Brown butter trout with cucumber and cress
This recipe for brown butter trout with cucumber and cress is incredibly simple to make and ready in just 20 minutes, but is packed full of delicious flavours.
Irish potted trout with chilli, tarragon and pink peppercorns
Serves 4
Easy
Prep:
Cook:
plus cooling
It’s important to season the trout well otherwise it can taste bland. Always check how hot the chilli is too, as you may not need it all. Serve them with warm toasts so the butter melts and the flavours come out
Skip to ingredients
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 250g unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 shallotsfinely chopped
- 2 celery sticksstrings removed, finely chopped
- 1 red chillideseeded and finely chopped (or less, depending on how much heat you like)
- 4 skin-on trout filletsdeboned
- 1 tbsp chopped tarragonplus extra leaves to garnish
- 1 tbsp chopped chives
- 1 lemonjuiced
- 2 tsp pink peppercorns
TO SERVE
- lemon wedges
- toasts, oatcakes or crusty bread
Nutrition: per serving
- kcal627
- fat57g
- saturates30g
- carbs2g
- sugars2g
- fibre1g
- protein26g
- salt1.3g
Method
step 1
Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
step 2
Toast the fennel seeds in a small pan over a medium heat for a minute or so until fragrant, then grind to a fine powder using a pestle and mortar.
step 3
Melt 30g of the butter with 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan over a medium-low heat. Cook the shallots, celery and chilli for 5-8 mins until the shallots and celery are sweet but still have a little bit of texture.
step 4
Put the trout fillets on the baking sheet, drizzle over the remaining oil, season with salt and pepper, and cook in the oven for 15 mins. Remove from the oven and cool.
step 5
When cool, peel away the skins and break the trout into large pieces, then put in a bowl. Add the tarragon, chives, lemon juice, ground fennel seeds, shallot, celery and chilli, and season with salt and pepper, then stir gently with a fork to combine – try not to break up the trout too much, you want to keep those nice chunks.
step 6
Divide the mixture between four serving dishes, pressing down gently – the trout should come two-thirds of the way up the dish. Set aside to cool.
step 7
Now, make some clarified butter. Put the remaining butter in a small pan and melt over a medium-high heat. Continue to heat until a layer of proteins rises to the top and becomes foamy. Reduce the heat to a gentle boil and you’ll notice that the proteins start to split. As the process continues, the proteins will eventually sink to the bottom and you can turn the heat down once you have a clear liquid on top. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to sit for a few minutes, then remove any scum from the top and pour the liquid into a bowl through a sieve lined with muslin.
step 8
Pour the clarified butter over the trout and sprinkle with a few leaves of tarragon and pink peppercorns. Chill in the fridge to set. (If you make them in sterilised jars, they will keep in the fridge for five days.) Serve with toasts, oatcakes or crusty bread and lemon wedges for squeezing over.
