Saturday 17 May 2008

Trout with Bainas a la Vasca and Parsley Sauce














Hello

Welcome to back to "Cooking With Mother" what an amazing couple of weeks I have had.
The move from London to the Village has been a life changing experience the cottage the village the shop the pub the butchers and more importantly the people have given both Chloe and me the most amazing welcome.

Above is a snap of the cottage which has the most fabulous kitchen to cook with mum in I could ever have wished for.

The Rainbow Trout in this Pod Cook was caught by my own fair hand whilst learning to fly fish with my uncles - to be honest I only landed the fish uncle Gene caught it.
My other uncle Clive has some snaps on his mobile phone which I will post once aunty Hilary has figured out how to mail them over. Uncles Gene and Clive also describe gutting and filleting the fish for us in a bonus Pod Cast at the end of this post.

What is special about this Pod Cook is Gene and Clive have been fly fishing near my village for 30 years or more and have historically always delivered Salmon and Trout to Mum throughout my childhood and now I am going to prepare this fish dish with one I got myself - kinda!
The cooking time for this dish is roughly 1 and a 1/4 hrs.

My advice would be to listen to the podcook at the bottom of this post - load it onto your iPod and just cook, Mum is amazing and you get a tune to get you into it - I really hope you enjoy this instalment of "Cooking With Mother" because I have.

Big Love from Hants.

M
AD















Ingredients for Trout with Bainas a la Vasca and Parsley Sauce:

Fish - We used Rainbow Trout you can use any other fish you like
Salt and Pepper

A bag of the largest new potatoes you can find as they will need peeling
1 head of Garlic
A bunch of Parsley
2 Lemons
Olive Oil
Butter
Whole milk you may use semi skimmed if you prefer
Plain flour

Utensils:

1 Baking tray

Silver foil
1 pan
1 Frying pan
Tongs or serving spoon and fork


Utensils for Parsley Sauce:

A big bunch of Parsley
1 small milk pan
A whisk

How to Cook:














Get your fish and squeeze half a lemon nicely as Mum says over the fillets.



















Place them on a baking tray covered with silver foil season with salt and pepper.













Chop 2 cloves of garlic into thin slices.














Place the garlic evenly over the fish.














Take 6 or 7 good sprigs of parsley.














Wash and chop it up finely.















Then cover the fillets evenly with the parsley.














Now drizzle generously with olive oil.














Cover with more silver foil, put the fish to one side and pre-heat your oven to 175 degrees C or 350 degrees F in old money.














Peel your large new potatoes.














12 spuds
serves 4 comfortably I was cooking for 3 so 10 of these Majorcan New Potatoes were more than enough.














Take your 3 bags of green beans.





















Wash them thoroughly and chop the tips off.














Then place the potatoes in the pan with all your beans on top.















Pour 3/4 of a pint over the potatoes and the green beans.















Break up a whole chicken stock cube over the beans and potatoes put a lid on and boil.















Now put your fillets of fish into your pre-heated oven and let it cook while the veg boils - it's now time to make the Parsley Sauce.
Parsley Sauce:














Get a small pan - I used a milk pan.














Now Mum said cut a man width of a finger from a block of butter.














Slice the butter.















Place the butter in your pan and drizzle a little olive oil on the butter to stop it burning.





















Gather together your flour and milk, and put your butter and oil on a lowish heat to melt.















Wash and finely chop another 7 or 8 good sprigs of Parsley.















When the butter and oil look melted this is the time to introduce your flour.














Sprinkle 2 level table spoons of flour into the oil.














Season according to taste.














It is important that you never stop mixing with your whisk throughout the sauce preparation - make sure there are no lumps.














Add milk whilst still stirring try to reach the consistency of a nice medium thick sauce, keep mixing adding more milk if required until it boils - do not over boil and keep mixing on a low heat. I cannot tell you how much Mum went on about the mixing in the Pod Cook.














I ended up using 1/2 a pint.




















Introduce the freshly washed and chopped parsley to the sauce whilst continually mixing adding milk more milk if it looks like it is thickening too much.














After 3 minutes on the boil remove the pan from the heat.














At this point take your fish out of the oven.















Remove the top layer of silver foil and put it back in the oven so it can go golden being careful not to over cook it.














Bring both your beans and potatoes to the boil - once boiling put
some olive oil in a frying pan and be generous.




















Chop 4 to 5 cloves of garlic in into medium slices.














Fry until golden - NB. Do not burn your garlic as it will make it taste bitter, once golden add the oil with garlic to the beans and
potatoes and return to your fish which should be a pale pinky colour when ready.

Plating up:















With tongs or your serving spoon and fork place the beans in the centre of the plate leaving the water behind.














Place the fillet of fish on top of the beans put the potatoes around the side of the plate then slice the remaining half a lemon for decoration on the other side.






















Pour your sauce over your fish and pour some more in the other corner of your plate.














All that is left is for you to enjoy your meal.

I want to thank Mama for a great Pod Cook which appears below, Uncles Gene and Clive for the fish and the gutting and filleting lesson, young Sam Barr my photographer and first mate for all of his help and photography, I want to thank Doug Woodrow for his technical advice and last but not least my lovely Chloe for her support and who loves the fact that I have discovered my kitchen.

Pod Cook:















Rainbow Trout Pod Cook

Preceded by a live kitchen counter version of "Before I Die" the song title has nothing to do with the food.