Baking & Cooking

I saw an offer for 4 fillets of trout for £5, and it was just too enticing to pass. I've never cooked trout before and was quite eager to have some. Plus, for our lab Christmas dinner last year, I had a whole trout roasted with a mixture of mushrooms (enoki, oyster, chanterelles??) that tasted extremely delicious!

I didn't hunt for those exact mushrooms but decided to use what I had in my cupboard. Shiitake seemed too light, but I did have woodears which seemed closest to providing a smoky dark flavour. I also thought of using the sun-dried tomatoes. So, with those two ingredients, a little balsamic vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and the water used to reconstitute the dried tomatoes and woodears, I quickly braised the trout and then reduced the liquid to turn it into a sauce. Not the same, but still quite tasty after only ~10 minutes cooking time (was too hungry to attempt anything extensive)! If I have a little more time to cook next time, I may try roasting them together as that may give the fish a slightly harder texture and a more developed flavour.

I think there are only so many people out there who can actually get excited by something so trivial as sun-dried tomatoes that are actually dried and not swimming in oil. I think it's mainly because I was able to find what I wanted rather than the item itself. In any case, one day for some unknown reason, I was struck with the desire of hunting for dry-preserved sun-dried tomatoes. I've never bought them before, and I was surprised when I managed to find some at the local supermarket. That night, I reconstituted some in water, and braised it with some onions and lamb. Yum! For lunch the next day, I steamed some vegetables and added some chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Yum again! Nothing more than tomatoes and some salt, they're really packed with flavour. Definitely a happy and satisfied person.