Holidays are great .. and this labour weekend had the additional bonus of an additional day off for Hawke's Bay Anniversary. Leading into the long weekend I was fortunate to be gifted a rainbow trout, gutted, scaled and ready for the cooking. This fish had been caught at Turangi -a small town beside the Tongariro river. It is well known for its trout fishing and is aptly named "the trout fishing capital of the world".
Of course this had to be my dish for the week. I had seen recipes for trout in a number of the cordon bleu series. Series 46 had "Advanced fish dishes" including 7 specific to trout. They all called for 4 -5 even sized fish. 4-5 fish!!! I must say even though I have only thrown my line into the water on a couple of occasions I do have some idea of undersized fish, and the trout displayed in the photos either in the "cutting of the head" photo or the beautifully displayed "stuffed trout with decorative cooked orange slices" balanced symmetrically on top, certainly would have got the Conservation ranges in a state. However different era and different country.
I chose the Trout Geneve - a dish taking its namesake from Lake Geneve, a large glacial lake located between Switzerland and France. Funnily enough the lake is the shape of a croissant with the north end and the two ends are Swiss and the south shore is French. The lake is famous for its fishing boasting fish species such as perch, fera (type of white fish), trout, char and pike.
For Trout Geneve the first step is to poach the trout in a court bouillon. I had the perfect little cotton infuser bag purchased at an expensive cookery shop in Auckland (one of the cheapest things you could buy). I proudly snipped at my potted herbs taking the opportunity to pluck out a weed or two, stuffed it all in the bag (excluding weeds) and along with the wine, carrots and onions let the fish bathe in the tepid concoction. The sauce included butter, shallots, mushrooms, lemon juice and breadcrumbs. This was drizzed over the fish just before serving. The fish was delicate and tasty with all family members getting stuck in.
Now we are at the end of the weekend and I did believe that I would have completed at least another CB dish to share with you... I need to learn from my fellow anglers and learn that actually its OK to just do one thing... relax and enjoy ... I need to take the Labour out of labour weekend!
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| Trout Geneve |
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| Infuser bag |
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