One of the places I always wanted to visit with the kids, but didn’t get to until last week, is the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Aquarium. It used to supply the state with trout for stocking in public ponds, but became a not-for-profit dedicated to educating the public on trout breeding, as well as many of NYS’ freshwater and natural life.

It has two small aquariums, several outdoor ponds, and the option to pay a fee and fish for trout in a small creek. I was especially interested because in the future, aquaponics is something that I’d want to incorporate into my homesteading so I wanted to see how they run. I also wanted to take the kids out for a fun adventure, and Long Island’s north shore has always been gorgeous (makes me forget I’m even on an island.) It only takes a few small ponds (much smaller than I thought) and the creek was very shallow–the main importance being on running cool water through. They can’t survive warmer waters so that is an issue that will need to be solved if I want it to be self sustaining.

First things first… trout is a lot harder to catch than I had been led to believe, but they are perhaps really well fed there so they were not terribly interested in our bait (nightcrawlers provided by the hatchery) and in an hour, we only manage to get 4. (Edited to add: My husband would like everyone to know that he was the one that caught three out of the four—he has not stopped bugging me about this.)

I cleaned them and for the first two I did a simple cornstarch dredge and fried them up. One thing about trout is that they have a coat of slime on which is difficult to remove—it continues to produce even when the fish is dead. Dredging in corn starch (after scrubbing as much as you can off) and deep frying until the skin is very crisp helps make it not slimy, but skinning it would probably be much easier. Trout, by the way, tastes very similar to salmon, and are in the same family of fish.

The other two I salted and sugared (in a 1:1 ratio of flaked sea salt to brown sugar) overnight and smoked in my wood burning stove for about an hour. The salt strips the slime but you’ll still have to scrub it a bit to remove before smoking and then pat it dry. This isn’t a recipe for smoking since I haphazardly smoked it with whatever wood I had on hand (although you can easily do it stovetop) but for the dip I made after. You can of course purchase ready made smoked trout fillet, but something about making my own has always intrigued me.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups flaked smoked trout meat
• 1/4 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon chives, dill, minced celery, shallots, or grated horseradish,
• 1/2 teaspoon salt preserved lemon puree (or lemon juice and lemon zest)
• 2 – 3 drops Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Serve on top of crackers, or with a veggie platter!