Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Poached Brook Trout and Fiddleheads - Caribou, Maine


We headed North for our yearly Memorial Day trip to Caribou, Maine to visit with family, help around the house, and do some Aroostook River trout fishing.

After a cool and rainy Saturday of fishing, the weather cleared and was absolutely beautiful on Sunday. We spent the morning and again later in the evening on the riverside; walking around in our waders in the water, hunting fiddleheads for photos, seeing otters jump in the water beside us, and fishing for trout around the currents and inlets feeding the vast, swollen river.







All fish were safely released, save for this 16-inch, 1.75-pound, absolute beauty of a Brook Trout - which we kept for dinner.



We cleaned the trout by removing the head, making a slit up it's belly and removing the guts, scoring and scraping out the blood vessel on the underside of the spine, and rinsing inside and out really well.



After drying with a paper towel, we rubbed a thin layer of olive oil inside and out, followed by a Lemon Pepper seasoning mix. A few lemon slices and chopped chives in the cavity, and we folded it all up in an aluminum foil pouch, leaving one end open. Into that open end we poured about a 1/3-cup of white wine, then we sealed it up tightly.



That beautiful trout poached on a medium-high grill for what should have been 10-12 minutes (we went too long by accident, 10-12 minutes is the right time). Then, remove carefully and slide that fresh trout meat right off the little bones. So fresh and delicious - on the table just an hour after it was caught.



With our wonderful local Brook Trout, we had locally harvested, riverbed-grown Fiddleheads - par-boiled for 10 minutes and then sauteed with butter until soft and delicious. A very local meal, thanks to the Aroostook.



We had a great trip and can't wait to head up again in September for some end-of-the-season trout fishing.

No comments: