This light starter from Stu Deeley involves home-cured and smoked trout, which is served with a very simple beetroot sauce and garnished with pickled beetroot and trout roe. The smoking time will vary depending on the thickness of your trout fillets – in the restaurant they took 6 minutes.
Mix together the salt, sugar and lemon zest
Take a large piece of cling film, and cover with half of the salt and sugar mixture. Top with the trout, and then add the other half of the salt and sugar mixture to the top of the trout. Fold over the cling film, making sure the fillet is completely covered in the salt and sugar
Transfer the fish to the fridge, and leave to cure for 5 hours
Once cured, remove the trout from the fridge, and wash off the salt and sugar
Transfer to a tray and leave overnight in the fridge, covered with a cloth
Next prepare the pickled beetroot, which also needs to be left overnight. Slice the beetroot very thinly, and cut out into shapes, using a flower cutter if you have one
Mix together the remaining pickle ingredients, and add the beetroot. Leave to pickle overnight
For the beetroot sauce, simply mix together all of the ingredients, and then transfer to the fridge to chill
The next day, smoke the cured trout over smoking chips until done to your liking – this will depend on the size of your fillets
Mix together the olive oil and roe with 250g beetroot sauce
To plate, add some of the beetroot sauce to the plate. Add the trout and garnish with pickled beetroot, roe, borage and violas
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