From Farm to Table

Consider this a “soft” return to form. I needed a layup to get back into the swing of things after a long, harsh winter. For that, I did something I’m not always proud of – I went after some freshly stocked trout…

What’s wrong with going after stocked trout? Well obviously absolutely nothing. They put in a decent fight, look pretty, and taste good (see below). But I needed an angle to hook you into the blog, so I framed myself as a man with a grave moral confliction. In reality, the reason I don’t often try to catch these stocked trout which come from a farm is a lot simpler:

The whole process is just kind of boring.

I enjoy fishing because of the ever-present feeling of not knowing what aquatic leviathan lurks just under the water. With stocked trout, they are put into very specific locations at very specific times of the year, so you know exactly what just bit your lure right away. It just kind of kills the vibe. Not totally of course, you’re still outside in beautiful nature such as this:

but part of the excitement in catching a fish ( i.e., the part where you don’t know for sure what you caught) is basically spoiled. Now, in this instance, there was at least some excitement, because I’d be catching a brown trout as opposed to the more commonly stocked rainbow trout (at least more commonly stocked in MA). What’s the difference?

Honestly, not much. But brown trout are actually native to the UK, as opposed the Pacific Northwest for rainbows. I believe we took them from the Redcoats after winning the Revolutionary War. Or maybe it was after the War of 1812. One of those butt-kickings anways – the UK really couldn’t handle that smoke. In the US, they are now largely raised on farms and then released during set times of the year. What ends up happening, especially around here in NY, is that any of the fish not caught by fisherman right away get absolutely ripped to shreds by the bigger, wild predatory fish that live here. It’s really not even fair – these trout are quite literally raised for slaughter.

A slaughter of which I happily partook! I went to a local creek on a cold day in early April, made two casts, and BAM!

Yep, it is literally that easy. Fishing is supposed to be hard. Like really hard. Like so hard that you write blogs about how hard it is (see: The Hard Yards). Which makes it all the sweeter when you do actually catch a fish, lunker or not. And yet these stocked fish basically jump into your lap. Nonetheless, it was my first fish since last fall and of course I couldn’t help but be happy:

As you can tell, brown trout have a different coloring than rainbow trout. The larger/older they get, the more brown their base skin appears with lots of overlaid spotting. Of course, the adventure didn’t stop there. I wanted to see if there was any difference in how brown trout tasted, thus I took this guy home with me. I made a very quick plan on the fly: pan-fried trout on top of fettucine alfredo.

A certain Italian person I know whose name rhymes with “Pommy” insisted that it is sacrilege to combine a cheesy pasta dish with fish. Well sorry pal, but we Scandinavians survive exclusively off of salt, cheese, and fish. So you’re just gonna have to respect my culture, Tommy.

I first of course had to fillet the fish, but I wasn’t too worried. Despite my filleting skills being pretty deplorable, the fish was a healthy size. Besides, I had my trusted sous-chef to help in case any morsels were wasted:

The fillets came out pretty decent. Trout fillets will often have an orange hue to them. It can be somewhat random, though I believe it gets attributed to the type of food they eat when being farmed. In either case, I ended up marinating them in some oil (peanut because that’s what I had), thyme, grated garlic, salt/pepper, and some parsley. I cooked it in a cast-iron skillet at medium-high in butter and oil. This gives a chance for the skin to get nice and crispy (you can always remove it if you don’t like the skin anyways):

For the uninformed, fettucine alfredo is just alfredo pasta mixed with a butter and parmesan sauce made from the pasta water itself. Sometimes you’ll see it made with cream as well, but that’s a little too rich for me personally. It’s super easy and takes however long it takes to cook the pasta. Plus it leaves some freshly shredded parmesan for a topping at the end.

Final product:

And the circle of life was completed – from farm to table. The dish was of course quite tasty. Brown trout may be a little blander, but perhaps that was all for the better to complement the parmesan/garlic flavors. As the weather starts to warm up, I’ll be going after some tougher fish and looking forward to seeing what the season brings me. You’re welcome to join along, all you have to do is…

Cast and pray,

Jon (obligatory Bubz photo below)