My opinion on Trout and Salmon as Food

[Minnowhunter]

I have never been a big fan of trout, I eat it, but it's like eating greens as a kid, I prefer to give em to my angling companions, or release em. I do realise rainbows taste better than browns , and that from certain waterways trout may taste absolutely terrible because their main diet may be frogs (eg: Jacksons Creek, Sunbury). But either way, I do love them smoked, but that's probably because they are sweetened with brown sugar to remove the feral gamey hairy billy goat taste of em.

Getting to the point, I do love smoked salmon, the Tasmanian farm fed Atlantic variety, absolutely delicious.

Lately friends have been raving on about buying it raw from the local fish mongers, and raving on about how nice it is cooked. Well, I have for years prevented from purchasing it uncooked, because my logic says that salmon look like trout, and are of a similar family (salmoniid)s and hence they must taste terrible, and I wouldn't want to waste my hard earned cash on em.

Anyhow I have finally bought some last Friday, yes 'bought', as I haven't been fishing for a long period, as in I am desperate for a feed.

Well, I fried it first with garlic and other seasoning in butter, and it absolutely taste what I expected, as in putrid, but I still ate it rather than waste it, the next meal I tried stir frying it with vegies in Nando's peri peri peanut curry sauce after slicing it into smaller pieces and I could still not disguise the obnoxious feral billy goat taste of it. Finally the last meal I smothered it thoroughly in spices, threw some bacon in the pan, and finally I couldn't taste it, just the salty bacon, but surely that is an extreme waste.

I have therefore decided never to eat uncooked trout or salmon again, but will always buy it smoked.

This is coming from an angler who loves oily fish like mullet, trevally, Australian Salmon, minnows and even the odd carp. I thought I would never say that carp out rate trout and salmon, but as long as carp are prepared properly they are great.

From my experience the only fish that tastes worse than salmon and trout is the local draught board/swell sharks!

Hey, on the subject of smoking, has anyone smoked carp fillets? If so, how do they rate?

Rob

[yakgear]

Can of worms right here... Carp better than trout...

I personally don't mind rainbows, baked with some garlic and chives wrapped in foil.

Awaiting interesting responses...

[maverick]

Awaiting interesting responses...

I will respond once his drugs wear off.

[viperdevil]

I have seen carp sold in market and thought i will try crispy skinned carp with s##t load of spices to cover the carp taste when we went out camping in Mulwala with the carp Brendan caught .....I was confident that the spices would make it taste ok but i could not get rid of the strong fishy oily muddy after taste in my mouth, i was spitting everywhere for the next couple of mins....thanks for reminding me......yuk

Carp is crap miss spelt

[Tipsta]

Well its easy to explain why you don't like the taste of Trout.
First of all let me explain why you like rainbow trout over brown trout.
Rainbow trout prefer to live in rivers and streams,
They spent most there time sitting behind rocks waiting for insects to get washed downstream.
Brown trout prefer to stay in slow moving water, they rather it be deep and they eat mainly off the bottom.
That's the two main reasons why both trout taste differently.

Now there's the other thing you buy, Its not a real fish, its simply shait in a trout's skin.
The first year of its life it lives in a concrete tank, the following year it lives in a mud pond.
Its diet consists of pellets made from god knows what to enhance its growth rate.
Your doing yourself an injustice not eating a river caught trout and if you think the smoked trout you buy taste good,
Try smoking a river trout and blow your socks off.
The smoked trout your buying is the trout farm crap fish.

Now before you rush out and but a $60 smoker to try yourself.
Those smokers are pretty good and worth the money
They are what's called a hot smoker so heat is also cooking the meat not just smoking it.

The best system is called cold smoking.
To describe it in simple terms you have a section/room where you keep the fish/meat your going to smoke.
You have another section where you actually burn the wood.
Between the two sections you have a pipe angled upwards so the smoke can travel from the fire section to the food section.
By the time the smoke has travelled the distance it has cooled down hence the term cold smoking.
Depending on the size of the cooking room, cold smoking can take up to 24hours.

Hope that answers your question

Cheers Tip

[Minnowhunter]

Classic responses fellas, I had a good chuckle

Tipsta thankyou for the smoking advice, it will be a useful future reference when I get my butt into gear to buy a smoker, and I do agree that fresher is always best.

Honestly, I have spent years catching trout in clear flowing rivers, dirty water, and tiny scrubby clear streams that you need a machete to get into, and dined on the freshly caught fish from these locations. Sometimes Rainbows and Browns can be caught from the same sections of water over gravel/rock beds (eg Goulburn, Yea River, King Parrot etc.) and I have sampled them both together to compare the different textures more than once.

I think it's more of a case that I have eaten too many trout and have turned my taste buds against them in search of something new.

I also used to eat redfin like they were going out of fashion, but haven't touched em for years, just needed a change. (Yep, now you must reckon I am totally nuts)

Maybe I better see a psychiatrist

Thanks for the responses fellas.

Rob

[Digger]

Sorry but 5 psychiatrists haven't helped me much...grin~

Regarding the trout, all I can say is that have eaten both brown and rainbow wild caught or from my dam. Loved them!

I prefer the brown to the rainbow slightly.

Never tried it from the shop and never will now.

I can remember catching a nice fat rainbow in the Delegate River one morning and cooking him on a plate over a fire for breakky. It doesn't get any better than that!

Dig

[Yakatack]

Trout straight from the river seasoned with a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper then rolled in buttered foil and thrown on the fire bbq grill, it dosnt get any better than that

[Haynsie]

I smoked a Brook trout the other week which I caught in the Goulburn at Trout closing. I also cooked a wild Brown in the smoker at the same time, but the Brooky left it for dead. The taste difference was amazeballs.

Cheers

Tim

[zulujack]

I agree trout is rubbish! It tastes too much like chicken!