A New Twist To A Familiar Dish

    I first started cooking in my early 20's just after being married and aside from occasionally making myself some lunch in my school years, this new meal preparation was not only for me but for my new bride as well. Now I wasn't the only one cooking, she did her fair share in the beginning but had absolutely no for love for it. As for me, I definitely liked to try new recipes & techniques even though I surely didn't know what I was doing and clearly had know idea at the time the passion it would grow into.

    One of the first dishes I made that we both enjoyed came from a recipe on the side of a pasta box. You could hardly call it cooking, boiling pasta and sautéing diced bacon. And I'm sure the word sauté was not even in my vocabulary at that time. Anyway this wonderfully tasty dish is Pasta Carbonara, smoky, salty(in a good way), creamy & rich. Other than the bacon and pasta, all you had to do was get butter, eggs & parmesan cheese to room temperature and toss it all together with the hot pasta, which cooks the eggs and thickens the sauce. just season with some freshly cracked black pepper & chopped parsley and you have yourself one fantastic, easy meal.

    As fate would have it I ended up getting a culinary education and working in restaurant kitchens & over the years tried to use this knowledge and try to make this dish better. I tried a reduction sauce, a cream and egg liaison and other methods that in the end only made it more complicated to prepare but in no way any better, usually worse. So now I am back full circle to the early years of good tasting simplicity and I am certainly fine with that.

    I was recently trying to use up some items in my freezer to make room for the upcoming and hopefully successful fishing & hunting seasons. One of the vaccu-sealed bags contained a nice Rainbow Trout that I caught last winter. Now trout isn't one of my favorite fish to eat but I do enjoy it smoked as well as the smoking process. Last season I used some to fill maki rolls and also to flavor a dish of Tomago Kake Gohan, a Japanese breakfast rice bowl that ironically uses hot rice to cook a raw egg. Looks like a theme here eh? So I thought why not use this brined & smoky fish as the bacon component of carbonara. 

                                                                            

    So I ended up using bacon as well because we all know bacon can't hurt anything right. I made the dish as I usually do, just added the trout. It was excellent, not fishy in any way. Trout can sometimes be described as stronger tasting but I think the smoke tends to soften up any fishiness. I certainly wouldn't hesitate doing this recipe again and although I only used half the trout I think I might like to try it in something else...Risotto maybe?

                                                                                

Smoked Rainbow Trout Carbonara

Serves 2

3-4 Eggs- lightly scrambled 

4 Tablespoons Butter

1/2 Cup grated Parmesan Cheese

1/2 Cup Chopped Italian Parsley

3-4 oz. smoked trout or other smoked fish of choice- flaked

2-3 strips Bacon(if not using trout, 4-6 strips)-diced

1/2 lb. Pasta(I generally use Fettuccini or Linguine)

Salt & freshly ground Black Pepper to taste

1/2 cup of reserved pasta water if needed for sauce consistency

Bring eggs, butter, cheese & fish to room temp. a couple of hours before preparing dish.

When ready:

Bring 3-4 quarts of water seasoned with enough salt to taste like the ocean to boil.

Cook bacon in sauté pan over medium heat till cooked but not too crisp. Remove from heat & add butter to pan to melt.

When water is boiling add pasta and cook till al dente. After setting some of the water aside, drain pasta and put it back into the pot & immediately add the rest of ingredients stirring well to incorporate. If sauce seems too thick, add some of the reserved water to a creamy consistency.

Enjoy with a nice crusty loaf of bread. 

Brine for fish

1/4 cup kosher or sea salt

1/3 cup brown sugar(white is fine)

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup white vermouth(optional)

Mix all ingredients in 1 quart of water until salt and sugar is dissolved.

Submerge your fish in brine making sure it is covered and weighing it down with a plate or bowl if necessary.

Time in brine is determined by size of fish and how much seasoning you want, as little as 30 minutes to over night usually is sufficient.

When finished brining and before you smoke/cook, make sure to give it a good rinse under cold water to remove brine.  

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