Sunday, June 28, 2009
Food, Recipes

All about trout

The fresh catch at WaterHaven

Photos/Allen Cooley

By Chris Lee

One of my favorite dishes on our menu is the fresh Georgia trout with applewood-smoked bacon, mushroom lasagna and sage brown butter. When Joe McCarthy first interviewed me for his new restaurant, WaterHaven, he told me about his philosophy to utilize local products on the menu. One of the first items that came to mind was Georgia trout.

Writing menus is always fun and challenging. While looking through some old menus, I ran across a couple of dishes that included some of my favorite ingredients: mushrooms, onions and bacon.

Making fresh pasta was what I considered to be one of my first and favorite culinary milestones. I love to make it and eat it. When planning what to pair with the trout, I decided to make an impromptu lasagna: layers of fresh pasta, rich hand-dipped ricotta, two kinds of mushrooms, sweet Vidalia onions, fresh thyme and shallots.

    The bacon part comes in from smoking whole fresh caught trout wrapped in hickory smoked bacon over hot coals. For this dish, I chose applewood-smoked bacon for its milder sweet smokiness which doesn’t hide the delicate flavor of the trout. I also slice it very thin so it sticks to the trout better during the sauté.

    The trout we use is brought to us by Enchanted Springs, a distributor of North Georgia mountain trout. It’s only one day out of the water when we receive it at the restaurant. It has a sweet and clean aroma and still has color on the skin. The farms the trout come from are sustainable, and we give the owner our used fry oil to make biodiesel to power his delivery truck.

    For the sauce, I chose a sage brown butter. It’s a classic in Italian cooking for pasta and goes great with the mushrooms, onions and ricotta in the lasagna. I garnish the dish with crispy sage leaves, which help to give it more textural dimension along with good flavor.

    This trout dish is great with pinot noir and is one of our best-selling entrees. SP
Chris Lee is the executive chef of WaterHaven. 75 Fifth St. 404-214-6740. www.waterhavenatl.com.

Georgia trout with applewood-smoked bacon, mushroom lasagna and sage brown butter

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 8-to-10 ounce Georgia trout filets, skin on and deboned
• 8 thin slices of applewood-smoked bacon cut in ½ on bias
• 16-ounce container ricotta cheese, preferably hand-dipped
• 8 large shitake mushrooms cut into eighths
• 1 large portobello cut into ¼-inch wedges
• 1 medium Vidalia onion diced
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme chopped
• 1 tablespoon shallot finely diced
• 20 sage leaves
• 4 ounces of unsalted butter
• 12 3- to 4-inch fresh pasta circles. If you want, you can use wonton skins cooked in salted boiling water until tender
• ¼-½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

For the lasagna

Saute the Vidalia onion, shallots and fresh thyme in olive oil until translucent. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. Remove from heat, and let cool. Fold cooled mixture into ricotta, and season with salt and freshly cracked pepper.

In a brownie pan or other oven-proof pan greased with olive oil, layer pasta circles and ricotta starting with the pasta. Brush top layer with olive oil, and cover pan with foil. Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Cook lasagna for 12 to 15 minutes until heated through.

For the trout

Pat filets down with a paper towel to remove excess moisture, and lay the bacon on the filets. They should stay in place easily. Set aside. Heat griddle or large sauté pan to medium high. Place filets bacon-side down and cook until bacon begins to brown. Turn and cook for 3 more minutes.

For the sauce

Heat small sauté pan on high heat until a drop of water steams away the minute it hits the pan. Add butter. As it begins to melt, it will start to brown on the edge of the melted butter. Let it continue to brown. Add eight sage leaves and ½ teaspoon of salt. Before butter is completely melted, add two ounces of chicken stock. The butter stock mixture will immediately boil. Swirl the pan, and the mix will emulsify. Swirl until butter is melted and sauce is emulsified. Set aside.

Before plating

To plate, place trout and lasagna on plate with a large spoon. Cover trout and lasagna with a thin layer of sauce, allowing some to overflow onto the plate. Garnish with sage leaves.
For the garnish, fry the remaining sage leaves in olive oil, removing them to a paper towel when they are crisp.