Smoked trout rillettes

Rillette is a dish of French origin. The preparation used to be quite popular in the old days, as it was a good way to make tough pork tender. The meat was braised in fat for such a long time that you could easily pull it apart, just like pulled pork. Today, rillettes are made from almost everything. In this recipe, we will prepare a rillette of trout smoked on the Big Green Egg. By smoking the trout on wood, the flavour intensity will only increase!

PREPARATION

1. Fillet the trout, remove the bones while leaving the skin intact. Mix the sea salt and sugar together, toss half of the mixture into a bowl and lay down the trout fillets. Sprinkle the remaining half of the salt mixture over them and allow to draw for 10 to 20 minutes. In the meantime, heat the Big Green Egg to a temperature of 100 °C and soak the Wooden Grilling Planks and the Hickory Wood Chips in water.
2. Rinse the trout fillets off, dab them dry with kitchen paper and place them skin-down on the Cedar Grilling Planks. Toss the soaked Wood Chips over the glowing charcoal, place the Stainless Steel Grid in the EGG and put the Grilling Planks on it. Close the lid and smoke for 10 minutes (if you’re using a smaller EGG model, you can cook the fillets in batches. Be sure to set aside a sufficient amount of soaked Wood Chips for the next batch). Remove the Grilling Planks from the grid and allow the fillets to cool. In the meantime, clean the spring onions and cut them into thin ringlets. Draw the lime zest and beat the cream until firm.
3. Remove the skin from the fillets and grind them coarsely using a food processor or fork. Mix the lemon juice and cream and flavour with salt & pepper. Bring the temperature of the EGG to 180 °C. Cut the bread into slices and grill them on the Big Green Egg. Spread some of the rillettes on the grilled bread, grind pepper to taste and garnish with the spring onion, lemon zest and beet leaves.