Trout

kiwirob21, Jul 12, 9:45pm
what is the best way to cook it
lovelurking, Jul 12, 9:56pm
It tastes like crap, best to catch and release.
uli, Jul 12, 10:19pm
Hot smoke it :)
You will never buy salmon again.
pickles7, Jul 12, 11:21pm
like uli , smoke it. Salmon is easier to get though uli. you just buy it.
cgvl, Jul 13, 1:33am
We always salt the trout and pop it in fridge for at least 2hours. When come to use wash salt off or pat it off using wet paper towels and either pan fry or stuff with herbs and slices of lemon and bake.
gaspodetwd, Jul 13, 1:43am
Yum. BBQ.
uli, Jul 13, 4:34am
Unfortunately I know what they feed them (most salmon is caged and fed in NZ) - as I feed the same pellets to my fish. Not appetizing at all. Much better to buy wild caught fish like trevally.
sampa, Jul 13, 8:31am
Good to know. I'll stop eyeing up my sons Silver Sharks (tropical fish for anyone wondering) they're huge and I often make random comments about 'Should we ever run out of food' lol. Will stick to the salmon from my favourite supplier. ;-)

. Would love to get my hands on some trout, shame you can only do so by catching your own.
uli, Jul 13, 8:59am
When I said to some ladies last week that I am not so sure about the Omega 3's in farmed salmon (remember the pellet food) I was told to buy or go fish for the "wild one".

So on checking further (as I have never heard of "wild" salmon in NZ) another person told me that YES we do have "wild" salmon in Canterbury rivers going up to lay eggs . sounded very very far fetched to me but it was seconded by some other older ladies . "yes we used to bottle that salmon" etc etc .

Is this for real or is this another fish species altogether?

I remember that in Europe we had something called "Ocean Trout" which some people called salmon and some people called trout. Not sure which fish that was.

Can anyone shed some light on that and maybe even come up with a scientific name (you know that Latin thing)? Which would be extremely helpful to find out what we have here.

Otherwise it might be back to the old boring "back to MAF" thingybit :)
pickles7, Jul 13, 9:19am
You can buy wild King Salmon here, it is the dark pink Salmon, as against the insipid pink farmed fish.
sampa, Jul 13, 9:54am
This is what I buy these days uli and I won't be hurrying back to salmon from the supermarket (made that mistake a couple of months ago and regretted the waste of $22 gone in the bin, tasted awful) -

http://www.hawkesbayseafoods.co.nz/product/511055

I also really like their smoked salmon and their gravlax.
patxyz, Jul 13, 9:58am
Chinook / Quinnat salmon
beaker59, Jul 13, 10:35am
Yes we have wild sea run and fresh water Salmon here in NZ. We also have sea run trout which are delicious, I have caught those, but not a wild salmon YET.

Trout I have a bit of experience of however, for eating quality trout vary from all extremes depending on the river they come from and their age and condition, as they mature towards spawning they fatten up and become very silver and bright in colours at which stage they are best eating as the spawning season goes on they loose condition become skinny and dark and very poor eating to the point where even the cat won't eat their flesh.

Best trout I have caught was fat and silver from the Waioeka river flesh was pink and beautiful better than any farmed salmon, the worst was a post spawn male from lake Rotorua I smoked it and it was dreadful but my first trout so I tried and was very disappointed. Trout fishermen know just by looking at a fish how it will be so usually give away the average to reasonable ones and keep the really good ones themselves.

How to cook-
Good fish are best steamed or eaten Sushimi style :)
reasonable fish nice smoked or fried
Slabs, skinny or dark fish best let go to fatten up.

Edit to add size really doesn't matter, some rivers like the Waiau produce lots of small but fat beautiful eating fish while other rivers produce monster skinny dark fish which taste awful.
sampa, Jul 13, 10:50am
Thanks for the info beaker59, really interesting.
pickles7, Jul 13, 8:30pm
Yes. beaker59. size really doesn't matter, its the quality that counts
sampa, Jul 13, 11:39pm
ummm. pickles! lol
lythande1, Jul 14, 2:27am
Done that, tastes like BBQed mud.
Now cold smoking. that might be another thing, as I have never tried cold smoked trout I can't say.
pickles7, Jul 14, 4:18am
It could have something to do with where the trout are caught. I cannot eat gurnard caught at Waihi beach, that is too muddy for me.
uli, Jul 14, 4:22am
I have eaten lots of cold smoked trout in Europe - delicious:)

However no-one cold smokes in NZ (except some Dutch expats that I know of and some crazy Germans) - hence the hot-smoke idea.

Might also depend on the temperatures. If it tasted like BBQ then it was definitely too hot.

What our neighbours hot smoke is still deliciously juicy and very edible. Alas no trout up in the North here.
beaker59, Jul 14, 6:15am
Kai Iwi Lakes have trout very good trout too, Also trout in some rivers around Waipapa, Ngungaru and Kerikeri. I once saw a beautiful good conditioned rainbow trout of about 5 lb in the river near Waipapa.

Get your flyrod out Uli, I suggest a pheasant tail nymph :)

Edit to add I used to cold smoke but haven't for a while now.
gettinggrey, Mar 3, 8:57am
Trout fished for many decades now (yes, i am really getting grey!).
I found Brown trout to be more 'muddy' flavoured and so I always bottled or hot smoked them.
Rainbow trout are a different flavour.
I can eat them just tossed into a pan with a knob of butter.
I'm a Mainlander (Canterbury/Nelson), so NI fishers may have different taste to their local fish.