Poached Trout?
 

Looking for a fish course.

Have considered and rejected coquilles st Jacques, fish en papier, fish en croute. Mostly because I need something very easy, non-critical timing, low risk of screwing up, and elegant (nixes the en papier).

To go after a lobster bisque and before a boeuf bourguignon.


Now thinking about a simple poached trout.

Questions:
- if starting with whole trout, debone before poaching or after?
- serve with skin or without? Does skin gross you out?
- serve whole on small platter or portioned? Is taking apart a trout at the table just too messy?
- poach in white wine, milk, or buttermilk?
- with hollandaise? Mascarpone cheese? Reduced poaching liquid?

No right answer I guess but what would you do? I have one chance to dry run this dish then have to choose fish course for Sunday dinner.

Alternatives are
- mussels served open face au gratin. Boring?
- simmered halibut with a sweet hazelnut sauce. But I dry ran this dish and got the sauce wrong, too sweet and not savory enough.

I have used fillets w/ skin. Either doesn't bother me but the fish stays together with the skin on
I place a serving in foil, skin side down, season, add couple of lemon slices, green onion chopped. I seal the fish completely. Essentially you are making an air tight packet. In the oven it goes, 350 degree. The fish begins to cook using the liquid from the fish. As the liquid begins to evaporate the packet expands. When the fish is cooked, you can present the dish with the fish in the packet. Garnish with lemon. maybe some flat parsley.

I would serve white wine, crusty bread. Green salad arugala, heir loom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar.

Make the mussels: Chop some onion, (shallots preferred), garlic, season salt/pepper, saute until soft. Cook the mussels in white wine until open, top with a dab of butter in the liquid (makes it richer) and chopped parsley. Soak up the sauce with crusty bread as you slurp the mussels. The French don't use forks.

Gotta go, I'm hungry.

I'd lose the trout and poach a halibut fillet in a milk court bouillon, then serve it with a crab sauce. Seems like I have posted the recipes here before. It's pretty idiot-proof.

Of course, that may be a little rich, with the rest of your menu.

JR

Medallions of either Sea Bass or Orange Roughy, in a nice tempura batter .

Seared Sea Scallops.

How To Make Pan-Seared Sea Scallops: Step-By-Step Tutorial With Photos

Or a more mainstream Tempura dish... use seafood & veg of choice.

Beer-Batter Tempura Recipe at Epicurious.com

Great ideas but I have equipment and logistical and stylistic limitations here.

Trying to keep it very French, rules out tempura.

Also trying to be low-risk so avoiding dishes that are time-sensitive or require last-minute cooking, also rules out tempura.

Finally, seating 12 so with my little deep fryer, #12 would still be waiting for their tempura when #1 had already finished. Too bad, as I love tempura.

This argues against seared scallops too. I have to sear my scallops at most 6 at a time, to avoid my cast iron pan cooling down too much. Would mean 4+ batches, my smoke alarm would be going off, and #1 would get cold scallops. Not to mention that good, big diver scallops for 12 people could be over $60 for tiny portions.

Other limitations are that I can't use oven for the fish dish, since the boeuf will be in there and then the dessert needs the oven space.

This is all pointing me to a poached or steamed or saute'd dish that I can do on the rangetop.

Okay then, how about an interesting salad course??

Fennel, Arugula, and Smoked-Trout Salad with Horseradish Dressing Recipe at Epicurious.com

Which is why I suggested the poached Halibut with a crab sauce. You can get everything ready to go ahead of time and all you have to do is turn on the fire.

Did I mention that it was idiot-proof...

From a previous thread:

Fish poaching in a milk court bouillon:

Place fish pieces in a pan just large enough to hold them without undo crowding but not so big that there's a lot of leftover room. Add a cup or two of milk, a few sprigs of flat leaf parsley and a few white peppercorns. Add water to raise the liquid level just above the fish. Remove the fish and bring the liquid to a boil. Season the fish with salt and white pepper, if desired. Reduce the heat to the barest of simmers and carefully replace the fish. Poach until done and remove. You'll have to carefully raise a piece from time to time to judge the doneness, as the poaching liquid will be opaque. The quantities are variable, based upon how many fillets you are poaching. If it's just a couple, one cup of milk will do. Scale up accordingly.

Crab sauce:

In a small sauce pan, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream, a couple tablespoons of butter and a 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the cream is reduced somewhat. You don't want to boil the cream hard... but you do need it to reduce. It will tend to thicken and take on a slight gold color. Taste it and when you're happy, add a cup of fresh crab meat, a little cayenne powder (1/8-1/4 teaspoon, depending on your taste) and about a tablespoon of fresh flat leaf parsley, freshly minced. The keys with this one are getting the cream reduced to the right consistency and using good crab. I like to use fresh, not canned and I like it somwhat shredded, although not to the point that you don't have some small chunks. I like Dungenness crab or King crab the best. Crabs vary in their salinity, so taste for salt when you think it's done.

This recipe makes 1 1/2 cups, which is enough for 4-6 servings. You can obvioulsy make it ahead of time and hold it, or reduce it more slowly, so that you can start it a little ahead of time.

JR

Mongolian Hotpot is always a crowd pleaser.

JR's recipe sounds pretty easy.
After trying enough other methods, my favorite way to cook trout is still a simple coat of flour and frying in butter. Skin on. I suppose I could make a sauce if I wanted it to look fancy.

I like skin if done right, but I've noticed that about 2 out of 3 people I cook fish for don't eat the skin. Still, it looks nice and holds the fish together.

for a crowd, i would make a parchment paper pouch for each serving, and bake them. keep it simple. salt, pepper, maybe some capers.

i have "poached" salmon filets by wrapping them into a airtight foil pouch, and slipping the entire thing into simmering water. same deal, salt, pepper, capers. comes out delicious!!

i leave the skin on. i typically dont eat it, tho. my wife does.

Okay, I did a dry run w/ two whole trout, smallish (each about 10"), poached in white wine/onions/peppercorn/bayleaf, de-boned, portioned, and served with hollandaise sauce/crab meat. Not exactly JR's recipe but inspired by it. Did this pretty quick and dirty.

Conclusions:
- The whole trout won't work. It tasted great. But it was too time-consuming to de-bone, skin, arrange, portion, and plate without things getting messy. If I were doing one whole trout per person and let the guests deal with the bones and skin, no problem. But I'm thinking more like 1/4 trout per - this is just one of several courses after all. I'll have to plate 12 dishes and I want them pretty.
- The hollandaise/crab sauce works. Tasty. I'll make it an hour ahead and keep in a thermos.
- Presentation problem - the platter gets kind of waterlogged. It's hard to thoroughly dry off the poached whole trout, as it is delicate. Watery sauce is not pretty.
- So, it will probably be trout fillets, or small halibut fillets, placed on slices of absorbing bread, with that sauce. Easy to cook, can't screw it up unless I break the sauce, and easy to plate. Not as pretty as a whole trout, but oh well.

Vash, I can't bake the fish course because the oven will be in use for the main then the dessert. So can't do the en papier.

Before you make another batch of Hollandaise suace, try a small batch of the crab sauce I suggested. It's quite a bit different, as it lacks the brightness and strong flavor of the Hollandaise and I think you'll like it better with a mild fish like Halibut. I would still skip the trout, as a thicker fillet is better. Trout has the wrong flavor for this dish anyway. Sea bass would work, as would other mild white fish like cod.

Good luck,

JR

A little different approach;

Get a cedar plank, imerse in water for a while, then put the trout on the plank on the BBQ,

Turns out awesome, and use the sauce of your choice.