How to Cook Trout Over Fire - Whole Fish, Done Properly

Trout is the quickest genuinely good thing you can cook over a fire. Fifteen minutes from raw to plate, no marinade, no resting, almost nothing to buy. And yet more people are frightened of cooking a whole fish over flame than of cooking a whole lamb.

The fear is understandable, because the failure mode is horrible: the skin welds itself to the grill, you try to turn it, and half your dinner tears off and drops into the embers. It has happened to me. It happened enough times that I worked out how to stop it, and the fixes are simple.

Why Fish Sticks, and How to Stop It

Fish skin sticks for three reasons, and all three are fixable:

• The grill is not hot enough. A properly hot bar sears the skin instantly and it releases. A medium bar lets the proteins bond to the metal. Counterintuitively, hotter means less sticking
• The grill is not clean. Burn it off and scrape it before the fish goes anywhere near it
• The fish is wet. Pat it bone dry, inside and out, then oil the fish rather than the grill - oil on the bars just burns off before the fish arrives

Do those three things and the fish will release on its own. The test is simple: if it does not lift cleanly, it is not ready to turn. Leave it another thirty seconds and try again. Forcing it is what tears the skin.

The Real Answer: a Fish Cage

If you cook whole fish outdoors more than occasionally, buy a hinged fish basket. They cost about fifteen pounds, they clamp the fish between two wire frames with a long handle, and they turn the whole problem into a non-problem. You flip the cage rather than the fish, and nothing sticks, breaks or falls through.

It is the single best value bit of fire cooking kit I own, and I say that having spent a great deal of money on iron over the years.

Preparing the Trout

Ask the fishmonger to gut and scale it and leave the head on. The head keeps the fish structurally together and the cheeks are the best bite on it. A whole trout of 300-400g is one generous portion.

• Score the skin with three diagonal slashes on each side, cutting down to the bone. This helps it cook evenly and gives the heat somewhere to go
• Dry it thoroughly, inside the cavity as well
• Salt it inside and out about ten minutes before cooking, no earlier. Salt draws moisture to the surface, and you want that moisture to have evaporated, not to be sitting there when the fish hits the heat
• Stuff the cavity with lemon slices, dill or fennel fronds, a bruised garlic clove and a knob of butter. Do not overpack it - the cavity needs hot air moving through it
• Oil the skin lightly with a neutral oil just before it goes on

Cooking It: Direct Over Embers

Trout needs a medium-hot bed of embers, not a raging one. Hold your hand 12cm above the grill and you should be able to keep it there for about four seconds.

• Five to six minutes on the first side. Do not touch it, do not move it, do not check it. Let the skin set and crisp
• Turn once. Only once. If you are using a cage, flip the cage. If you are not, use a fish slice and take it slowly
• Four to five minutes on the second side and it is done

To check it, push the tip of a knife into the thickest part behind the head and twist gently. The flesh should be opaque and come away from the backbone cleanly. If it clings, give it another minute. Fish goes from perfect to dry very fast, so start checking early.

There is no resting with fish. Get it onto a plate and eat it.

The mistake with fish is always the same: fiddling. People poke it, lift a corner to look, try to turn it early, then wonder why it fell apart. Put it on, walk away, come back in five minutes. That is the whole technique.
- Cai

Method Two: Wrapped in Paper

If you have no cage and no confidence, this is close to foolproof and produces beautifully moist fish.

Lay the trout on a double sheet of baking parchment, load the cavity as above, add a splash of white wine or cider and a few slices of fennel underneath. Fold the parchment into a sealed parcel, then wrap that in foil.

Sit the parcel directly on a bed of medium embers, not in the flames, for around twelve to fifteen minutes. The fish steams in its own juices. You lose the crisp skin and the smoke, but you gain a fish that is essentially impossible to ruin, and the liquid in the bottom of the parcel is superb poured back over.

Method Three: On a Plank

Soak an untreated cedar or oak plank in water for at least an hour. Lay the trout on it, put the plank straight onto the grill over medium embers, and close a lid over it if you have one. Twelve to fifteen minutes.

The plank smoulders underneath and perfumes the fish with a mild, sweet smoke. It is a good way to cook several fish at once, it looks impressive coming off the fire, and nothing sticks to anything.

What to Serve With It

Almost nothing. Trout is delicate and everything I have seen served alongside it that was strongly flavoured has bullied it.

Brown butter with capers and lemon, poured over at the table. Or a spoonful of horseradish stirred through creme fraiche. New potatoes, a green salad, bread to mop the parcel juices. That is the whole meal and it is a very good one.

A Note on Sourcing

Most trout you buy in Britain is farmed rainbow trout, and British trout farming is generally low-impact and well-regulated - it is a genuinely sensible fish to eat regularly. Brown trout is usually wild and subject to close seasons and rod licences, so if you are fishing for your own, check the rules for your water and your region before you go.

Sea trout, when you can get it, is exceptional over fire and worth treating as a special occasion. And the same techniques here work for mackerel, sea bass, sardines and small bream, which is most of the whole fish you will find on a British fishmonger's slab.

Whole fish over fire is one of the oldest ways of cooking there is and one of the easiest, once you stop interfering with it. Get the grill hot and clean, get the fish dry, turn it once, and take it off a minute before you think you should.

- Cai