Lake Trout to smoke or not to smoke

[Dock Boy]

I have been fishing about 3 times a week on the Canadian Side for lake trout and have been doing really well. Should I have someone smoke them or is thier any other good ways to eat this fish. Thanks and I look forward to hearing some of the replys.

[LABS4ME]

Here's how we cook them when we are up in the tundra... AWESOME!!!

Fillet out the laker and lay on tin foil.

Rub a coating of butter on both sides..

Sprinkle Lawrys on both sides

Press a layer of brown sugar on the side facing up

Drizzle some honey over the whole fillet.

Seal up the foil real good and lay in some embers (or on a grill on medium). Cook for 15-20 minutes depending on thickness of the fillet... carefully open the foil and the fish should be very tender and ready to fall apart. Cut each fillet into 3 pieces and serve with some of the sauce over the top... some fried potato wedges and spicy baked beans and rolls and you got a darn good meal!!!

Good Luck!

Ken

[Steve Foss]

Great recipe, Ken.

Fish up to 3 pounds I just fillet like a walleye, roll in a combo of Shore Lunch and Fryin Magic and fry up in oil as I would a shore lunch walleye. They are amazing that way.

Larger fish I fillet and leave the skin on and broil or grill skin-side down on the aluminum foil. Best way we've ever done this was to lightly rub the fish in olive oil, lightly spice and then, when the fish is almost done, drizzle a sauce of fresh morels sauteed in unsalted butter over the top and finish for another couple of minutes. Of course, there aren't many places on earth where morels and lakers occur together. We did it by bringing some vacuum packed laker fillets to the cabin near Bemidji in spring and gathering fresh morels.

Heaven. We don't like a lot of spice because of how delicate the flavor is, which also explains the use of unsalted butter.

Another way if you like things a bit spicier is to still rub in oil, then salt and pepper, then dress with sliced tomotoes and onions before broiling.

[stick]

Smoking them is enjoyable so are so many other recipes as stated above. The key in my opinion is the treatment of the fillets. We used to make sure we filleted them quickly after death so the oils don't soak into the flesh. We were also careful to clean out the dark meat along the lateral line as that was the oily meat that can taste fishy. Outside of that, they are fantastic.

[kingkobbla]

my smoked lake trout shold be done tomorrow i'll post and let you know how it tastes

[art321]

I marinade mine in a bourbon, brown sugar, maple syrup mix. Then smoke using cherry wood or apple chips. Fantastic on a cracker.

[mskyfshntchr]

I filet them and remove the skin.

Cook on a charcoal grill. Put alum. foil in the middle of the grill on the rack. Poke a few small holes in the foil to let oils/drippings run out. Put charcoal on sides of grill so you are cooking with indirect heat. I then put wood chips on the charcoal and smoke the fish. Adding more wood chips as needed. Can take a good hour and a half-2 hours to cook. Apple wood is what I use most often.

Turns out good and you get the smoked flavor yourself.

We have also had a trout boil. Filet fish and cut up into smaller chunks. Boil the fish in 7UP or similar pop. Then dip into butter or put lemon juice on it. Turns out decent and is an easy way to cook it.

[kingkobbla]

I just brought them to the local meat store in Grand Rapids and had them do them for me and they tasted great