CTG presents Food, Interrupted: The Second Coming of an Old Trout
15 Apr 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, cape town, characters, food, food interrupted, lifestyle, 6 Comments
Introducing CTG’s resident foodie, the infamous Frances Sauvage. Frances used to write a blog called Food Interrupted, and now she will be writing it as a column for CTG every Thursday. In her own words: “I do so love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.”
Without any further ado, I present to you Frances Sauvage’s fabulous recipe for Hot Trout Salad. Enjoy!
And so I’m back from outer space and I’m simply too thrilled to be here with you cherubs!
Hurrah for the gracious Cape Town Girl who plucked me from culinary obscurity. You see, after many moons of warbling about pots and pans, I felt I needed a sabbatical. There are only so many deflated soufflés and weary chocolate tortes one woman can handle. So I took time off from the pantry to try to find myself. And then luckily, one day, I went for a walk along the beach and there I was!
Darlings you have the misfortune pleasure of pondering my ramblings EVERY THURSDAY, for forever! And while there is much you need to know of me, as that old crone from that ghastly movie about the iceberg said, A Women’s Heart Is A Deep Ocean of Secrets so every Thursday when I have your undivided attention I shall extol one or two of my three pearls of wisdom.
But for now to the kitchen!
Darlings I bloody hate bloody Autumn, there’s zippo fabulous about it. Summer’s barely out the door in her Louboutins when Autumn comes thundering around the corner in a kaftan and trakkie-daks. It’s dreadful, is what it is, so we must cling, cling like Nag Apies to the remnants of the hot and happy season. There’s simply no better way to do this than to have a lunch. I LOVE a lunch.
Nothing says I’m barely alive quite like 3 bottles of Café Culture before 2:30 in the arvie, lounging about in the brown and decaying garden, gesticulating wildly whilst bemoaning your very existence celebrating life’s little pleasures. Like trout.
Darlings, not only is trout an excellent and fair name to call a woman who has not yet entertained the idea of plastic surgery but should have, it is also a source of great nutrition, taste and most importantly goes very bloody well with a G&T thank you very bloody much.
Darlings this weekend I urge you to throw together this Hot Trout Salad as a sort of sacrificial offering to the weather gods. It’s so easy you could go out and pay for lunch while allowing your cat to do it at home. Invite your friends darlings. They’ll love you for it, even if the last time you threw a lunch the chicken was like python and the wine the colour of morning pee. Go for it darlings!
Asparagus, celery and Buitenverwachting Buitenblanc
What you’ll need to ferret for:
1 fillet Rainbow trout, just bigger than the size of your outstretched hand and about an inch thick.
Carton of reduced fat cream (no one likes a fatty!)
Olive oil
2 onions
2 segments garlic
1 cup of white wine (for the pot darling, the pot, not you)
Seasoned flour
Pack of fresh asparagus spears
1 long celery stalk chopped into rounds
Black pepper
½ cup veg stock
Fresh rocket
1 or 2 satsumas or naartjies
Organic whole-wheat couscous (not the plain white one, the whole-wheat one. Because we care darlings, don’t we? We care about lunar farming and sustainable stilettos and overgrazed rivers and barefoot malnourished children in artsy black and white photos. We’re cool like that darlings, we care.)
What a perfect slab of salmon trout
WTF to do with it all
Turn a fairly deep pan (we’re thinking saucepan here, not a pancake number) on low-ish (if your heat dial goes up to 10 or so, then about 4 would be right)
While oil in pan heats, chop up onion and garlic. With a small sharp knife sommer rip shreds of trout off the thin silvery skin, whilst imagining it is the face of that bitch in PR.
When you have a pile of shredded fish, drizzle it in olive oil and then roll it in seasoned flour. All seasoned flour is, is a bunch of normal cake flour with loads of herbs and peppers and whatever-the-hell else you want in it.
Now chuck whole lot into pan and brown.
Meanwhile, sneakily, you will blanche the asparagus and celery in boiling water (with a bit of salt)
When soft (but not as soft as Snow Patrol) chuck ass (hahahah) and celery into the onion, garlic and fish pan.
Quick as Edith Venter to a photo opportunity, add a cup of veg stock and the cup of wine (I know it, was a sacrifice.)
Now stand over saucepan and grind enormous amounts of black pepper into it.
Allow to sort of, vibe for a while.
Boil a small pot of water (about 4 cups) with olive oil and salt. When boiling toss in the I’m Wearing Linen And Am A Responsible Earth Citizen couscous. Take off the heat and allow to expand.
Meanwhile chuck the cream into the sauce mix and stir well.
Once the couscous has sucked up most of the water you can drain the excess.
Set a heap of it on a plate; add rocket and a dollop of the trout sauce. You can then either squeeze a Satsuma over the sauce itself or peel the bloody thing and let people do the squeezing themselves the lazy bastards. Citrus is a must with fish darlings. Unexpected, but inseparable. Kind of like Woody Allen and that Asian daughter of his. Grind some pepper on the plate and…
Ta-da! Or rather as we say it here at Food Interrupted,
Pra-da!
Pra-da!
Till next week, I wish you satisfaction and slight inebriation.
Frances
