I decided to snack on a can of Cole's Smoked Trout with lemon and cracked pepper tonight. On a whim I thought it'd be nice to whisk the oil/juices from the tin with a little mayo to make a creamy sauce! I have worked salad station at a couple of different restaurants, so I already knew the mayo would act as an emulsification stabilizer in the sauce and it was just a question of taste.
It was so good! I wish I'd made a salad to go alongside, this would have been an amazing salad dressing! I drizzled it over bites of trout on crackers instead, but now I have plans lol
I didn't even use a real whisk, I just beat the hell out of it with a fork and added mayo bit by bit until the texture looked like pourable, creamy salad dressing.
I'll probably be doing this with all future cans, I really like the result! If anyone has other ideas for using the liquid from a tin, I'd love to hear em!
by SiegelOverBay
5 Comments
That looks delicious! Was the mayo necessary? I’ve seen videos in which people use those electric frother things to whip up just the oil and some seasoning, and it turns into a good-looking dressing. But I don’t know anything about cooking, so maybe I’m missing something! 😅 Anyway, I’d like to try this if all I need is some elbow grease and a fork!
I love finding new ways to use the tin oil! I most commonly use it to saute veggies or to dress salad.
You could actually make the oil *into* mayonnaise, if you wanted. Mayonnaise is essentially oil that has been emulsified with an acid (such as lemon juice) using egg yolks. So your lemon oil is like already 2/3 of the way there. (Note that I haven’t personally done this with tin oil, but I’ve made plenty of mayonnaise and see no reason it wouldn’t work).
Essentially, you’d want to pour the tin oil into a jar and add one egg, potentially adding some extra oil as the amount in the tin is probably not enough for a whole egg. Put an immersion blender down at the bottom of the jar below the level of the oil and start to blend. As it begins to thicken, slowly move the immersion blender up the jar to emulsify the rest of the oil.
There you go, a freshly emulsified tin aioli!
Ooooh, I want to try this with a mustard tin
Egg salad. But instead of mayo, mix virogously with the oil. I love eating wild rice mix drenched in the tin oil whenever I’m eating it with the fish + side veggies, it makes the rice/veggies taste so good.
I’ve done two things recently with the oil:
I made zucchini carpaccio with tonnino tuna (jarred in olive oil with garlic) and used the oil instead of plain olive oil for the dressing. Even after marinating more zucchini, I still have leftover dressing.
I went even bolder a couple nights ago. I opened some “Spanish style” milk fish to eat with leftover rice. Other than the fish, inside was bay leaf, black peppercorn, a slice of carrot, and a slice of gherkin in soya oil. I stirfried the rest of my leftover rice in the oil and juices plus a little garlic paste, and tbh it is SO GOOD. So much umami and I’ll probably try making sardine fried rice in the future because of it.