Tagliatelle with hot smoked trout

With my hot smoked trout, I wanted to come up with a delicious pasta for our supper to do the fish justice.

Gently sweat a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves in a large pan, add the zest of a finely grated unwaxed lemon and the flakes of smoked fish, you can use hot or cold smoked salmon or trout. Add a good few table spoons of creme fraiche.

Meanwhile add some fresh egg tagliatelle to boiling salted water and cook until al dente, drain and add to the creamy fish, add plenty of freshly cracked black pepper, and a sprinkle of finely chopped flat leaf parsley and a little finely grated parmesan.

Juniper Cured Hot Smoked Trout

I went fly fishing in the week to the wonderful Exe Valley Trout Fishery on the edge of Exmoor, and was fortunate enough to catch 4 rainbow trout, which I had an eye on hot smoking. So once home, I filleted them out, and dry cured them with crushed juniper berries, coarse sea salt and brown sugar.

The fillets were left to cure in the fridge overnight, and the liquid drained off the next day, this is a wonderful process as it alters the texture of the fish completely, and all it needs is a quick rinse and drying off and it was ready to pop in the smoker.

I used my cold smoke generator to cold smoke the fish for 8 hours using beech dust to produce a slightly sweet smoke. After this initial smoking I popped some charcoals in the smoker, and hot smoked the fillets for 20 minutes until they were cooked through.

The fillets were well smoked with the beech smoke giving the fish a delicious subtle sweet smokey taste, and the juniper berries coming through with a slight peppery gin flavour.

See the following post for how I made best use of these lovely smoked trout.

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