Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Trout along with all the Trout containing recipes presented on this site, with 25 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Trout recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Trout as a major wild food ingredient.



The term 'trout' refers to several species of freshwater and anadromous (live in both freshwater and seawater) fish belonging to the genera Oncorhynchus, Salmo and Salvelinus, all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. They are closely related to salmon and char and the two most commonly eaten are the brown trout and rainbow trout (along with their sea-going versions, the Sea Trout and Steelhead).

In terms of their flesh, trout are classes as an oily fish and thought the fish can be somewhat bony it is generally considered as a good eating fish. Flesh flavour and quality depends on what the trout has been eating and the sea-going forms are typically more flavoursome than the river forms. Brown trout, which is slower growing, is typically thought to taste better than rainbow trout. Both rainbow trout and brown trout are extensively farmed as food.


Brown Trout and Sea Trout

Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) is a form of freshwater and anadromous trout native to Europe. It includes both purely freshwater populations, referred to as Salmo trutta morpha fario and S trutta morpha lacustris, and anadromous forms known as the sea trout, S trutta morpha trutta. The latter migrates to the oceans for much of its life and returns to freshwater only to spawn.

The brown trout is a medium-sized fish that can live for up to 20 years and grow up to 20kg or more in weight under ideal conditions. However, in smaller rivers they typically do not grow much over 1kg. Their spawning behaviour is similar to the Atlantic salmon (to which they are closely related) and a single pregnant female can produce about 2000 eggs per kg of body weight. They are aggressive hunters and their diets can include invertebrates from the streambed, other fish, frogs, mice, birds, and insects flying near the water's surface.Freshwater brown trout range in colour from largely silver with relatively few spots and a white belly, to the more well-known brassy brown cast fading to creamy white on the fish's belly, with medium-sized spots surrounded by lighter halos.

Some sea trout leave their native rivers and go to live in the sea. These are known as sea trout and grow larger than their freshwater counterparts and develop a pink tinge to their flesh. Sea trout has a better flavour than brown trout. However, brown trout grow slower than rainbow trout (see below) but have more flavoursome flesh.

They are farmed extensively for food and for river stocking for sport fishing. They have been widely introduced into North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries


Rainbow and Steelheads

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is a species of freshwater and anadromous salmonid fish native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The form that lives freshwater rivers to live in the sea is known as the steelhead (it is described more formally as a sea-run rainbow trout and is sometimes called a salmon trout) and typically returns to freshwater to spawn.

Rainbow trout can grow to 120cm long and 24kg though the farmed fish are typically harvested at 15m long and 1kg in weight. Overall the fish resembles a salmon in body shape. The ground colour of the scales are green and they have a distinct pink lateral line. The fish has a broad reddish band, often associated with other colours on the sides and gill covers (this is why they are called rainbow trout). They also have distinctive dark spots on the caudal and dorsal fins and the sales are typically mottled with dark spots. When ready to mate the males become redder in colour.

Rainbow trout is one of the fastest-growing of the salmonids. They have been introduced world-wide as a sport fish and are farmed on a huge scale in many countries. The rainbow trout is therefor the most commonly encountered trout in fishmongers. Like their brown counterparts the sea-going versions (steelheads) often have pink flesh. Steelheads are farmed in sea cages in Chile and Norway.