Hot Smoked Fish with Maple, Charred Cabbage & Quinoa

Our friend Chef Andrew Mavor in Stratford walks you through some easy ways to smoke trout and char at home using your barbecue, smoker or even your stove!

>> Watch a 25-minute cooking tutorial from the chef himself!

INGREDIENTS

Quinoa

• 2 cups quinoa
• 3.5 cups water

Vegetables

• 1/4 red cabbage
• 3 onions
• 2 cups mixed hardy greens, ideally brassica of some sort
• 1 jalapeno
• 1 cup sugar snap peas

Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup maple
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar or sherry vinegar
• 1/2 cup currants/berries
• Salt and pepper

Trout Cure

• 70/30 brown sugar to salt
• 3 tbsp each Maple + Honey reduced to finish

DIRECTIONS

1. Dress trout with cure, then let sit in fridge 2 hours tops. Remove from cure and rinse fish off, pat dry. Andrew says: “The first thing to know is that you do not need to let your fish sit long in the cure to make it tighten up and take on flavor. 2 hours is a lot of time. It’s simple and really effective.”

2. Cook quinoa, bringing to a boil then turning off – let sit, covered for 15 mins then tray up to cool down.

3. Char vegetables in a pan or on a grill. Remove elements that are too burned to use, don’t be too diligent though.

4. Chop veg and combine all veg with quinoa and vinaigrette. Set aside to chill.

5. Remove your trout from the cure, and smoke it.

STOVE — Place colander in pot, place wood chips in the bottom. Bring to high heat until smoke starts forming then add fish, reduce heat and wrap the expose edges with tinfoil. Cook 5-7 mins, then vent and repeat with new wood. You can buy bags of alder, apple, hickory, maple or cherry wood at most places that sell barbecues!

BARBECUE — Using a small foil baking dish, soak a few cups of wood chips in water for 30 minutes with just enough water to cover them. Drain half the water. Preheat barbecue to 300F (no hotter) and put the wood chips on one side. As soon as the wood chips start to smoke (~30 minutes), turn off the burners on the side of the barbecue without the chips. Put tinfoil down, and place your fish on top. Cook 30 – 45 minutes.

SMOKER — Preheat wood chips for 45 minutes. Add fish and smoke for about 3 hours at 175 – 200F.

As soon as the internal temp reaches 145F and flakes apart with a fork, it’s done!

6. Add the honey and maple reserved for the fish to a pan, bring to simmer and reduce for 5 mins. Let cool then drizzle on the fish.

7. Serve together!