Smoked Donnington Trout Trio

Ballottine, smoked trout fillet with lime and smoked trout tartare

Salmon and smoked trout roulade (ballottine)

Fresh salmon..... ....is rolled, as described for my canapé roulades.....

Then poached in water at 80⁰C, off the heat. As the roulades are so small the residual heat in the water cooks them in about 8 - 10 minutes. This way the salmon stays soft - if you kept the water on the heat they boil and become hard and overcooked.

When cooled the roulades can be unwrapped and rolled in smoked trout.
These ballotines are then left to rest in the fridge, so they stay together when you cut them. I garnish them on top (as shown above) with a little crème fraîche and caviar.

Fillets
For this I ask the trout farm at Donnington for whole (unsliced) sides of smoked trout. I then cut thick d-cut fillets and cut these into 2 or 3 depending on size (i.e. how far up from the tail you are). These are sprinkled with grated lime zest (which I also do for barbecued fresh trout) and milled black pepper.

As guests are tucking into their homemade bread rolls which we always serve as they sit down, I pop the trout fillets into the oven for just 2 - 3 minutes, so they are warm, the last thing to go on the plate before the waitress takes them away. If you warm the fillets through, the texture changes - it softens like the ballottine. You can leave them in to cook fully if you prefer, but they are best served like this at the last minute, just warmed through.

The fillets sit on thinly sliced cucumber, and the richness of the smoked trout is off-set with the crème fraîche, lemon and chive dressing