Name: Trout & Pernod pie
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons baby capers, well rinsed; a handful of curly-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped; leaves from 2 sprigs of tarragon, finely chopped; 4 tablespoons double cream; 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard; 400 ml whole milk; 40 g plain flour; 3 tablespoons Pernod; ½ medium onion, finely chopped; 50 g butter; 2 slender celery sticks, trimmed and finely sliced; a good pinch of fine sea salt; 125 ml cold water; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; 185 g butter, chilled, cut roughly into 2cm dice; 1 free-range egg, beaten; ground white pepper; 1 teaspoon flaked sea salt; 225 g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting; 1 whole large trout (about 1 kg), or 2 whole small trout (about 500 g each), gutted and degilled; a little olive oil

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Good Table

By Valentine Warner

Published 2013

About

What with all the fishing I sneak off to do over the summer, I eat a fair amount of trout, but unlike many fishermen I have not tired of its taste.

I do not kill every fish, as I do not see the point of a freezer crammed full of trout that have to be eaten. Luxuriating in a creamy sauce, hinting aniseed, beneath a crispy golden roof, this is one of my favourite recipes for both rainbow and brown trout.