Recipe of the Week -Pan Seared Maple Trout with Apple Turnip Compote

It’s been a long while since Nicola and I have had a chance to whip up a Friday recipe. This week however, despite battling colds, we produced a very yummy recipe that is also easy to make.

From the book, “This food, that wine”, we made Pan Seared Maple Trout with Apple Turnip Compote.

Now, don’t get too excited about the term “compote”, according the book it’s a culinary term for fruit cooked slowly in a syrup (in this case Maple) so that the fruit can maintain shape for visual and textual appeal.

Now the main component of this dish, the Trout, was in short supply this week in the grocery stores. We managed to grab the last 2 fillets at the local Sobeys; mind you we only checked at two places. They were beautiful fillets and we were excited to cook them. Nicola isn’t a big fan of red fish but Trout is an exception as it is both gentle enough in taste and texture to mimic white fish.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 3 rainbow trout fillets, halved vertically
• 11/2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 cup of turnip, peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened apple juice
• 3/4 cup of any type of apple (spy is recommended) diced
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• zest of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Recipe

The recipe was broken down into parts; first to prepare the compote and then to prepare the trout.

Compote

Place a medium-sized skillet over medium hear then add turnip and apple juice and cook for 3-4 minutes or until turnip is just tender. We found this to be very underestimated in time as turnip is dense, we would recommend that you microwave the turnip a bit first to soften it up, otherwise your apple juice will boil off before the turnip is just tender. If fact, our turnip never did get tender.

Next add the apples, thyme and lemon zest and cook for about 2-3 minutes, or until the apples are also tender but not mushy. Pull the pan from the heat and keep warm.

Trout

Pat the fillets dry and season with salt and pepper, put the skillet on high heat and ad oil. Allow for about 30 seconds for the oil to heat through.

Add the trout skin-side down and let it cook for 1-2 minutes for the scales to get crispy. Flip the trout and add the maple syrup and lemon juice. Try to add the syrup and juice to various parts of the pan to spread the flavour around. The recipe says to cook the fish for another minute but I will suggest that you cook it to your preference. Remove the trout from the pan.

Place part of the compote on the plate and add a piece of two of trout, then drizzle it all with the juice from the pan. Voila!

Wine

The recipe calls for Vidal to be the grape chosen to pair with this dish but any fruit-forward wine can be used; we used a Vinho Verde from Portugal.

Success!!

This was a delicious dish due to the contrast of the turnip to the apple and maple syrup, it was very easy to make and the ingredients are readily available, highly recommended!

Chris

Recipe of the Week

Recipe of the Week – Vegetable Phyllo Roll with Red Pepper Coulis

This week’s recipe was vegetarian and came from the book This Food That Wine. With the recipes the book also suggests the type of wine that would be a good match…very handy!

This recipe was chosen for it’s appearance and it’s uniqueness, I have never used Phyllo before so it was a chance to learn something new.

The Recipe

If you have no idea what Phyllo is, well it’s basically a thin pastry shell; it is known also as Filo and Fillo. You can learn more here; Phyllo.

Now this recipe was originally intended to be tried on Friday night but between my tardiness and my inability to actually find Phyllo in the supermarket we tried it saturday night instead. This was probably a good idea as it takes a bit of prep time and you cannot be rushed as the Phyllo is fairly delicate.

Ingredients used: Garlic, onions, red bell pepper, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, bread crumbs, basil, phyllo, shredded cheese, jar of roasted red peppers.

Cook time wasn’t very long with each step taking 5 minutes and the actual baking of the roll, 30 minutes. Preparation time, as always took the longest with the garlic, onions, carrots, zucchini, red pepper and mushrooms requiring chopping.

Beautiful Chef!

First, the onions were sautéed then the carrots were added and cooked….next the red peppers and zucchini were added and cooked. Finally the mushrooms were added and cooked. When all was cooked, the filling was set aside.

Onions!

Vegetable Filling

The bread crumbs and garlic were combined and butter was melted. The Phyllo was laid flat on the counter and was covered with a damp dish cloth….this kept the Phyllo from drying out.

Bread Crumb/Garlic

Next, 2 sheets of Phyllo was placed on parchment paper, which itself was on a cookie sheet and the Phyllo was brushed with butter. The garlic/bread crumb mixture was then placed on the Phyllo then covered with 2 more sheets of Phyllo; this was repeated until all of the garlic/bread crumb mixture was used, then 2 final sheets of Phyllo were placed on top and butter was brushed on it…..then the vegetable mixture was evenly spread out. Enough room was left at the edges to allow for folding of the Phyllo and then it was gently rolled and the ends folded over. Now unfortunately the addition of the basil was forgotten earlier in the process and was added to the roll after cooking, which did add some nice flavor but would have been amazing in the mixture.

Phyllo with Bread/Garlic

Phyllo with Vegetable Filling

Volia! Vegetable Rolled Phyllo!

Ready to Bake!

It was placed in the oven for 30 minutes and the roasted red pepper coulis was made. The name sounds fancy but all we did was purée the peppers and add some cheese and salt and pepper. It should be noted that the cheese wasn’t supposed to be added here but in the excitement of the cooking it was forgotten earlier.

When the Phyllo was ready we drizzled the puréed red peppers on the plate and cut off a piece of the Phyllo…it was delicious, very heavy on the garlic…which we discovered afterwards was due to the fact that I had used about 10X the amount of garlic that was called for…..live and learn 🙂

Finished Phyllo

This dish was a success and we were suggesting other spices that we could have included or other ways that we could use the Phyllo.

The dish called to be paired with a Cabernet Franc, which is a cousin of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. If you haven’t tried the Cab Franc grape give it a try, you will enjoy it! I purchased a Vineland estates winery, Niagara peninsula, Cabernet Franc from the Government liquor store in New Brunswick which had great fruit and a nice long finish, recommended!

Another successful night of cooking and drinking while a snow storm raged outside!

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope that you’re now hungry!

Chris