coriander.
3. Flake your smoked trout.
4. Make your spring onion, lemon grass, smoked trout and herb mix:
Slice and then finely chop your spring onions (don’t be afraid to keep going further along the green leaf than normal; this is good flavoursome greenery) and lemon grass.
Introducing another useful gadget: the double bladed chopper
Gently fry your chopped spring onions and lemon grass in a tea spoon of olive oil and once soft add the chilli flakes and cayenne pepper.
Add your flaked smoked trout for an extra 3 minutes of cooking to allow the spring onion and chilli flavours to infuse up and through the trout.
5. Next step mashed potato:
Once your boiling potatoes are soft drain the water, add a splash of milk and mash up. Avoid adding salt to the potatoes (there is plenty in the smoked trout) and no need to add butter for the mash, just a splash of milk will give the potato the creamy texture it needs.
6. Now make the burger mixture:
Transfer the mashed potato, flaked smoked trout and spring onion mixture to large bowl.
Add your chopped parsley/coriander, lemon juice and salt and pepper.
Mix well with a spoon or your hand.
7. And finally make your burgers:
Make your burgers by taking a handful of the mixture and patting from palm to palm into round flat burgers.
Put a generous amount of breadcrumbs into a flat bottomed bowl and drop your burgers in one-by-one, turning them over to ensure a smooth covering of breadcrumbs all over.
Top Tip: Keep your burgers relatively small to enable easier cooking and handling (the larger they are the more inclined they are to fall apart and less likely to heat through during cooking).
Grill or fry your burgers as preferred and serve with a salad or vegetable of your choice, we had lots of lettuce, rocket and red onion to hand which was a light companion to the richer burger.
To Grill or To Fry
As two head-strong and amateur food enthusiasts it is surprising how little we argue about cooking but one frequent debate is whether we grill or fry, with Olly advocating frying and Shara preferring to grill.
To put the matter to bed once and for all we decided to run a trial.
Shara grilled…
…and Olly fried.
Result: both looked and tasted great but the grilled burgers were more robust,easier to handle and looked and tasted better than the slightly softer fried version. Hurray for a clear outcome and, for a few weeks at least, some peace in my kitchen.
Grilled on the left, fried on the right
Some Garlic Mayo with that?
As a greedy extra you can also make a quick garlic mayo by adding a crushed garlic clove and black pepper to some (home-made or bought) mayonnaise. Olly took responsibility for this, made it in 5 minutes flat and it was delicious.
More Kitchen Gadgets
As promised in the last blog update, here is the mini hand-held juicer ideal for those smaller lemon juice moments. Thank you Father Christmas.
