Smoked Trout, Pomme Allumettes & Salt Baked Beetroot

Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 6

Ingredients

6 smoked trout fillets

Horseradish yoghurt

100g freshly grated horseradish

250g Greek-style yoghurt

2 cloves garlic, grated

2 tsp salt

2 lemons, juiced

1 tsp lemon zest

Tabasco, optional

Salt baked beetroot

1kg plain flour

500g cooking salt

300ml water

6 large beetroot (about 200g), washed and dried

Egg wash

Thyme

Watercress, to serve

Pomme allumettes

3 potatoes such as Russet Burbank - which is a good frying potato

1.5L vegetable oil to fry

Sea salt

Method

Mix all ingredients together, taste, it may take a little more horseradish if you like it hotter, you can always add a little prepared horseradish available from the supermarket.

Peel the potatoes and square off the sides, you want to achieve a nice rectangular shape. Cut these by hand or on a Japanese mandolin to a thickness of ¾mm. Cut these strips into even matchstick shapes. Soak in iced water for 5 minutes and rinse, replace with fresh iced water and soak for 1 hour in the fridge, rinse again and dry well on kitchen paper. In a tall-sided pan, heat your vegetable oil to 170°, it’s important that the oil is not too hot, firstly it may explode and bubble over as you drop your potatoes in, secondly your potatoes will colour too quickly and not actually cook through resulting in dark, soggy fries. Take a flat tray and line it with kitchen paper, once the oil is at temperature fry your potatoes in small batches until lightly golden and remove onto the paper, spread out so they dry properly and season with the salt whilst still hot, repeat the process with all your potatoes remembering to keep them moving while cooking.

Combine flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, make a well in the centre. Add the water gradually and mix to form the dough, gather together and knead into a nice dough. Roll out to a thickness of 2cm, place on a tray and put the beetroots on top of the pastry. Cut the dough between the beets to form rough circles and wrap the beetroot up. Bake for 1 hour in a preheated oven at 180° or until tender. Remove from the oven and peel the dough away and remove the beetroots. Cut each one into 6 wedges.

To serve, place the trout fillets on the plate, add a few pieces of the salt-baked beetroot, some watercress and a nice spoon of the horseradish yoghurt. Put your potato on the side and enjoy.

Notes on Trout

Buy the highest quality smoked trout fillets that you can, we find that Goulburn River smoked trout from Ocean Made is a fantastic product. Trim the fish nicely, remove any small pin bones that you can, this will make the eating quality far more enjoyable and reserve in the fridge.