Recipe: Smoked Trout Rillettes

A smoked swordfish carpaccio had me at hello many years ago and thus began my addiction with all smoked foods.  At the restaurant, during our “review period”, I wanted to pull out all the stops and figured that some smoky goodness was needed on our menu.  We purchased a Bradley smoker that we set up under the commercial hood so that we could smoke inside.  This was not a fun or easy process as a Bradley smoker is just a little too big to be carried in a coordinated or ladylike manner and, even though it was used under a hood, anyone within ten feet of it smelled like a campfire for days.

I tried – and failed – to produce a smoked swordfish dish.  The result – think bad fish jerky.  That failure aside, we got our money’s worth out of Mr. Bradley.  We smoked everything from eye of round to pork jowl to salmon to tongue. Remember the tomato blight year?  Hundreds and hundres of pounds of flavorless tomatoes were transformed into a smoky tomato soup. We smoked butter for a poached lobster dish and served smoked turkey a couple of years for Thanksgiving (nail the time and temperature and your guests will think you are a genius but a little too much time in the smoker and your guests will think they are eating ham).

These smoked trout rillettes satisfy my need for smokey awesomeness while remaining super healthy.  My days of smoking my own fish, however, are over so I headed off to Whole Foods and bought Ducktrap’s smoked trout.  The fat that is traditionally found in a rillette is replaced with ricotta and fat free greek yogurt.  No one will be the wiser!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup low fat ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped jalepeno pepper
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups small pieces smoked trout fillets, skin and pin bones removed

Combine and serve with crackers or bread crisps and some crunchy vegetables.