Tea smoked brown trout with samphire and poached egg recipe

Details

• Cuisine: English
• Recipe Type: Main
• Difficulty: Medium
• Preparation Time: 60 mins
• Cooking Time: 40 mins
• Serves: 4

Step-by-step

1. Fillet and pin bone trout. Rub flesh with sea salt and leave to cure for 15 minutes. Wash off salt.
2. Line an old roasting pan that you are not very fond of with tin foil. Sprinkle in tea and rice.
3. Place a cake rack into pan and put fish skin side down on top of rack. Put pan on stove and heat until smoking.
4. Cover entire pan with tin foil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.
5. Remove foil from top of pan and inspect fish. The fish should still be quite raw, but smell lightly smoky. Refrigerate fish until needed.
6. For the samphire: bring a large pan of water to the boil. Melt 100g of butter in a frying pan, add garlic and fry until crispy. Plunge samphire into boiling water for a few seconds. Remove, drain immediately and add to the butter. Toss in pan and serve.
7. For the brown butter sauce: melt 200g of butter in a saucepan. Add capers and cook until capers become crisp and butter begins to brown. Add lemon juice and keep warm.
8. To poach an egg: bring a small pan of water to the boil. Create a vortex in the centre of the pan by stirring rapidly with a large spoon. Crack eggs one at a time into the centre as it continues to spin. Simmer for 1-2 minutes depending on how runny you like your eggs.
9. To cook trout: place smoked trout fillets on a baking tray lined with non stick paper. Bake at 180 C for 6-8 minutes. Take care to serve the trout medium to medium rare.
10. To serve: arrange a pile of samphire in the middle of a large white plate. Top with fish fillet, poached egg and spoon over butter sauce. Serve with new potatoes.