Whisky recipe -- Baked Trout with Whisky Stuffing

While out food shopping the other day, my wife came across some beautiful looking trout and decided to pick two up for dinner. Having never actually cooked whole trout before, I dipped into my cookery book library to see what recipes I could find. After much perusal, and minimal discussion, we quickly agreed on this delicious recipe from Cooking with Scotch Whisky by Rosalie Gow (Gordon Wright Publishing, Edinburgh, Scotland: 1990). I had to nip out to pick up a couple of items and I made some minor substitutions. Here is my version of the recipe.

Baked Trout with Whisky Stuffing
(Allow one 8oz trout per person; recipe makes enough stuffing for 2 fish)
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons of finely chopped celerey
2 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley
2 tablespoons of finely chopped thyme
The zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 cup Panko bread crumbs (the recipe called for fresh brown breadcrumbs)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
2 healthy tabelspoons of Scotch Whisky (I used 10 year old Springbank single malt)
Pam (olive oil or melted butter would work too)

Preheat the oven to 400F. If the trout is not already gutted and cleaned, glut and clean them. Rinse the trout in cold water and then pat dry with paper towel. I left the heads and tails on, but you can remove them if you like. Place each individual fish in a roughly square foot piece of aluminum foil which has been sprayed with pam or brushed with oil or melted butter (on the matt side).

In a small frying pan, melt the butter and gently fry the onion and celery, just until softened (about 3 minutes). Then shut off the heat and add the remaining ingredients and mix very well, add the salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Stuff each fish cavity, be generous and use all the stuffing up. Parcel up the fish in and foil and place these on a rack in a baking trroasting pan. Bake at 400F for 20 minutes; then unwrap the fish and bake for an additional 5 minutes. When done, it should look something like this:

Then plate and bring to the table :-)