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
To Quiet The Mind 