Today on Local Bites, Culinary Arts Professor, Eric Neaves, at Conestoga College’s Bloom Restaurant, creates a different take on prosciutto and melon salad with fillet of trout . Follow along and have fun as we learn how to make this flavourful dish from start to finish. Filmed in the Bloom restaurant kitchen at Conestoga College Waterloo Campus.
About the Show
Dive into the world of culinary arts with CCDTV’s Culinary Show! This program features the culinary talents of Conestoga College students and professional chefs. Indulge in the delectable creations from Conestoga’s renowned Bloom restaurant and culinary arts programs. Whether you’re an aspiring chef or a food enthusiast, our show promises to be a feast for your eyes and satisfy your appetite for extraordinary cuisine and culinary artistry.
About CCDTV
Watch this show and more on Conestoga College Digital TV! Discover a diverse range of shows from all walks of life throughout the week. We offer a variety of programs designed to inform, educate, entertain, and engage our audience. Watch the 24/7 live stream on Roku devices or on https://ccdtv.ca/
CCDTV is live streamed out of Conestoga College, located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The commitment of our staff and students makes this project and our programming possible. Here are some of the awesome people behind this episode.
Host
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Eric Neaves
CCDTV
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Pejman Salehi
Bruno Cortez Sibella
Matthew Viveen
D’Arci Phillips
Bruce De La Cruz
Workstudy Students
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Farhan Shaikh
Camila Schiavo
Diana Asprilla
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Well happy Tuesday uh good morning uh instead of tacos today we’re going to do trout on Tuesday I want to welcome you into the um Bloom kitchen at koga’s waterl campus uh where we’ve been uh happily chugging away in our our new building for about 5 years now and
Really loving every minute of it uh today we’re going to do sort of a take on the Pudo melon salad garnished with a beautiful fillet of Ontario trout it’s really classic Italian Dish uh that we’ve sort of canadianized uh and made our own so a few things we need over
Here of course some nice portions of um rainbow trout and and we filleted these we’ve taken the scales off and we just given them a little score and that’s going to help ensure that that uh skin doesn’t bubble and that we can get it hopefully as crispy as possible
Uh cuz certainly texture is one of those key elements we want to think about anytime uh we’re creating a dish okay in addition we’ve got a a beautiful mint and arugula puree just spiked with a little bit of lemon juice and olive oil uh to kind of bring it to
Life okay we’ve got some uh melon that has been soaked in a mint simple syrup so both some cantaloupe and some honeydew some wonderful uh arugula p tenders thin sliced shallots roasted grapes and this is all going to create a really lovely appetizer nice way to
Light fresh dish to kind of wake up the pallet with that trout there as that really satiating element to start to fill the belly a little okay I’m going to welcome King shook over here as well it’s one of our first year culinary students one of our rising stars and
Together we’re going to each cook a portion of this dish so over here in our cast iron pan we’re going to start by just putting it on our French top stove um this is a more powerful version of any stove top uh one of the primary advantages of this
Versus a more traditional gas stove top or electric stove top at home is it capacity to hold heat we’ve got a few very very powerful burners under this uh inch thick slab of cast iron and so this is going to help us heat our pans quickly and keep them hot so we can
Maintain that nice uh temperature all the way through the fish’s lifespan okay while that’s happening we’re going to make sure that our fish is nice and dry okay anytime you’re looking to crisp the skin you want to make sure there’s no scales and you want to make sure
You’re starting with very very dry skin CU of course to get something crispy you need to remove as much moisture as possible okay so doing a little bit of that work here is just going to make our life easier once it gets into the pan okay we’ll season these both with
Salt on the top and then a little salt and pepper on the bottom okay now as we go over here to the pan there’s a lot of different tricks people have for assessing dness you hear people say oh drop of water should should spit back at you um I
Always look and this is perfect timing we’re just starting to see it little wisps of smoke when we’re searing tra skin and trying to get that crispy crispy skin if we want to imagine that the floor is no heat at all and that this point right here is smoking hot we
Want to cook just under that smoking hot point sometimes that means pulling our pan off the heat for a minute or adjusting the heat below it if we’ve gotten a little too hot but really trying to walk that fine L line between very hot and too hot okay A little bit
Of canola oil to start here okay now King shook as you add your trout into the pan you’re going to do just like I am you’re going to swirl this around okay to coat the whole bottom of the pan okay and at this point we’re going to tilt It Forward we’re going to
Put our trout in and let it fall away from us okay and that ensures that any splashing of hot oil that might happen happens the direction we want it to go which is not our not towards us and our skin now early in the fish’s lifespan
It’s helpful to have this tool um this is a fish spatula it’s called that uh because it’s so great for this exact context it’s very very thin uh and it’s very very flexible um so it helps us kind of get under that skin it’s a little early to be checking on it just
Yet but what we can do is just very gently press down on that filet to ensure that we have full contact between the skin and the pan sometimes fish curls up a little bit has a tendency to buckle a little bit so we just want to be mindful
Of that and try to prevent that from happening okay and as we can see these pans are pretty hot so we’re going to pull them right to the front here so that we can slowly crisp that skin without going over as that happens King Shook and I
Are both going to start to build our plates out okay so we’ll start with a nice dollop of a rugula puree right in the middle mint and arugula puree there you are and I’m just going to spread that very gently okay whenever I’m plating a sauce in
This way I’m always going to keep the edge of the spoon behind the edge of the puree so I can spread it out and have it look almost like a pizza crust that nice rounded Edge which looks a little nicer and a little bit more intentional than
If we’ve gone over it and create that sort of feathered Edge uh that looks not quite as polished and professional he just very quickly checking back in with our fish continuing to just very lightly push down and shouts a very thin filet we already see King tru’s Fish is what you
Say about 50% of the way cooked through right we can see that uh flesh turning a little bit more opaque uh and sort of a lighter sort of peachy color um mine was just a little bit thicker so it’s taking a little bit more time okay when we’re
Cooking this fish in particular I like to cook it if we think about steak temperatures sort of like a medium well right trout doesn’t like being raw Sashimi Trout’s not really my thing uh but we want to be very careful it being a fatty fish not to overcook it cuz
That’s going to dry it out so we want to maintain a little bit of a Rosy color to it okay we’ll just turn back around here towards the salad and take our next steps okay with a little paper towel here we’re going to take a few pieces of
Melon out and just blot them dry here I’ll give you two of mine if you give me two of yours wonderful okay and we’re just going to build sort of Four Corners to our Circle just alternating and then we’re going to start to fill in the gaps with a few these roasted
Grapes okay we’ve just blistered these in a hot pan with a little bit of oil it’s really the sweet and savory contrast in this dish that makes it really special turning back to our fish we can see King Shooks is maybe 70% of the way cooked through here right
Just a little bit remaining uncooked okay so at this point uh he’s going to go under okay and try to liberate and turn it over and we’re just going to K kiss that other side in the pan very very briefly so let’s see if you can do that for
Me there you go perfect we see especially on this side we got a really nice beautiful Golden Crust okay over here check in on mine as well and and likewise got that nice Golden Crust okay out of the pan and off the heat the rest of this is now going to
Come together really really quickly okay a few leaves of arugula okay and these I don’t mind if they start to sort of peek out from around that puree we do want to be a little bit sneaky and hide a few things from the guests so that they have to
Kind of dig in to get the full experience but a little something around the outside just a little tease can be a nice visual effect if you few really thinly sliced shallots bring some balance into everything okay we’ve got crispy Pudo here this being sliced really thinly and baked between two sheet
Trays this gives a really salty Umami rich flavor and texture and we’ll cover that all over with the trout and last but not least a few PE tenders this is that initial chute that comes out of the ground as peas spring in the new growing
Season on top going to give just a light beautiful freshness little bit of crunch okay and as simple that two wonderful portions of our Pudo and melon salad with Crispy local trout I hope you Enjoy a